全球化或國際化:從STEM到STEAM教育 - 靜宜學訊

全球化或國際化:從STEM到STEAM教育

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國際化和全球化是同義詞還是反義詞?許多學者通常都交替使用這兩個詞甚至未予區分,雖兩者釋義類似。以構詞學分析,這兩個詞:”Inter-nation” 國際/國家之間 ,和”globe” – “世界/全球”雖是眾所周知的一種意識形態卻是有所不同的。

就其歷史演進而言,”國際Inter-nation”這個詞是英國哲學家以及法學家Jeremy Bentham在1700年代末期為法學目的而創。這個詞原意指內化internalization,也就是將各國內化為一個大的理想國家。另一方面,"全球globe " 或 "全球化 globalization” 是一種實驗性的做法。意指可以在經濟、政治和大眾傳播上拉近村與村之間的差距。正如加拿大教育家Marshall McLuhan在1960年,首次提到 "地球村" 這一詞彙:"...在電視上傳播之信息是意在給予地球村提供一種同時性的資訊質量(Carpenter & McLuhan 1960;參見於,etymonline.com)"。由此我們可以看到,國際化和全球化的概念是相關的,都有”合一”的概念,但從一開始就沒有被用作為同義詞來使用。事實上,Peter Scoot(1998a)更認為,這兩者不僅不是同義詞,它們的本質以及形成過程是完全不同,甚至在辯證上是對立的,因為前者是內中心 (endocentric),而後者是外中心 (exocentric)。

英文系國際交流我們再來看看Verbitskaya(2005)如何解釋這兩個詞:
「全球化一詞強調的是世界文化混合增長,民族傳統融合,國家之間加強協作與合作,或全球分工的概念。這種做法必會造成政治,社會,種族及宗教的衝突。它會是需要一種人人都能接受的社會秩序或操作準則(SOP)的;這無疑給列強帶來了一個機會。而相比之下,國際化實際上指的是獨立國家之間的交叉溝通和交流。但它也預設了一個會任由精英民族或國家主導的世界共同體。」

回過頭來討論,我們應該問自己的一個問題是,我們的教育計劃,或者更具體地說,我們的語言教育計劃應該走往哪條路得以跟得上世界技術,學術,社會和經濟的快速變化。為適應全球化的趨勢。靜宜大學英文系在過去數年中進行了不少創新與改革。宏觀而言努力為消弭高階層次與低階層次之間的差距,將技術和數位世界與人性聯繫起來。儘管如此,微觀來說我們的語言及言語課程仍有相當大的改進空間。就筆者看來,除非我們的目標是與英語係國家們聯合或融合唯一,否則將英語學習內化不應該是我們的核心信念(這更會造成語言的死亡及流失)。取而代之的是,筆者認為,在學習語言或教學時只需要考慮如何具備平等的溝通技巧和語言技術上的運用。如此有朝一日不同 “村莊” 的全球化才是有可能的。

去年9月,美國商務部國際貿易管理局(the International Trade Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce) 在其官方網站上發佈了一則訊息,稱2030年,台灣將成為中英雙語國家。本質概念是很好的,但實質體制卻是有待商討。這甚至為美國教育科技公司提供了主導機會。那這種國際化作為可以為台灣下一代提供什麼樣機會?台灣的Z或是Z+世代要如何才能跳上駕駛座是政府要預見的。此外該訊息提到,台灣政府在三年內為此計畫撥款3.61億美元,並希望將新課程綱要從STEM擴展到STEAM,即在科學、技術、工程和數學中加入藝術。STEM成形於1986左右,並在2006美國小布希總統時代被極力推動。近年來美國教育界重新檢視了STEM亦起動了STEAM的”全球化”。依筆者之淺見,把藝術與結合入STEM是重新認識軟實力與重視人性的思考。近年”科技人文”或”Digital Humanity”是一個熱門話題,當然也是一個不可逆的趨勢,但決策如何在”科技人文”中平衡二者絕對不是一件容易的事,而且過程中也很容易會落入”國際化”及”全球化”的迷失。我們的新課綱會不會又不小心地又重此失彼了呢?也就是說這個概念應該是”科技人文”還是 ”人文科技”的確是決策者們必須思考思考再思考後,先思考後又思考的地方。


文 / 英國語文學系 曾秋景老師
翻譯  /  吳蕚州老師
出版 / 2022年11月15日
            

Globalization or Internationalization: from STEM to STEAM                      
    
Are internationalization and globalization synonyms or antonyms? Many scholars have used these two words interchangeably and interpreted them similarly, if not indistinguishably. As a matter of fact, through the means of the morphological process, the words are as: inter-nation - between countries - and globe - a worldwide or universal ideology.

Historically, the word International was coined by Jeremy Bentham, an English philosopher and a jurist, for jurisprudential purposes in the late 1700s. The word was to be thought of as referring to internalization, which is to internalize countries to be one ideal nation. On the other hand, globe or globalization would be thought of as an experimental practice to bring the gap differences between villages closer economically, politically, and mass-communicatively, as the Canadian educator, Marshall McLuhan, first mentioned the phrase “globe village” in 1960, that “[the information that is giving on the TV] … gives this quality of simultaneity to events in the global village “(Carpenter & McLuhan 1960; c.f., etymonline.com). As we can see, the notions of internationalization and globalization are related but were not used synonymously from the get-go. In fact, Peter Scoot (1998a) suggest that these two are not just not synonyms, their processes are radically different and even dialectically opposed because one is endocentric while the other is exocentric.

Let’s set aside how Verbitskaya (2005) describes the two terms, which are quoted below.

“The term globalization [emphasizes the] growth of hybrid world cultures, blending of national traditions, the intensified collaboration and cooperation among countries, and perhaps the global division of labor. Such practice creates political and social conflicts, and it is in need for social order or standards of operation (SOP); this undoubtedly gives the powers a glimpse of opportunities. By contrast, internationalization presupposes a world dominated by nation-states of elites. It denotes cross-communication and exchange between separate nations.”

A question we should ask ourselves is which path of our education program, or more specifically, our language program shall take in order to keep up with the rapid change of the world technologically, socially, and economically. It is hard to believe how much the English department at Providence has innovated in the past few years to fit the trend of globalization, trying to bring the gap between the ones with higher social status educationally and economically and the lower ones closer and bridging technology and the digital world with humanity. Still, there is considerable space for advancement in our language programs. In the writer’s mind, unless we aim to be united with an English-speaking country, internalizing our English learning should not be our central belief. Instead, the writer believes in approaching English learning with a thought of equipping equal communication skills and linguistic controlling skills, thus one day globalize different “villages” may be possible.

Last September, the International Trade Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce posted a news announcement on their official website, saying that Taiwan adopted a policy to become a bilingual English-Mandarin Chinese nation by 2030. Essentially, it is an innovative approach to globalization, but in practice, deeper thoughts are needed. The new policy seems to be an open season that offers opportunities for U.S. educational Tech companies and provides them a chance to dominate. Furthermore, the central question is whether this act of internationalization can provide opportunities for the next generations of native Taiwanese. So, how the generation Z and Z+ can eventually jump into the driver’s seat in a near future is something government may want to foresee. The announcement also mentions that the Taiwanese government allocated a total of 361 million US dollars for three years and looks to extend a new curriculum guideline from STEM to STEAM, which is adding Arts into the four pillars of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. STEM is a concept in education that started in around 1986 and was formally pushed for a US educational act by former US president George W Bush Jr in 2006. In recent years, though, US educators revisited the notion of STEM and modified it to STEAM. The integration of Arts in STEM is, in the writer’s eye, a re-recognition of soft skills and the importance of humanity.

In talks for future generations, “Digital humanity” is for sure a hot potato, perhaps an unavoidable trend. However, in taking a balance between “Digital” and “Humanity”, one can never be too careful. It is very easy to fail into the myth of internationalization and globalization, yet again. That is if our new curricula will lose one another if we are not careful enough. In other words, whether it should be a concept of “Digital humanity” or “Digitalized humanity” is something that plan makers should think about and rethink over and over and over again.


Written by Dr. Chiu-Ching Ken Tseng, Department of English Language, Literature and Linguistics
Co-translated by Dr. E-chou Wu, Department of English Language, Literature and Linguistics