Jennifer C. Bermudez

Philippine Science High School-Main Campus

Abstract

This research addresses the need to broaden students’ understanding of scholarship from numerical constricts into an encompassing notion associated with service and citizenship.  Participants read three works of fiction over a period of eight months: Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga, and Please Look after Mom by Kyung Sook-Shin.  Open-ended questionnaires and peer discussions helped crystallize their comprehension of the terminologies under study.  Based on written accounts of students who believe that education’s emphasis on science and technology should be complemented with humanistic studies, the outcome proves Kidd and Castano’s Theory of Mind (2013) which posits that literature may be utilized as a formative vehicle towards the development of sensitive minds and hearts which are vital to make academic training oriented towards the common good.  The themes that emerged from their reflections show an accentuated understanding of intelligence and the connection between study and service.

Keywords: reading fiction, study, service, citizenship

FULL PAPER

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.