Week 6

Thoughts on the Haight article _ Internationalizing Education, Ch. 6

Haight’s article on adopting a non-western curricular framework as a way of internationalizing education was interesting to me. There were a number of ideas that I liked and there were also a number of questions and concerns that I had. One issue that stood out to me was how he mapped the levels of the curricular framework he is proposing over the current American college curriculum. According to Haight there are three levels to the curricular framework he is proposing: Tamas, Rajas, and Sattva. Level 1, overcoming ‘Tamas’ through “inspiration and skill development” would map to 100 and 200 level courses. Level 2, Rajas, which involves stimulating and active learning applied in an instrumental way, would map to 300 level courses. And, level 3, Sattva, which focuses on reflection and understanding the larger connections and consequences, would map to the 500 level (not even 400 level?) courses. I was concerned by this because it reminds me of an issue we are currently struggling with in language education – the ‘bifurcation’ of language and literature, and I can see similar problems arising from Haight’s proposal.

 In university language programs, it is often the case that 100-200 level courses focus on language and 300-400 level courses focus on literature and culture. Unfortunately, many students only take up to the 200 level, and this may (or may not) help them achieve a level of language proficiency that they can use for personal or professional purposes. However, in many colleges the stated aim of language education is not just to develop proficiency; it is also to help students develop an understanding and appreciation of other cultures and languages and a sense of global citizenship and connection. Moreover, it aims to give students an understanding of what it’s like to think and express themselves in another language as many of the people they encounter in daily interactions are doing when they talk with them. Unfortunately, in many cases the 100-200 level language classes focus only on developing basic language skills and leave very little room for reflection or consideration of the deeper questions and concepts. This would not be a problem if all students continued on to the upper level classes where they have an opportunity to discuss deeper issues related to language, literature, culture, and communication. But, most students exit after 200 level wondering what purpose that language requirement was really meant to serve.

So I wonder to what extent the 3-level curriculum framework that Haight proposes could really be applied to an American undergraduate program without there being much larger reforms than he describes. I worry that students fulfilling general education requirements would never get an opportunity to study many subjects at the ‘rajas’ and ‘sattva’ levels. As is currently the case with many language education programs, students would fulfill the requirements and get the basic foundation of knowledge and skills, but never have an opportunity to engage with the subject matter in a creative, critical, or reflective way.

To me there are two alternatives. The first would require a major overhaul of the college general education program. Rather than taking a large number of introductory courses from various subject areas, students would need to take courses from a few streams in which they would have to take courses that advance all the way through the upper level. In this way they would have the opportunity to reach the 2^nd and 3^rd levels in those streams and have active, creative, reflective, and philosophical learning experiences.

The other option would be to tweak Haight’s proposal so that the 2^nd and 3^rd levels are incorporated into every course or at least every year. Thus, students fulfilling general education requirements in some subject areas would still have the opportunity to apply what they are learning in active, creative, philosophical, and reflective ways. This actually makes more sense to me because it recognizes that students already enter university with knowledge from school and with life experiences that already give them a foundation for learning and that throughout the learning process we are reflecting on and synthesizing what we already know while incorporating new knowledge and skills.

Does anyone else have any thoughts on this?