The Third Eye:
An Exhibit of Literacy Narratives from Nepal
Ambivalence towards School Learning
Hem Raj Kafle, an assistant professor of English, rhetoric, and new media at Kathmandu University, presents a video that is edited and also shared on YouTube. As an avid blogger who integrates multimodal works into his work, Hem has presented in this video a reflective essay by focusing exclusively on his specific literacy learning moments--in the sense of how he learned to read and write--during his childhood. (full video in the DALN)
When first playing the video, we see a title screen that reads “Literacy Narrative, Hem Raj Kafle, Nepal,” allowing the author to let the text introduce him. Apparently, the background is his office at the Department of Languages and Mass Communication at his university. He wears a T-shirt that bears the logo of KU. This gives an impression of informality to the presentation, as well as reinforcing the appearance of a younger scholar. He speaks in a voice that sounds almost conversational and quite relaxed. This video reminds us that when compared to print text, multimodal texts contribute to the ethos and physical presence of the author. Hem begins with a smile, and an apparently thoughtful mood, as if he is trying to remember his literacy experiences and to put together the details as he goes.
Going to school was not a very pleasant experience for Hem, as seems to be the case with other scholars of the younger generation. From an analytical perspective, it is necessary to remember that a narrator will describe him or herself in ways that will help “reinforce (or ignore) certain characteristics” of his or her experiences and personality thereby foregrounding “one particular description, despite many other possibilities” (Wortham, 2000, p. 167). This means that whereas scholars like Awasthi and Gautam chose to include details of their experience that go towards constructing stories of personal success and social progress, other narrators like Hem have chosen to include unpleasant experiences in their stories arguably because they want to discuss literacy from more critical perspectives, especially drawing our attention to both the benefits and pitfalls of formal education.
Thus, as a result of the difference in perspective and intellectual interests, perhaps more importantly than due to differences in actual life experiences, the narrative framework that Hem builds and the narrative details that he fills it with reflect a critical attitude towards school-based learning. He remembers his first exposure to school thus: "Hmm, the school was not a very pleasant place for me…. We sat on dust, and sleepily, incessantly chanted the alphabets. I don't think I learned anything more than the alphabets that father had already taught me, but the chanting . . . was the most important thing [I] remember from my first [grade]."
It is possible that Hem’s experiences at school could have been rather unpleasant because he had a more pleasant alternative learning environment at home. Similarly, he was exposed to different modes of learning—that is, because school was not the only place where “learning” took place—Hem complicates the definition of literacy by arguing that his “actual literacy began with [his] ability to speak and to make sense of what people said.”
It must be noted that if we look at this narrative in its spoken and videotaped form, we see that Hem seems to speak from memory, focusing on one event at a time and stringing them together into a larger narrative as he tells them. This is an important distinction to be made with stories published in written form. We can see this distinction when we compare the video version with the text version that Hem has also published on his blog. Looking at the experience of school from a child's perspective, Hem comments on how confusing the mode of learning at school was: after some time of going to school, when his teacher did not call out his name along with other children’s, his sister went home to tell their parents about it, causing shock and dismay to their parents, but Hem himself did not understand what “failing an exam” was supposed to mean. He presumably thought that school was just for learning new things! The whole segment on his elementary school experiences is presented with an almost tongue in cheek commentary on “schooling” as an unpleasant and odd culture that he, as a child, took much time to assimilate into. This commentary, however, has larger implications about formal schooling as a culture that was unintegrated with the rest of the society's way of life. Later on in the story, Hem states that English was a new medium of teaching and learning which did not matter until he grew up; he was a talented student but was not proficient in English, and that worked for him. English did not come at the stage of “becoming literate.”
Hem's story is, therefore, based on a complex view of literacy as an ability and practice that can happen both in and out of school; similarly, even though he is also a scholar of English studies, he does not necessarily give credit to English as the cause or motivation for individual success or social progress. His story is more neutral towards what is often referred to as “English education” by many in Nepal; he says he had an obsessive desire to learn English because his father was educated in English and, as a result, had instilled that passion in his son as well. Describing similar literacy narratives in the DALN, Selfe (2010) states that such narratives “reveal a great deal about social and political affiliations” through what and who the narrators include in their stories. Hem chooses to represent the learning at home in a more positive light than his learning at school, because for him the latter seemed to miss the humane and loving environment of home; he similarly chooses to emphasize the object of learning more than the means for it.
Hem’s narrative reveals his great passion for learning itself, which he suggests was often undermined by the restrictive nature of formal education. His choice to focus on literacy as gaining and enjoying knowledge implies a critical assessment of the relation between learning and schooling. As Selfe (2010) states, “by locating themselves precisely and in nuanced ways within complex and dynamic social systems in their narratives . . . storytellers actually compose their lives and values in reference to those around them, positioning themselves relationally to the other characters in their stories, to their previous selves, and to their listening audiences” (web). Hem presents a contrast between the unpleasantness of school and the pleasure of learning itself, especially in the context of home. Furthermore, in personal stories that are situated against social and cultural phenomena like literacy and education,
an individual’s relational positioning vis-à-vis their own and others’ literacy practices and values is not simply a detail within their narrative but, rather, a specific form of personal and political rhetorical agency. People often tell the narratives they do to make a point and to persuade—and, in these instances, stories themselves become a form of political action, a form of “doing,” not simply a simple tale that is told by one person and heard by others” (ibid).
Thus, we need to read literacy narratives like this not as simple accounts and neutral representations of the society or culture at large but as unique personal renderings of reality and as ideologically significant accounts of the social world that the narrator is describing. This is true of narratives contributed by individuals from different cultures and societies to the DALN. As Selfe notes, “DALN narratives [like this] can help us understand the social and political agency that individuals enact through literacy and their stories about literacy.” These stories should be seen as “powerful discursive vehicles for the formation of identity and self-representation” (ibid.). Hem’s story reminds us how the embodiment of the author in the story—the co-presence of the author’s body, voice, and thoughts in their natural spoken flow—adds to the power of storytelling, which we need to account for when analyzing such stories.