July 1

Fish to Profs: Stick to Teaching

Stanley Fish

They “can (legitimately) do two things: (1) introduce students to bodies of knowledge and traditions of inquiry that had not previously been part of their experience; and (2) equip those same students with the analytical skills — of argument, statistical modeling, laboratory procedure — that will enable them to move confidently within those traditions and to engage in independent research after a course is over.”

And what should they not do? Everything else.

In a new book to be published this month by Oxford University Press, Fish, the Davidson-Kahn Distinguished University Professor of Humanities and Law at Florida International University, argues that instructors need to approach their jobs narrowly — and to, as the title implies, Save the World on Your Own Time.

That doesn’t mean they can’t have opinions, espouse views outside of the classroom or make partisan pronouncements in public. But the argument — that professors should do their jobs, and nothing else — does establish a framework through which the book tackles every major academic controversy, from Ward Churchill (a professor who erred in melding politics and his academic work, Fish says, not in expressing those views per se) to the intelligent design movement (a relativistic attempt to sneak a nonscientific idea into the classroom) to Larry Summers (a man who went beyond the bounds of his job description).

The book itself developed from Fish’s own experiences, both as a teacher of literature and law and as an administrator. After chairing the theory-laden English department at Duke University and serving as executive director of Duke University Press, he surprised many by accepting a post as dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago, from which he stepped down in 2004. Now he’s been enjoying his perch as a weekly online columnist at The New York Times, where he first articulated some of the book’s themes.

As someone who’s been both derided from the right as a postmodernist and recently described by his editor as a “curmudgeonly semiconservative guy,” Fish’s own positions have evolved over time and can sometimes be hard to pin down — and maybe that’s the point. But he’s perfectly clear about his views on higher education, and the book delves beyond classroom controversies into more familiar territory for many academics: how to run a university (and should it be democratic?), the life of a dean, the teaching of writing and, of course, the best way to shake down state leaders for more funds.

Fish spoke over the phone with Inside Higher Ed last week from upstate New York, where he lives for about half the year. Below are excerpts from that conversation.

Q: How does the general public view academe, and how does that view differ from reality?

A: I think the perception is that college campuses these days are populated by liberal/radical faculty who are always imposing their loyalties on the students in an attempt ... to recruit students into a political agenda.

The reality is that the percentage ... who do something like that is perhaps small, I would say, at the most, 10 percent, probably more like 5 or 6 percent. But the success of the neoconservative public relations machine has implanted in the public mind this idea of a university simply permeated by political ideologues masking as pedagogues....

[T]he word then begins to be sounded as if you couldn’t walk into a classroom in this country without being subjected to liberal propaganda. In my experience, this is not the norm. But even if it were only a small percentage of what happens in the classroom, it’s still, I think, the cause for concern if not alarm because certainly in my view [it’s] what should not be happening in the classroom.

Q: But even aside from political implications, you argue, especially in the teaching of writing, that such agendas can actually have a negative effect on learning.

A: Whether anyone notices it or not or comments on it or not, the teaching of writing in universities is a disaster. [There is] the conviction on the part of many composition teachers that what they are really teaching is some form of social justice, and that the teaching of writing ... takes a back seat. And in fact in many classrooms the teaching of writing as a craft as something that has rules with appropriate decorums ... is in fact demonized as an indication of the hegemony of the powers that be. This happens over and over again in classrooms and it’s an absolute disaster.

Q: Are you mostly talking about “quips” — say, an aside about Dick Cheney in the middle of a lecture?

A: It signals something to the students about what the views of the professor are.... It’s my conviction that teachers should not have posters ... on the doors of their office that indicate some political, partisan or ideological affiliation. The office ... is an extension of the scene of teaching, and no student should enter an office [believing that] some ideas are going to be preferred and others are better not uttered. The larger part are those professors who are sincerely convinced that it is their job to take their students and mold both their characters and their ideological views....

I’m holding in my hand right now ... a book called Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice, which is a popular book published by a very reputable press [Routledge, 2007], and its thesis is that teaching social justice, preparing students to operate in the world in a particular way is what we should be doing.

[Quoting from the book:]

“The goal of social justice education is full and equal participation of all groups in a society that is mutually shaped to meet their needs. Social justice includes a vision of society in which the distribution of resources is equitable and all members are physically and psychologically safe and secure. We envision a society in which individuals are both self-determining (able to develop their full capacities), and interdependent (capable of interacting democratically with others)....”

I think there is a significant number of persons espousing or being persuaded by that view, some self-consciously and some less than self-consciously.... [At The New York Times, a]ny number of readers will testify, and I think that is the word, that they went to college and university never knowing what the political and ideological affiliations of their professors might have been, and several have written in to say when they later discovered by accident ... they were surprised, they never would have guessed.

I still like to believe that most people go into classrooms attempting to do justice to the materials that are taught in the course as described in the syllabus and listed in the college catalog, and that ... is the core of my position.

This is a daunting enough task, and it doesn’t seem to me to be necessary or possible to perform other tasks....

Q: Are you concerned that your book will be brandished by those with an agenda to enforce “intellectual diversity"?

A: Well, yes, I think that there is a danger that this will be welcomed ... by some of those conservative critics of the academy. But on the other hand there’s plenty in the book which criticizes the conservative efforts, for example, to enforce proportional hiring in college and university faculty.... I over and over again attack that argument, so even though the conservative critics of the academy might find some comfort in parts of the book, they’ll find other parts of the book directly criticizing them.

One of the arguments that conservative critics make is that there are very few or relatively few conservative members of the faculty, especially in humanities and social science departments. But when I came into the profession ... in 1962, the statistics were the reverse. There were very few progressive members of the faculty and there were of course determined efforts to exclude, for example, people who self-identified as Marxists. [I don’t think there are parallel efforts of exclusion today,] although that is a charge that’s been made.

Q: Do you believe the current movement against perceived bias in academe is a recent trend, or part of longstanding cultural currents?

A: The anti-intellectualism that’s always been a part of the disdain for the academy doesn’t, I think, operate in the current scene of the culture wars at least as I describe them.... This is not a repetition of the old anti-intellectualism which has been around forever; I think this is much more specifically political and ideological.

Q: If all professors “academicized” the topics they covered in class and avoided melding their material with outside political views, as you advocate, would that leave room for institutions with specific missions, such as “progressive” colleges, colleges that identify as conservative-oriented or those with a Great Books focus?

A: A Great Books college or a progressive college is a college that is organized around a certain view of the way higher education should be implemented. In other words, these are colleges which are attached to an account of the best way to perform higher education. But I have no quarrel at all with colleges like that, because if one can think of them as having a point of view, it’s an educational point of view, not a political point of view. That would be quite different if a college were self-consciously dedicated to the conservation or promulgation of conservative principles or religious principles.... [They would not be] operating according to the traditional ideals of liberal education, which doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be allowed to exist ... they are simply not attaching themselves to the ideal of liberal education....

Q: You’ve worked at both private and public institutions. Do you see any difference in their missions?

A: Well, there certainly is a difference in terms of the funding and the way in which funding is dispensed....

The interesting thing, or actually distressing thing ... is that at the same time that the legislature of many states takes the money away from universities, the legislatures seek to impose more and more curricular and faculty control over the universities, so it’s a very unhappy situation in which colleges are being told we’re going to take your money away and we’re going to increasingly monitor every single thing you do.

Q: You describe a novel approach to handling state lawmakers who control the purse strings, a tactic you used during your time as a dean: criticizing, even belittling them, in public. Did it work?

A: It worked in a limited sense. My response was, look, higher education administrators go hat in hand ... they’re always in a begging or petitionary posture, and that just doesn’t work. People don’t in fact respond well to that, and I found what they did respond well to was confrontation of an aggressive kind.... If you say to state legislators, “You guys don’t know what you’re talking about! What if I came to your offices and told you within five minutes and without having any experience ... what it is you should be doing, you’d throw me out, laughing me out of the room.” Well that’s what we should be doing.... “What do you know about 18th-century French poetry? ...”

If you embarrass people ... if you make them afraid of you, you are in a better position than you are if you go to them on your knees. [S]econd, which might seem contradictory ... is that most people who are not in or of the academy are fascinated by it. On the one hand they disdain it in part because they believe the academy disdains them. But on the other hand they would like to be initiated into [its] pleasures.

Q: From your chapter on administration, it seems that in many ways the perspectives of both a faculty member and an administrator can be at odds.

A: There’s a great deal of faculty bashing in my book, especially on that point. But I think that university administration is a wonderful, wonderful activity and in fact when I used to go to conferences of administrators ... the word that was most used by those fellow deans or provosts or chancellors or presidents to describe what it is we did ... “it’s fun.” That might surprise a lot of faculty members, I suspect it would.

Q: As a veteran of the canon battles between proponents of French “theory” and the traditionalists, do you think the outcome has had an impact on the public debate about politics in academe?

A: I think academia is very fundamentally different.... I’m old enough to remember when there were three TV networks, NBC, ABC and CBS. That meant that everybody watched the same thing.... But of course now there are all kinds of television networks and semi-networks and so forth, and everything is diffused. The same thing has happened in the curriculum, at least in the social sciences and the humanities, so that whereas it used to be the case that the same set of texts in relation to relatively the same set of questions was taught everywhere in more or less the same way, now there’s an explosion, a tremendous variety. Much less of a mechanism of exclusion.... That’s a huge and important change.

And I think in the end, or actually the middle, the theorists won. They won partly because of the statistics of age and death, that is, the new people who were coming into the departments had all been trained in and excited by [theory] and they trained another generation of students.

I believe that to be a beneficial change even though I also believe ... that a lot of people made a mistake when they politicized theory and thought that the lessons of theory could be immediately translated into an agenda that could be actively pursued in the classroom. [T]heory’s rise has contributed to the politicization of some classrooms in higher education today. So it’s a mixed blessing.

Q: Any parting thoughts on the book as a whole?

A: [I’d like to] rehearse for your readers the three-part mantra which organizes the book: Do your job, don’t try to do someone else’s job and don’t let anyone else do your job. And I think that if we as instructors ... would adhere to that mantra, we would be more responsible in the prosecution of our task and less vulnerable to the criticisms of those who would want to either undermine or control us.

— Andy Guess

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Comments

Rarely works, IMO

” .. If you embarrass people ... if you make them afraid of you, you are in a better position than you are if you go to them on your knees ..”

In a world where some students demand higher grades because “I paid for this” — the aforementioned quote is regrettable. IMO, it justifies childish senses of entitlement that is too often seen in academia by administrators, faculty, poorly-performing students, and others.

In the biographies that I’ve read of leaders wealthy and not-so-wealthy — some of whom I got to meet in person — the most effective never had to publicly embarrass anyone.

Go eyeball-to-eyeball with, fired, lay-off — yes. But not embarrassed. This was done to avoid creating a bigger enemy, most likely. Or to avoid a very large lawsuit, launched mostly out of revenge.

Then again, when talking about the Illinois state legislature and Chicago, one has to remember the context. As in: “hey, where’s mine?” “vote early and vote often,” and “it’s the Chicago way.”

J.J., Small wheel at Big Cog, at 7:05 am EDT on July 1, 2008

Correx

IMO, it justifies childish senses of entitlement that ARE too often seen in academia by administrators, faculty, poorly-performing students, and others.

J.J., at 8:30 am EDT on July 1, 2008

Fish vs. Fish

What chutzpah! For years, Fish was the Godfather of an approach to “scholarship” that championed the right of certain ideologues steeped in “theory” to appoint themselves commissars of political rectitude in academic life. The Duke English Department, with such luminaries as Barbara Herrnstein Smith and Frederick Jameson, was the locus classicus of this attitude. It was at Duke, you will remember, that the activist faculty, supported by Fish, insisted on a strict racial quota for furture appointments—a policy hardly consistent with the scholarly meritocracy Fish now claims to embrace. At one point, Fish attempted to ban fellow senior professors with the “wrong” political views from sitting on A&P committees that might evaluate his own proteges. So much for any political neutrality! As head of Duke University Press, Fish eagerly served the agenda of the purported “left,” making no secret of his antipathy toward any scholar with conservative, moderate, or even non-postmodern left-wing views. He took under the press’s wing the journal “Social Text,” just in time to witness its laughable plunge into hot water over the “Sokal hoax,” an embarassment all of Fish’s eloquence was unable to alleviate. The echo of Fish’s reign was heard in the shameful lynch-mob response of “progressive” faculty at Duke to the “Lacrosse team” affair.

Of late, however, he has become conspicuously sanctimonious in defense of the principle that classrooms should be free of political proselytization and that scholarship should be evaluated on purely scholarly grounds without taking account of how politically fashionable it might be. Fine; those are excellent principles. But one would never know, from Fish’s recent statements, that he once led the legions seeking to overthrow those principles.

Fossil, at 8:55 am EDT on July 1, 2008

‘Promulgation of. . religious principles. . .’ ?

Contrary to what Fish says about religious colleges ’simply not attaching themselves to the ideal of liberal education. .’ it’s the religious schools that in many cases are the only colleges doing so. The term ‘liberal arts’ and the origins of what we call today (or at least used to call) a liberal arts education are Medieval in origin and so strongly shaped by the Catholic Church. Many colleges today that are ‘attached’ to religious principles see themselves as returning to the core notion of what a liberal arts education is supposed to be—Classical and Biblical(i.e.Christian)in nature.

Amy De Rosa, at 8:55 am EDT on July 1, 2008

composition disaster

The teaching of composition in universities is a disaster.... That is an understatement. We shouldnt have to teach basic composition in university at all... students should know the basics by the time they graduate high school ... but that requires a decent public school system and that is another kettle of fish.

I taught composition at a community college and at the university where I got my master’s. I was NOT qualified when I started in community college but I managed to teach myself how to teach. However, composition 101 classes are assigned to teaching ‘assistants’ because they are labor-intensive and frankly require a lot of effort and expertise to teach students in a semester or two what they should have been practicing for 12 years or so. So it is much easier in many cases to teach ’social justice’ or just about anything else. I remember sitting in the cafeteria listening to a student complain that her composition teacher, who was an exchange student from China, spent most of the class time teaching students about Chinese characters. However, when a similar complaint was written in the school paper, the student was demonized as racist.

Students may not have the right to demand higher grades for their payment, but they do have a right to demand competent professors.

Leigh Thelmadatter, amen at ITESM Mexico, at 9:25 am EDT on July 1, 2008

Thanks, Fossil

Fish begins the interview by pooh-poohing the notion that political ideologies have invaded the university, but ends by recounting how the theorists trumped the traditionalists and politicized the classroom ’some’(!) As Fossil says, it’s fine to change one’s mind, but how about a little more forthrightness on the subject.

Amy De Rosa, at 9:25 am EDT on July 1, 2008

And the college I attended was founded to train people for the ministry in the Congregational Church.

The Enlightenment happened, and whether or not we like that, we have to deal with it.

That said, I’d still say “better late than never” on Fish’s change of heart about what professors should do in the classroom. And to the conservatives who worry about left-wing politicization, I’d advise you to go back and read Fish’s comment about university faculties in the early 1960s. Intellectual fashions, like the economy, move in cycles; in acting as though time won’t work its usual magic, the conservatives ape the very left-wing activists they oppose.

MarketStEl, Senior Marketing Writer at Activant Solutions Inc., at 9:30 am EDT on July 1, 2008

Intellectual fashions

For relativists, changes in university faculties are called ‘intellectual fashions.’ For people who believe in objective truths, changes in university faculties will be called good or bad or right or wrong. Conservatives aren’t aping anybody. They’re speaking out for what they believe is right. (And, time—which is neutral— doesn’t work any magical changes. It’s people who effect change.)

Amy De Rosa, at 10:15 am EDT on July 1, 2008

changing one’s mind

Fossil, while not terriblyfamiliar with all of Fish’s past positions or ideas, I still find your commentary troubling. If, as you state, Fish has flopped, doesn’t he have the right to do so? I recognize this change may lack credibility on the one hand, but doesn’t it also mark the possibility that Fish is signaling an evolution in his perspective? And in the end, shoudn’t we be pleased with his demostration of learning that experience and thought seem to have wrought for Fish rather than being simply cynical or critical? Perhaps I am just hoping that as time goes on my ideas and actions are not expected to remain static...

foleyc, at 10:15 am EDT on July 1, 2008

statistics on political pedagogy

Professor Fish says that only 10%, perhaps only 5% of faculty conform to the rightwing stereotype of political pedagogues imposing their views in the classroom.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates the number of post-secondary teachers at nearly 1.7 million. If Professor Fish is correct that 10% of these people are corrupting their classes through political pedagogy, that is 170,000 faculty. If it is only 5%, that is 85,000 faculty. That is a huge absolute number of political teachers.

Moreover, this 5-10% are not spread evenly among the 1.7 million post-secondary teachers. You don’t find them in Engineering, or Mathematics. This group of are strongly concentrated in two areas, where they certainly constitute *more* than 5-10% of the faculty: they are concentrated in the Humanities and Social Sciences, where they offer their analyses of, say, American History, or U.S. society.

Is there any wonder that there are complaints? This isn’t being ginned up by a right-wing propaganda machine (though they take advantage of it, to be sure). This is a real issue.

In a recent edition of ACADEME, the official journal of the AAUP, the politicalization of the classroom, including the intentional humiliation of students who disagreed with you politically, was advocated in two articles, with no rebuttal offered. One of the articles was written by a prominent AAUP official.

That is, not only on Fish’s statistics are there (say) 100,000 political professors doing their distorted teaching in the country, and concentrated mostly in the Humanities and Social Sciences, but the AAUP now officiall defends the practice.

Prof Ethan, at 10:15 am EDT on July 1, 2008

Fish Out of Water

Fish’s two comments are so patently contradictory that they obviate any assertion that he’s not a postmodernist oblivious to simple truth claims and logic.

EITHER, the percentage of radicals is ONLY “5 or 6 percent” dreamt up by the invisible “neoconservative public relations machine” (which begs the question why write a book if that’s all that do it?), OR “the teaching of writing in universities is a disaster.”

Which is it? Obviously, he feels it’s the latter. As a conservative who endured overt hostility in a doctoral mill in English, “disaster” just begins to describe the relentless, Leftist pedagogy of full-time professors and their enthralled, TA acolytes.

mk, at 10:15 am EDT on July 1, 2008

Narrow, elitist vision

“Stanley Fish is very clear about what college professors should do in the classroom.

Mr. Fish advances an inappropriately narrow and elitist vision of the purposes of instruction, with no recognition of the importance of socializing students to their ultimate professional roles.

Dr.RingDing, at 10:15 am EDT on July 1, 2008

Freshman Writing

P.S.For some quick and fast empirical evidence of politicized freshman writing courses, see this post about Dartmouth’s program:

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/06/020878.php

mk, at 10:30 am EDT on July 1, 2008

Summer Reading Made Easier.....

The silly, often contradictory comments by Stanley Fish in the IHE interview, plus the concise and shrewd observations by many posters here convinced me that Fish’s latest book will stay off my shelves and out of my hands.

Many thanks, especially Amy.

I decided instead to re-read James Axtell’s “The Pleasures of Academe* ( U of Nebraska Press, 1998) for encouraging reminders why I went into academia in the first place.

Shawna, at 10:45 am EDT on July 1, 2008

Thank you, Mr. Fish

Thank you for so clearly establishing the need to privatize higher education. To go from fire-breathing progressive to “focused” master faculty reminds one of how often “freedom” has been promised, then dictatorship is imposed (thx, Fidel).

In a privatized higher-ed system, Mr. Fish would be able to establish his own little fiefdom, offering with other politicized fiefdoms their particular brand of “truth.” And explain how they would impose that “truth.” Then students (and parents and emlpoyers) would clearly know this in advance and be able to make more informed decisions.

Thank you, Mr. Fish.

Buzz, at 10:45 am EDT on July 1, 2008

What if I came into your office, Stanley Fish?

As Fish himself puts it, “’You, Professor Fish, don’t know what you’re talking about! What if I came to your offices and told you within five minutes and without having any experience ... what it is you should be doing, you’d throw me out, laughing me out of the room.’ Well that’s what we should be doing.... ‘What do you know about writing pedagogy or what is happening in any of the tens of thousands of different writing classes in this country? ...’”

FWIW, I write about this more here.

Steven D. Krause, Professor at Eastern Michigan University, at 11:00 am EDT on July 1, 2008

Oops! And by here, I mean...

... here, http://stevendkrause.com/2008/07/...about-writing-could-fill-a-universe/

Steven D. Krause, Professor at Eastern Michigan University, at 11:10 am EDT on July 1, 2008

Something’s Fishy Here ...

Wanting to be the first on my block to either read Stanley Fish’s “Save the World on Your Own Time” or at least read what’s inside the dust jacket, place the book at a prominent spot on my desk, and lie about having reading it, I pre-ordered a copy from Borders.

Now that I’ve read this interview ... zzzzzzzzzzzzz ... I can hardly wait ... zzzzzzzzzzz ... to get on with ... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZ ...

Frizbane Manley, at 11:10 am EDT on July 1, 2008

Shorter Fish

The Public Intellectual says: university faculty should not be public intellectuals.

My response: certainly there is room for others, Mr. Fish.

Paris, at 11:20 am EDT on July 1, 2008

Fish to Profs interview

Prof. Fish’s advice is welcome, if long overdue.

I write as a parent of two bright academically-oriented children, a young lady about to begin grad school at a prestigious university, and a young man about to begin university at another prestigious school.

I think Prof. Fish’s estimate of 5-6% of professors constituting the problem is wildly underestimated, and the faculty do hold great power over the futures of the students.

Allow to tell my tale: My daughter was a religion major at a very fine liberal arts college in the Southeast, presented as a moderate institution where students from all manner of backgrounds were welcomed.

My wife and I were invited to her induction into an honors society in her field, a proud occasion. We arrived to a chapel on campus(the school having been founded long ago by Christians), and found a Buddah-shaped candle burning upon the credence table. Plainchant was being played, which we found later was a ‘pig-latin’ parody album of Gregorian chant, and the induction ceremony made pointed positive reference to every tradition save any form of Christianity, which was thoroughly denigrated. I was very tempted to walk out, but knowing that the ceremony had been organized by my daughter’s major professor, I knew that any protest I might make would result in vengeance upon her academic career. I made the correct decision that day on her behalf, but learned much about academia’s definition of ‘diversity’.

In case the reader believes me to be some sort of raging Protestant Fundamentalist, I assure you, I’m anything but that, and my daughter even less so!

Later that year, in an English composition course(her minor), she was publicly vilified by her professor for suggesting that although the option of abortion should be retained as a choice, it might be wise to inform parents before a child is subjected to an invasive surgical procedure. English composition course, I repeat! The professor never forgave her, and shunned her for the remainder of her time in college.

She found that any, repeat any, deviance from the political line of the faculty would invite retribution. Her work was undeniably of a superior calibre, and she graduated magna, with the faculty and president of the school pointedly shunning her. Graduation day was painful.

For this, we worked tirelessly, went into debt, watched her go into debt?

And academics wonder why families and legislators don’t trust them?

I hope Dr. Fish’s book will spark a healthy debate both inside and outside the walls of the academy. His guidance seems to point in the correct direction(except for his attitude toward legislators!), and I, as a parent(and taxpayer) look forward to a long-overdue correction to the unfortunate course taken over the past forty years.

I would remind my friends ‘inside the walls’ that they are not immune from the world outside, that families and legislatures will vote with their feet and their dollars over time. Some of the financial discomfort now being endured by the public schools is a result of loss of goodwill between faculties and families. Discomfort can be a healthy thing, if attention is paid to its cause.

Wes Ramsay, at 11:20 am EDT on July 1, 2008

Two examples of the problem

In the July/August 2007 edition of the official AAUP journal Academe, in an article entitled “Impassioned Teaching", Prof. Pamela Caughie opined that if students leave her classes as convinced 1960s-type feminists, “then I feel that I have done my job.”

The following article, ironically entitled “Reclaiming Your Rights as a Liberal Educator", by Prof. Julie Kilmer, recommended humiliating undergraduate students who disagree with you politically in class; the best way, she opined, was to set other students on them in pubic.

These two article were followed by yet a third one, by the chief AAUP legal counsel, attacking critics of engaged faculty.

No letters critical of these essays ever appeared in later editions of “Academe.”

prof ethan, at 11:25 am EDT on July 1, 2008

A Principled but Conflicted Man

As the interviewer notes, Dr. Fish’s views “have evolved over time and can sometimes be hard to pin down.” I suspect the evolution was compelled by his eventual recognition of the distinction between proselytizing and educating, and by the realization that the former damages the latter. Unlike many of his colleagues in the liberal arts disciplines, though, Fish decided that education trumps indoctrination. Good for him. When driven by principle, changing one’s mind, especially in public, is a rare and wonderful thing. But talk about hard to pin down! In this interview he estimates that the percentage of faculty who attempt to recruit students to a leftist political agenda is a negligible 5-10%—a cause for concern but not alarm. Yet he also claims that “many” composition teachers are actually teaching “some form of social justice,” that in “many” classrooms the traditional teaching of writing is “demonized as an indication of the hegemony of the powers that be,” and that this happens so often (“over and over again”) that the teaching of writing in American universities is “an absolute disaster.” I wonder if it’s coincidental that Dr. Fish perceives educational disaster in the discipline he knows best. If he were as familiar with sociology departments—my own home for 34 years—as he is English departments, I believe he would find himself revising that 5-10% figure substantially upward.

Howard Gabennesch, Prof, at 11:40 am EDT on July 1, 2008

Ah, if it were only so simple...

Are all the liberal idealogues in the humanities and social sciences, Prof Ethan, and none at all in engineering or math? Really? I doubt it. But I don’t doubt that people in the humanities and social sciences have a devil of a time doing their jobs without politial ideologies entering into it.

Case in point: I teach elementary and intermediate French. It is absolutely my job to teach about the cultures of francophone areas of the world. It is absolutely my job to allow my students to ask questions, even though doing so will inevitably result in a student introducing his or her own political viewpoints. And when, as Amy de Rosa points out, certain students see the world only in terms of their own “objective truths,” I or their classmates may challenge them, simply by having a vastly different persepctive than they have previously encountered.

I don’t go looking to disseminate political ideas in my classes, and I certainly spend much, much more time on linguistic lessons than cultural ones. But culture is permeated by politics, and there are no aspects of culture immune to being politicized. Could I avoid volatile subjects like colonialism, religious expression, racism, and gender issues and stick exclusively with safer topics like Impressionist art and life at Versailles? Yes, but that, too, would be a political position and one that would prevent me from properly doing my job.

Dr. K, at 11:40 am EDT on July 1, 2008

What?

“The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates the number of post-secondary teachers at nearly 1.7 million. If Professor Fish is correct that 10% of these people are corrupting their classes through political pedagogy, that is 170,000 faculty. If it is only 5%, that is 85,000 faculty. That is a huge absolute number of political teachers.”

Professor Ethan, SO WHAT! On any Bell curve there would have to be 5% who are conservative which would imply an equal number yapping for the right. True, they may be concentrated in the business departments at the same colleges, or at certain conservative religious colleges, but the fashions are always evolving.

Many formerly leftist doctrines have become mainstream, and the conservatives can claim their victories as well. At the turn of the 20th century workers were not protected by safety requirements and regulations. Since the implementation of certain common sense safety initiatives and regulations, most people are now not crippled or killed at work. Thank a leftist! Voting rights for women and minorities, thank a fabian liberal! Point is that most do not see it as controversial any longer, although there are always those few fanatics who want to turn back the clock.

Get some perspective, at 11:40 am EDT on July 1, 2008

Fish’s Columns

Whether in the Times or here in Issues in Higher Ed, whatever Stanley Fish writes is read and excites comments.

Orwell, at 11:45 am EDT on July 1, 2008

Article & responses VERY enlightening

As a child of the 1960’s, let me quote the sage philosopher Mr. Spock: “Fascinating". And as the daughter of a Dean of Instruction, let me quote my dad after 40 years, “Herding cats is easy, administration of faculty, students, parents, politicians, and media is impossible".

The article and then the responses are very telling to someone like me who is part of the “industry” but not inside Academe. Perception is the reality for action. And everyone’s perception is colored by their own positions! Those who teach have one perception, those who administrate another and the “customer” or family has another. No wonder the action is all fubar’ed.

The questions is who serves whom?

- The teachers clearly feel they serve a “higher” cause and the end user — the student — is best served by conforming that student to their teaching.

- Administrators are company “presidents” beholding to the “stockholders” called alumni, marketing to new “stockholders” called students and trying to keep the production line “teachers” happy while trying to generate income from all sources to keep the “company” going.

- And at the end of the pipeline is the consumer parent/student who is being asked to pay 20-25% of their income (via the Expected Family Contribution calculation) or more (!) for the privilege of having their student taught what the faculty feel is important and not necessarily connected to what the paying “customer” wants for their money.

I have NEVER been in an industry where what the customer wants is so neglected. But I have never been in an industry where the client has been so confused by the system. The problem is not politics per se. It is the disconnect between the wants and needs of the providers, administrators and ultimate customers. There is little to no overlap between them!

Is there a way to fix it? My opinion is transparency.

The colleges need to be transparent in their philosophy. If they believe in exposing the student to a wide range of controversial positions, then it is up to the consumer to decide if that is for them. If the professor wants to share his political views, that should be known to the end customer — the student. Then that customer has the right to go “somewhere else” and find a teacher or university more to their taste. I know what aggravates my client families is not KNOWING what they get for the money.

My 2 cents. . .

Linda P. Taylorwww.LindaPTaylor.com

Linda P Taylor, at 11:45 am EDT on July 1, 2008

RE: Narrow and Elitist Vision

RingDing’s comment is just an example of ironic performance art, right?

Right?

BAW, at 11:45 am EDT on July 1, 2008

Teaching writing

A hearty second amen to Leigh Thelmadatter.

I have been teaching undergraduate writing as part of my graduate student support package. Coming in with a teaching English as a second language background, I’ve had explicit training in how to teach writing and now have a fair amount of experience. In my most recent evaluation, the teaching assistant coordinator praised me for actually teaching the mechanics of writing. I had to ask her to explain herself because I’m not sure what else I would have done since I was hired to teach writing. Apparently, not all writing instructors feel that writing mechanics are useful for writing courses, but readings in various ways of deconstructing text is.

Like Leigh Thelmadatter mentioned teaching writing is time consuming. It’s time consuming because undergraduates who have little opportunity to write in prose in their IM, text messaging, and email worlds need a lot of explicit instruction. In some courses, I go all the way back to covering topic sentences and paragraph structure. But not only is teaching writing time consuming, it is fundamentally different from being able to write. Good writers may not be good writing teachers.

Most campus graduate students and professors can’t actually teach writing. As an undergrad, I constantly got comments saying that my writing was too informal, but no one could explain how it was informal and how to change that. It wasn’t until I had to teach writing that I learned that one could teach students about the vocabulary and sentence structures of academic writing vs informal writing.

I agree that high school might be a better place for the measured presentation and practice of writing skills over a semester or a year, but the reality is that university students need instruction in academic writing. Unfortunately, it isn’t enough to ask instructors to stop teaching their political agendas; they have to be taught how to teach writing.

A Mates, Big State Uni, at 12:55 pm EDT on July 1, 2008

statistics

Anyone who thinks that conservatives are equally represented as leftists in the humanities and social sciences has not been reading the statistics on the political ideology of faculty that have been published in numerous places. It is also the case that there are fewer conservatives in the humanities and social sciences the more you get into top-flight universities.

The Chronicle of Higher Ed published an important article by Mark Bauerlein about this issue, and how appointment-procedures in the humanities and social sciences work subtly to weed out the morally unacceptable (i.e., conservatives) for jobs: see the Nov. 12, 2004 issue.

On the implication of the stats on the left political orientation of faculty in the humanities and social sciences (esp. when compared, say, with the general public)—an orientation about the existence of which there is no dispute, see the following:

1. Stanley Rothman, S. Robert Lichter, and Neil Nevitte (2005) “Politics and Professional Advancement Among College Faculty,” The Forum: A Journal of Applied Researches in Contemporary Politics, Vol. 3: No. 1 (2005), Article 2.

http://www.bepress.com/forum/vol3/iss1/art:

Barry Ames, David C. Barker, Chris W. Bonneau, and Christopher J. Carman (2005) “Hide the Republicans, the Christians, and the Women: A Response to ‘Politics and ProfessionalAdvancement Among College Faculty’", The Forum: Vol. 3: No. 2 (2005), Article 7.

http://www.bepress.com/forum/vol3/iss2/art7

Stanley Rothman, S. Robert Lichter, and Neil Nevitte (2005) “Fundamentals and Fundamentalists: A Reply to Ames et al.,” The Forum: Vol. 3: No. 2 (2005), Article 8.

http://www.bepress.com/forum/vol3/iss2/art8

The debate between Rothman et al., and Ames et al. is both fascinating and often hilarious.

So we have Ames et. al. explaining that there are few devout Christians at first-class institutions of higher education because Christians cannot handle complex intellectual issues very well. Or we have the fact that Ames, the chair of the poli sci dept at Pitt, denies sternly that politics has anything to do with hiring and promotion—when he wrote this highly political article with three co-authors all of whom are untenured assistant professors in his own dept who are dependent on a good letter from him to get tenure.

I certainly didn’t mean to imply that there are no leftist and ideologically-committed faculty in Math and Engineering, but (as my critic then concedes, I think) that is not at all where they are concentrated.

prof ethan, at 1:25 pm EDT on July 1, 2008

Respect for students:

Firstly, I think it’s naive to suggest teaching is or can be depoliticized. Secondly, more importantly, don’t Fish’s opinion and many of the comments here dehumanize and underestimate students? Undergrad or graduate, these are adults who in fact benefit from the dynamic in which the professor is not an all-seeing and/or objective authority, but a person who admits to opinions and dimension, with whom they might, in fact should disagree. Friction is necessary to the development of writing. Fish’s estimate seems to suggests all professors who bring politics or social justice into the classroom are doing so in a propagandizing pedagogically useless fashion, that they grade based on political allegiance, and other such urban legends. More often, politics and social justice are the best vehicles by which to improve students’ writing skills. Engage students in a salient discussion, and grammar, rhetoric, etc. can be incorporated much more organically and thoroughly.

I agree that the teaching of writing is in most places a disaster, but this isn’t because of the politics of its teachers. The broad failings of its curricula contribute, as do the working conditions of its teaching graduate students or adjuncts.

Ultimately, a professor’s or instructor’s role is not so neatly defined as Fish suggests. His trajectory itself confirms this.

Concerned, at 1:40 pm EDT on July 1, 2008

ethics of not stating your position

Many issues are part of the curricula. If profesors are silent about their views they may be inadvertantly or on purpose giving slanted views.It helps to disclose one’s views and especially advocacy experiences while promising to respect students views on gambling, alcohol, sexual preference, active political work or whatever. Let students inquire further of your own opinions. Role-play in another direction from time to time. Put your cards on the table while always respecting opposite views. Sounds like ethics.

Lee, at 2:05 pm EDT on July 1, 2008

Fish’s statement that “teachers should not have posters. . . on the doors of their office that indicate some political, partisan or ideological affiliation” shows just how far over the edge he’s gone.

Becoming a teacher does not mean becoming a political eunuch.

Philip, at 3:15 pm EDT on July 1, 2008

Fishy Statistics

Fish doesn’t always have a good grasp of stats, so his guess that 5-10% of faculty are politicized is a guess. Of course, there’s no good reason why faculty shouldn’t be political.

Fish also claims that faculty have become much more liberal: “But when I came into the profession ... in 1962, the statistics were the reverse. There were very few progressive members of the faculty...” Actually, a survey in 1964 found that social scientists voted for Johnson over Goldwater by a ratio of 8.9:1, humanities professors by 6.6:1, which is a larger political disparity than current surveys show. (Of course, this doesn’t exclude the likelihood discussed by Fish that Marxist professors were purged back then; but today’s disparity doesn’t eliminate the possibility that many left-wing professors face discrimination, as well as the occasional conservative.)

John K. Wilson, collegefreedom.org, at 3:45 pm EDT on July 1, 2008

Stick to teaching

” .. Becoming a teacher does not mean becoming a political eunuch ..”

So .. cop cars should have political stickers on them? Public hospitals? On the MDs’ doors? Water department trucks?

Don’t like being told what to do — get out of teaching.

Otherwise — like Prof. Fish said — do your job, without the political poo-poo. Or leave, so someone who does want to teach, can teach openly, fairly, and completely.

Buzz, at 4:40 pm EDT on July 1, 2008

Fish out of water

What is troubling to me over much of this dialog is the implication (or is it an inference—I never get these right) that “teaching” is somehow embedding in the students’ minds that which is in the teachers. In a well developed classroom, there should be no political view taught. All perspectives should be adddressed, but students should realize that the issues are gray, not black and white. In “teaching” writing, the only goal is that whatever one wants to convey to the reader is paramount, and in the process one needs to know grammar is quite helpful. In teaching mathematics (in my opinion) problem solving in the primary focus, and therefore for students to become better problem solvers, they need to confront problems they do not know how to solve. Hypotheses in science require a null hypothesis approach, and therefore one should spend most of the time trying to find fault with the hypotheses, not simply accepting the current ones as “true.” This is why Newton’s laws are pretty good—until we find better laws.

In other words, the problem with Fish’s example of the text book is not that there is a political agenda, but that the agenda becomes the content to be learned. A better approach, at least in my opinion, is that the instructor says, “Your text claims...; Now can you find at least 2, (5, 10, 100???) problems with that view, and 2 (5, 10???) reasons we should believe this.” I recall the measure of a true intellectual is to form a hypothesis, then find enough information to refute it that you change your own opinion. Based on this, let Fish change his views, but who knows, maybe he will move back again.

Fred Flener, Retired at Northeastern Illinois, at 6:00 pm EDT on July 1, 2008

“Mr. Fish advances an inappropriately narrow and elitist vision of the purposes of instruction, with no recognition of the importance of socializing students to their ultimate professional roles.”

The problem is that people lacking even minimal professional standards are in no position to “socialize students to their ultimate professional roles.”

JBM, at 6:00 pm EDT on July 1, 2008

Fish and Foucault

“. . . [D]o your job, without the political poo-poo. . . .”

Buzz: Had I but world enough and time I could show you how the notion of “doing one’s job” without being political is impossible, in the academy especially. By “political” I mean analyzing or apprehending power relations. Why the anxiety unless indeed an unjust status quo feels threatened? It is the status quo of the world beyond the academy, ironically, that has driven the critique of that world into the academy where it can be safely contained, precisely by Fish’s “centrist” or “moderate” restrictions of academic freedom. I know what you’re going to say. (Read on so you can object another way instead.)

I know Fish has read his Foucault, and I find it fascinating in a disturbing way that he may well have a reactionary agenda of his own in writing the book, or at least explaining it as he does in this brief interview.

The conservative/liberal versus progressive debate is asymmetrical. It serves a very political agenda indeed that professors are to be prohibited from broaching certain innovative, progressive ideas, or certain kinds of analyses in the classroom in the name of the “apolitical” as if the apolitical existed. The asymmetrical condition reveals itself precisely in the impulse to censorship: But innovative ideas or frameworks can only be broached in being broached. Students have a right to knowing these ideas exists. They have a right to the rationales as well. How many grateful students I’ve had over the years for my introducing such ideas and modes of analysis!

Fish would do better to argue simply against coercing students: that’s the key distinction. But Foucault and feminists and Marxists and Queer Theorists and alternative economic theorists have shown how, by default, the “not-said” can be equally coercive, even if the coercion is not felt as such. Just because the coercion (as in compulsory heterosexuality) is not overtly felt doesn’t mean it’s not doing unnecessary harm.

I can’t figure why Fish laments (nay, has come to believe) that theory was every apolitical before turning political. It was political from the get-go. What he and other “theorists” have done is try to drain the politics so that, by default, students must go on being coerced (as described by Richard Ohmann in _English in America_, without their knowledge. That does not mean that we should avoid teaching them to write academic English. To me, it’s all the more reason. Yet with Ohmann in mind, for crying out loud.

The key distinction is the rhetorical skill with which alternative political (thus EDUCATIONAL) ideas are presented. It’s called modeling ways to make a case for ideas, for crying out loud. Yet with a Buddhist attitude of non-attachment. Don’t convert students (at least not this semester.) Rather, teaching since Socrates has always been about planting seeds, and letting seeds bear fruit—or not—in their own good time. I’m the first to argue against control freaks in the classroom. THAT’S the issue.

To teach without being political, it seems to me, is like planting without being agricultural.

James W. Gettys, at 6:00 pm EDT on July 1, 2008

“Why the anxiety”

The “anxiety” stems from the mass production of illiterate and ignorant graduates who cannot write a correct sentence in their own language, but thoughtlessly parrot one-sided groupthink passed off in lieu of education.

JBM, at 8:10 pm EDT on July 1, 2008

Stick to teaching — B.S.?

” .. Had I but world enough and time I could show you how the notion of “doing one’s job” without being political is impossible, in the academy especially ..”

I once had the pleasure of paying for a required three-credit poly-econ senior policy seminar, led by a burnt-out Socialist who hated both political parties. Endless, non-stop arguments about how much better socialism was than capitalism. Exams that basically guaranteed 3.0/4.0.

Disclose that a burnt-out Socialist is leading the class — good.

Conveniently (as usual) forgetting to mention that to students — don’t act surprised if students complain. A lot. To the Legislature and other funders.

Arguing one side is easy for the intellectually lazy.

An expert-level command of the major issues at hand requires engagement, thinking, and caring. Which, on many campuses, is missing big-time.

And the students and public know it. They have so many more street-smarts than Mr. Fish will ever have.

Buzz, at 8:10 pm EDT on July 1, 2008

Why fish don’t fly

I teach sociology and psychology courses at the community college level and am asked my position on different controversial topics ALL the time. I approach these questions one of two ways. The first is: I answer the question and then explain my thinking process of how I arrived at the stated conclusion so that they may examine my thinking process and come to their own conclusions. The second is: As a psychotherapist, I turn the question back to them, and ask them what thoughts/concerns, etc. that prompted them to ask the question in the first place and then we examine that.

I also make it a regular practice to examine what the hot button issues are around a particular topic, and what is going on politically, socially and economically that bring current questions and answers in the media and otherwise to the public consciousness.

These methods have made for some VERY interesting class lectures and discussions. This way I do not have to avoid controversy and my own political, social and economic opinions are just one set on par with everyone elses in the class. The result is the students don’t feel I am hiding from them or attempting to sway them either, and they feel very respected. And I, in turn, feel very honored that they grace me with their presence (which I convey on a regular basis).

Frankie, at 8:10 pm EDT on July 1, 2008

Wes Ramsay — I’d love to chat

...and here’s why. Our daughter is looking at several “elite southern private colleges"...and frankly, I would appreciate a confidential off-line conversation with you, to discuss your daughter’s challenge. Thanks in advance if you can reach back to me at grs@softhome.net

Fellow Traveler, at 8:10 pm EDT on July 1, 2008

Frankie

You make one of my points. You do not engage in self-censorship. Neither are you a control freak.

The mass media does often censor itself. There are powerful psycho-social pressures, internal and external, that keeps important things from being said. It seems to me that Fish thinks education, likewise, should keep certain things from being mentioned in front of students. But I maintain these unmentionables can be broached in non-dogmatic ways and with utmost respect for students.

A given status quo will also know (yet refuse to recognize) any number of ego defense mechanisms at work within the culture. Fish, a theorist, evidently would have us teach these without actually applying them to culture?

James W. Gettys, at 10:45 pm EDT on July 1, 2008

“Fossil, while not terriblyfamiliar with all of Fish’s past positions or ideas, I still find your commentary troubling. If, as you state, Fish has flopped, doesn’t he have the right to do so? I recognize this change may lack credibility on the one hand, but doesn’t it also mark the possibility that Fish is signaling an evolution in his perspective? And in the end, shoudn’t we be pleased with his demonstration of learning that experience and thought seem to have wrought for Fish rather than being simply cynical or critical? Perhaps I am just hoping that as time goes on my ideas and actions are not expected to remain static...”

While we should be glad that Fish has seen the light that academic freedom applies to all or it can’t be said to exist, he really should still fess up to the 90s Memo to the Provost at Duke. His original claim that it was just to spark conversation, when it was not an open letter (as I recall) never flew and he should have the class to admit that what he did was a major violation of NAS members’ academic freedom and he now recognizes it was wrong. Having a memo sent behind your back that you should be out of consideration for critical university committee service for simply disagreeing with a fashionable bien pensant is, pardon the pun and drama, a Culture War Crime.

Kevin, at 5:30 am EDT on July 2, 2008

I find that attempts to teach social justice fail, when professors themselves don’t adhere to the beliefs of social justice that they inculcate to their students.

HW Walker, at 5:30 am EDT on July 2, 2008

New-fangled thing for education

” .. The mass media does often censor itself ..”

Uh .. heard of the Internet? Web? Like, why IHE is here?

Y’know — the platform that allows every idea, no matter how crazy, to be accessed? For good or bad?

Those who complain about “censorship” can be so ’90s.

Buzz, at 6:10 am EDT on July 2, 2008

On Both Fish’s Statements, Answering Buzz

Buzz: It’s true the internet contains subversive ideas. But the mass media retains a dominating influence (especially since recent legislation passed on behalf of the wealthy powers enables them to exert increasing control even over the internet, as recent Democracy Now commentators and scholars have pointed out.)

Polls show that most people still believe the misinformation put out by the Bush White House about Iraq in the lead up to war, lies which the media either bought into for ideological reasons or refused to question, even as the progressive media and the internet and 10 million people in the streets in this and other countries were trying to stop the invasion. There are many other issues on which an informed citizenry could act if the media did their proper job rather than serving as the propaganda arm of Washington (the system of both Democrats and Republicans representing the two wings of the ruling elites.)

As for “crazy ideas,” those of existing social hierarchies might very well be perceived as such by the public if it had a more thorough political education and a responsible media not controlled by corporations.

Indeed, the Corporation can be seen as today’s equivalent of the Feudal Manor, the dominant institution of our time, deserving of critique. This notion cannot be broached without being “political.”

As an educator I take quite seriously BOTH of Fish’s statements of educational purpose. The interview that follows, however, seems to emphasize the 2nd: a teaching of skills in a vacuum that gives students little latitude in, say, journalism schools. It is of little use to a democracy that journalists can write a correct sentence if they are only trained as White House or corporate stenographers.

Upon review, I admire BOTH of Fish’s statements. It’s just that the first is ineluctably a political act. So is the second if, by default, students are not introduced “to bodies of knowledge and traditions of inquiry that had not previously been part of their experience.” If not, they won’t know what to look for on the internet much less learn how to evaluate what they do find there.

I agree with many here that the first can be overdone to the exclusion of the second. But I also sense that the objection is itself overdone, and much of students’ resistance to writing results from students’ having nothing exciting or truly challenging to write about: It assumes that any prof. who broaches certain alternative ways of seeing is advancing a political agenda to the detriment of teaching skills. It ain’t necessarily so.

My father taught me some carpentry: it consists of two components: materials and tools, and skills. You need both. Professors should not censor or omit anything of either for being accused of having a political agenda. Education IS a political agenda, whether one thinks one is being political or not. Nothing could be more indoctrinating than trying to avoid politics. It does not equip students to examine tacit assumptions underlying the way we function. (Yes, as one commentator put it, students are “street wise.” To quote from Leonard J. Davis, “I knew the streets like a fish knows the ocean. But I wasn’t an oceanographer.”) By default it re-indoctrinates the existing ideology of the status quo and doesn’t give students any alternative materials and tools with which to question it.

A case in point: I had not been scheduled first semester freshman composition for two and a half years in a small department. In the meantime the department instituted a new Writing Proficiency Exam. Upon my return to teaching that course over two semesters, the scores went up slightly. I was the only new instructor. At the very least, it appears, my politically oriented pedagogy did not hurt the program.

My students were exited about incorporating new “bodies of knowledge and traditions” into their writing. They did not reach my conclusions. Some were tried and true right wingers who gloried in the chance to influence me and their classmates, and later sang my praises as a teacher for handing them some truly challenging problems to solve rhetorically (and they did, as I recall!)

Almost all improved their writing skills along with their new familiarity with political ideas not readily found on the internet or in scholarly databases without knowledge of the NECESSARY KEY WORDS. I still think that the inclusion of “socialist” or “anarchist” or “progressive” ideas in the classroom—“alienated labor,” “ideology,” “reification,” “compulsory heterosexuality,” feminist use of Stanley Fish’s own term “interpretive strategies,” “surplus value” and the reporting of journalists like “Alan Nairn” and “John Pilger”—for some strange reason, generates a repressive anxiety among some folks. It’s understandable.

I also think a political approach can be respectfully and responsibly done on behalf of students of all political stripes. Why not raise the level of discussion above and beyond the usual, banal liberal/conservative debate that runs the gamut from A to B?Only in this context does it become possible indeed to model arguments FOR the Feudal Manor or The Corporation.

Why? Believe it or not, the old conservatives of 19th c. Europe made some excellent points: The Feudal Manor did serve some very useful purposes to Western civilization as a whole, not just the elites, just as today’s corporations do, even if both are arguably sociopathic institutions. Only now we understand it all, each in our different ways, in a different context, which leaves open the slim hope that further economic and political evolution may be possible in a more socially conscious way. Did you know that some students (call them customers if you must) get very excited about this larger context? One such student of mine turned me in to Who’s Who among America’s Teachers. I’m afraid I found it behaviorally reinforcing. I regret there are “burned out socialists” who don’t care about teaching anymore. I’m not one of them, Buzz.

So I disagree with Fish if by “everything else” he means that such ideas should be grouped in the category of the not-said. Or that students should be sheltered.

James W. Gettys, at 8:55 am EDT on July 2, 2008

Prof Ethan should look harder

In reference to Caughie’s article in Academe, Prof Ethan writes: “No letters critical of these essays ever appeared in later editions of ‘Academe.’” FACT: Two letters appear in the following issue, one VERY critical of Caughie’s “method” of analysis. Basically, she seems to hold that when two views are “opposed” to one another, the opposition is a false dichotomy. When I (Smith) challenge her view in one of those letters, Caughie replies by noting my opposition as yet another example of false dichotomy. Funny thing is: SHE reserves the ability to oppose others for herself, but denies it of any who oppose her. Anyway, I suggest that Prof Ethan look more closely next time before pontificating.

Kurt Smith, at 9:15 am EDT on July 2, 2008

Exasperation may be too weak a word for registering what one feels, not so much about Fish, whose ideas are misguided enough (see Helen Gardner’s IN DEFENSE OF THE IMAGINATION ch 4, or Russell Jacoby’s DOGMATIC WISDOM), but about a major publishing company willing to give him a forum.

Like others, I am particularly provoked by his observations about the teaching of writing. As a notable though not noteworthy member of the profession of “English,” Fish never, as far as I can discern, did much of anything to improve the appalling working conditions of so many who have been, and continue to be, devoted to helping students become better readers and writers. No, it was a lot easier for him to chortle on about lit. theory and sneer at those who failed to cash in the way he has.

What’s particularly sad about Fish is his complete gnorance of the history of his own discipline/ profession, and lack of knowledge of those in it who have not found public involvement toxic to their teaching vocation. He probably never heard of Rober Morss Lovett of the University of Chicago, or understands how John Dewey could live by ideas, not merely teach them.

It seems to me that Fish is unable to understand that a class discussion in matters pertaining to the public realm can be anything other than preaching or indoctrination. While I too worry that doctrinal and declamatory teaching can substitute for real teaching and inquiry, I also know that it is often the case that whenever such legitimate inquiry and discussion of controversial issues take place in the classroom, there will always be those like Fish who will immediately label them, in typical sophistic or freshman-sophomoric fashion, as clearly out of bounds.

Those of us smart enough to honor rather than thoughtlessly dismiss such teaching, also honor, as did Wayne Booth, the centrality of rhetorical study and analysis in a liberal education. Alas, Professor Booth is no longer with us, and Stan, believe me, you’re no Wayne Booth.

George T. Karnezis, at 7:00 pm EDT on July 2, 2008

What of IHE?

” .. It’s true the internet contains subversive ideas. But the mass media retains a dominating influence ..”

Sir, you are wrong. On a regular basis, I see stories in the mainstream media that originated in Web-based publications such as “IHE” and fact-based blogs.

Those upset that their views are ignored would be wise to look in the mirror and ask themselves why. In a cool, hard-factual, and objective manner. Like an authentic intellectual and academic — not government bureaucrat.

Buzz, at 7:25 pm EDT on July 2, 2008

Buzz, You may be right

or not. There are two basic reasons why certain ideas get ignored or actions are avoided: (1) They’re dumb and (2) they’re potentially important.

James W. Gettys, at 10:35 pm EDT on July 2, 2008

Stick to teaching

” .. (2) they’re potentially important ..”

Really?

“Good ideas are common — what’s uncommon are people who’ll work hard enough to bring them about.” — Ashleigh Brilliant

To paraphrase Mr. Fish — either teach competently, or save the world on your own dime. The students received enough one-sided lecturing at home, and are not interested in paying again.

Buzz, Bored of long, 100MM-repeated screeds at Big Institution, at 10:50 am EDT on July 3, 2008

“Or actions are avoided”

Buzz,You did not answer the part of my response about actions (as in acting to stave off global warming) even if that has implications for our 401(k) plans.

Fish’s dichotomy strikes some of us as contradictory. Teaching IS a form of “saving the world,” however a given teacher conceives of saving the world, i.e. teaching skills.

And “teaching competently” means playing to one’s strengths, offering what one has to offer, I should think, with passion. I’ve made it clear that this need not mean being a control freak in the classroom. Some there are, I regret, who do indeed violate students in that way. Again, there are key distinctions to be made precisely for the sake of academic competence.

I think the coercion of students to adopt the teacher’s values, or else, is what Fish quite rightly warns against.

It’s interesting to me how the introduction of certain ideas or actions! sacreligious to capitalism or patriarchy or white supremacy,or heterosexism, etc. are equated with somehow coercing students. Especially when all students, ironically, arrive in the classroom already having been coerced by all these realities. Don’t they have a right to deliberate over such issues?

You keep saying students don’t want what I have to offer. My experience has taught me otherwise. (Is THAT what irks you?) I have made mistakes. But handled with sound pedagogy (teaching competence!) alternative political theories and sociological analyses are often very much welcomed by today’s students.

Fish is talking about wasting time preaching instead of teaching. He’s right. But where I may part with Fish is in defining “competence” as somehow avoiding politics, which I have argued is quite impossible. I think he needs to re-think his definition of competence. His own injunction is itself political in the extreme. Why, what if he left politics out of it and just said “Teach competently. Period"?

Buzz, Even if education is only about training for the workplace, the above topics are highly relevant to the workplace. But isn’t education also about opening minds in general? See John Henry Cardinal Newman _The Idea of the University_. Hardly a flaming left-wing radical, he had trenchant criticisms of the business model of education.

James W. Gettys, at 2:05 pm EDT on July 3, 2008

Academe articles

Prof Ethan and K. Smith:Your comments sent me to “Academe” to read the pieces by Rev. Kilmer and Prof. Caughie. I expected wild, ranting radicals screeching at captive students. I really did not find anything of the sort.

Prof. Caughie did not say she tries to convert all students to feminism as a political view [if it is one]; she said she tries to teach them to use feminist analysis and, in that sense, to ‘think like feminists.’ I try to teach my students to think like Platonists, when we read Plato, or to use Aristotelian teleological analysis when we study Aristotle. I’m sure I praise certain ethical approaches more than others in my ethics courses. That does not mean I insist that students adopt the same theoretical views.Rev. Kilmer NOWHERE said she uses students to ‘intimidate’ one another! She wrote that she sometimes finds it more effective to have students speak to each other about their views than to do so herself. I do the same thing — precisely to avoid any appearance of pushing a particular view with a student who is unwilling or unable to openly explore a topic. It is part of my role to be sure that students do not gang up on anyone, of course, and to point out any arguments the ‘resistant’ student might have called upon in defense of her/his views. This puts me in the role of discussion facilitator rather than that of deliverer of the one truth. When my students ask me what I think about a specific issue, I tell them, tell them why I think as I do, and tell them that they need not agree.

I don’t see how the two articles could have been read as expressions of intolerance towards diverse student views unless the reader assumed that feminist educators must be, by definition, political activists concerned only to convert students into disciples. Such an assumption would evidence a serious failure of critical reasoning and careful reading skills.

cts, at 3:10 pm EDT on July 3, 2008

they have a right to deliberate over these issues...

Dear J W Gettys:

1. You agree that coercion in a classroom is bad. Yet the Academe articles I referred to two days ago show how often coercion in a classroom is automatically accepted and even extolled as a good thing as long as it is in a good cause. Nowadays in the Humanities and Social Sciences, that means a left-wing cause.

This is not a small problem. To repeat (and clarify) what I have previously said: No letters were published in Academe criticizing Caughie’s article for saying that if students emerged from her class as 1960s-style feminists, “then I feel I have done my job"; she feels to produce such people is her academic job. And no letters were published in Academe protesting Kilmer’s article for its advice on how to abuse and humiliate any undergraduate who dared to dispute the ideology Kilmer was pushing.

One of the people writing those articles was an officer of the AAUP; the articles were followed by an article by the lawyer for the AAUP warning against interference with such classroom behavior. Perhaps you believe this is an isolated problem; from my own experience of 30 years at the university, I do not.

2. Yes, as you say, students in the university have a right to deliberate over social issues—with experts in those social issues. The highly-trained expertise of experts is what they are at the university to receive.

But a basic composition class taught by English instructors, who by definition are not expertly trained in (say) Sociology, History, Economics, or Political Science, is not that situation—and especially if the instructor in English feels it is his or her social duty to promote (say) “social justice.” This becomes simply an opportunity to gas off. And with people such as Caughie and Kilmer, you better not protest it.

Prof Ethan, at 3:10 pm EDT on July 3, 2008

Academe articles

I am surprised at the interpretation of the Academe articles by cts. Kilmer advises setting fellow undergraduates who agree with her in class on any undergraduate who dares to disagree with her in class. Caughie sees her *purpose* in her classroom as turning out ideologues.

Prof Ethan, at 3:25 pm EDT on July 3, 2008

Prof. Ethan and Composition

Prof. Ethan,What do you imagine students in English composition are writing about if not sociology, economics, history, cultural studies and so on?

James W. Gettys, at 6:35 pm EDT on July 3, 2008

Its the teaching, stupid

” .. Even if education is only about training for the workplace ..”

Sweet Jesus in Heaven — There are too many colleges (Vedder, Greene). First-year students — significant numbers require remedial work in math and grammar. Only 56.4% of students graduate within six years.

Large number of organizational employers (e.g., NGOs) report a basic lack of skills. Huge blunders by the Democrats and Republicans have the U.S. dollar plunging in value.

Open minds? How about doing the dang job competently?

Early reports have state taxpayer support for higher ed continuing to erode. Is it any wonder?

This is it. More critical blather blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah about why more critical blather blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah is needed is just an excuse to waste time, money and resources.

Stick to teaching your area of expertise. Or get out.

Edu-crats: if you’re going to have an English teacher expound on poly-sci or economics — have the cojones to tell students in advance. Not afterwards. That’s when the problems begin.

BTW: Ms. Caughie’s AAUP essay —

http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/academe/2007/JA/Feat/caug.htm

Her RMP listing —

http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=8127

Julie Kilmer’s AAUP essay:

http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/academe/2007/JA/Feat/kilm.htm

Buzz, Last survivor/endless chattering, at 9:35 pm EDT on July 3, 2008

Writing in the Disciplines

Prof. Ethan,A second semester freshman composition course I once taught part-time at a major university was in fact called Writing in the Disciplines. What’s a poor compositionist to do?

Are you aware that the discipline of modern rhetorical theory encompasses “the disciplines?” Did you know that literary theory partakes of many disciplines? Have you not heard of the interdisciplinary approach to rhetoric, composition and literature?

Did you know that there are experts who approach their disciplines from leftist perspectives? It’s called asking research questions that the mindsets of rightists and moderates (conservatives and liberals) can’t think to ask. You want students to know the range of questions experts ask, don’t you?

I repeat: what do composition students read and write about if not the disciplines?

James W. Gettys, at 9:35 pm EDT on July 3, 2008

Stick to teaching? Privatize!

” .. What do you imagine students in English composition are writing about if not sociology, economics, history, cultural studies and so on?”

An open, wide-band approach to current issues is one thing.

Absurd, ridiculous and ham-fisted attempts to compare one of two major political parties (guess which one) to Hitler and the Nazis is another.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_Hitlerum

A direct solution: privatize. If groups of alleged “academics” want to pound their political beliefs into the heads of 18-year-olds — let them. That’s academic freedom.

Those alleged academics just cannot do their political head-pounding with public tax dollars. To do otherwise is unfair, wasteful, and unsustainable.

Frank, at 9:35 pm EDT on July 3, 2008

teaching to the disciplines...

1. An English composition course might want to focus, JWG, on English composition—not on the inculcation of the instructor’s untrained view on the world. My guess is that the instructors who do this sort of bad pedagogy are (a) pretty bored by the task of teaching English composition, while (b) fired by a desire, as Fish says, to save the world (and their students, who suffer from false consciousness), so they use the classroom to do it.

The fact that they are not trained in history, sociology, economics or political science, though that is what they actually end up teaching, is irrelevant to them.

2. Regarding teaching as coercive ideological prosyletizing, just ask yourself, JWG, what your reaction would be to a colleague who said, “The purpose of my course in the Dept of English is to turn my students into conservatives. If, at the end of the course, they are ideological conservatives, then I feel that I have done my job.”

If Caughie’s purpose in the classroom as she sees it is in her article to transform her students into 1960s-style feminists, one is permitted to wonder what the consequence is in terms of grades for students who “don’t get it.” Meanwhile, Kilmer’s attitude in her article towards students who oppose her point of view in the classroom is hostile ab initio.

Prof Ethan, at 10:05 am EDT on July 4, 2008

On Privatizing and Reductio-ad-Stalinum, Don’t-bite-the-hand

Frank, It is my understanding from colleagues who teach in the privatized, for-profit sector that they feel severely constrained not to say anything anti-corporate in the classroom. Call it the “Don’t-bite-the-hand-that-feeds-you fallacy.Now you want to censor professors in the public sector because they lack the capital with which to found their own schools, and so,are paid by taxpayers.

Newsflash: The public is diverse. The public is a multitude of backgrounds,values, socioeconomic, ethnic, gender, cultural experiences. How many immigrants and students of color and working class students have felt validated, nay liberated, in my classroom because I raised issues relevant to their lives!

I’m sorry that, as a taxpayer, your views are not the only ones being proposed in the public academy today. You do not represent the public at large.

Where you and I are in complete agreement is the need to teach well. Where we may differ is whether discussing democratic issues in the classroom as invention work for composition necessarily precludes good teaching. Students encounter ideas, they hash them out, they write, they revise, we craft the format, grammar, and style and learn to connect with a business/academic audience.

Not easy these days, and the composition journals explore the multitudes of problems, including the reminder that neither you nor I learned to write at the college level in two semesters starting from scratch; that skill was well prepared for since the early grades, something large numbers of people in college don’t get. But I contend that’s also a political and economic issue.

I said above that the larger world outside the academy is repressive, which is precisely what has radicalized many intellectuals and driven them into the academy where they can be safely contained by the real Power Structure.

George Carlin was quite correct to point out that it is the Power Structure that does not want an intelligent, educated citizenry. It wants people who can operate the machines and do office paper work. It does not want thinkers and writers working toward solutions to the problems of corporate globalization.

Please, no Reductio-ad-Stalinum rejoinder.

ABC radio (mass media) has one talk show host after another pounding away with the most narrow, restricted discourse possible. Perhaps they have just as much a right to do so, being a private corporation, as the Soviet State had a right to publish Pravda.

ABC and Fox and to a lesser extent the other networks play upon folks’ authentic CULTURAL values to enlist the PUBLIC’S allegiance precisely to The Corporation. It’s as if a conglomeration of feudal manors in the middle ages had its own radio network while other conglomerates of feudal manors—also shilling for the FEUDAL MANOR—appealed to the rest of the public, though with less conservative cultural values. In those time the Church served that mass media purpose. Later the rising middle or private business class was accused of the sin of PRIDE by the then conservative forces. (Or see Alexander Pope: _Essay on Man_)

A QUESTION FOR STUDENTS: Is the public being economically squeezed so we can have a growing billionaire class? Go read some economists, inclusive of leftist ones. Personally, I think so, and my students know that. But I’ve had students reach (I require them to!) individual conclusions (including critiques of a possible reductio-ad-corporation fallacy), and they’ve often argued well, with, after successive drafts and peer reviews, a minimum of grammatical errors.And what of, ad nauseum on Fox TV and ABC radio, the Reductio-ad-Hitlerum argument applied first to Iraq then Iran, that is, the APPEASEMENT variation?

I patiently repeat: teaching competently need not, cannot, preclude a political orientation.

James W. Gettys, at 10:05 am EDT on July 4, 2008

Teach — not blah, blah, blah

” .. A QUESTION FOR STUDENTS: Is the public being economically squeezed so we can have a growing billionaire class?”

A QUESTION FOR STUDENTS: why are there at least 13,000,000 illegal immigrants in such a lousy country like the USA that has billionaires? Why not Mexico, which has billionaires? Or Canada?

Privatize higher-ed. Let the Mr. Gettys of public academia spew their grossly-obvious political bile with their own dimes. Not with the tax payments of hard-working non-college students.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Citizen_Kane

“[I entered this campaign]...with one purpose only, to point out and make public the dishonesty, the downright villainy of Boss Jim W. Gettys’ political machine, now in complete control of the government ..”

Frank, at 11:55 am EDT on July 4, 2008

Prof. Ethan

Surely you don’t mean by “untrained” one who, specialist or not, is not conservative.

In case you missed it above, my university English department REQUIRES me to introduce the disciplines—at the behest of specialists who teach upper-level courses.

My view of the world is hardly “untrained.” I was hired because my discipline, Rhetorical Theory and Composition, is by its nature interdisciplinary.

You ask, What if you professed to mold all your students into conservatives? You don’t have to to create that effect. The attempt to avoid political discourse may be tantamount to turning all students, by default, into conservatives of the unthinking rather than the thinking kind. I regard that as the most insidious form of indoctrination. See Richard Ohmann’s classic book, _English in America_.

A major composition theorist, Peter Elbow, writes of the need for students to approach all texts not skeptically at first but with an attitude of playing “The Believing Game.” Only by first in-dwelling in a discourse for a time are writers able then to recover their own voices and think critically about what they have just been “believing.” It’s called intellectual growth. Perhaps that’s what some professors mean by wanting students to learn “to think like a feminist.” It is NOT (necessarily) the equivalent of brainwashing. Rather, purporting to leave politics out of the classroom actually is, in my view.

Since we all have political orientations I believe we are obliged not only to disclose them but to present students with our reasons for them. (And, as Gerald Graff has argued, we should all be prepared to lose a few debates in the classroom. I’ve lost my share. But see again other pedagogical qualifications I mention in previous posts.) Otherwise, as Freud would note, whatever we try to suppress will out in some form that’s unfair to students. It’s honesty, not indoctrination.

James W. Gettys, at 11:55 am EDT on July 4, 2008

Teaching the discipline...

JWG, by “trained", I certainly did not mean “conservative"; (for what it is worth, I support Obama); I mean, if one is discussing a political subject in a classrom, trained at the graduate level, and particularly to the Ph.D. level, in a particular relevant discipline—history, sociology, economics, political science. That is what expertise is, and what the students and their parents are paying for.

For instance, I have a Ph.D. in History and I have written two books on empire which encorporate modern political science imperialism theory, and I have published an article in the eminient British journal The Economic History Review on imperialism theory. So if I choose to devote a class to the concept of “the American Empire", I know at a detailed *professional* level what I am talking about.

But if you, with a Ph.D. entitled (say) “Tension and Resolution of Tension in the Work of Nathaniel Hawthorne,” wish to tackle the same subject of “the American Empire” you are simply not trained at the professional level to tackle that subject. You are (frankly) just gassing off. That is because your professional training is in Rhetoric, and not in History, Sociology, Economics, or Political Science. You do not know enough at the professional level to talk about this subject, yet you presume to lead a discussion about it, or to lecture on it.

And if in addition you feel, as you obviously have indicated you do feel, that you have a duty to “raise the consciousness” of your students (i.e., to your level of “insight") by such work in the classroom, then you are not only gassing off on a subject for which you have no professional training, but you are engaging in political indoctrination to boot.

All I am asking is that people act in a professional manner in the classroom. Stick to what they actually know. I think that’s what Stanley Fish means to say. Don’t use the classroom as a soapbox. Be a professional.

And of course don’t take resistence to your gassing off (as Kilmer does in her article) as a reason to abuse students who oppose you. I’m not saying you do it, JWG—but that is what Kilmer said she did, and advocated that others do, and showed them how, in her article in Academe. All for the students’ own good, no doubt.

Prof Ethan, at 2:25 pm EDT on July 4, 2008

Stick to Citizen Kane

Jed Leland —

http://www.insidehighered.com/index.php/news/2008/04/18/laptops

J.W. Gettys —

See previous —

Wither Susan Alexander Kane?

Nearly 50% of the American public find this pedalogical approach narrow-minded, intellectually stifling, and practically useless.

If one is seeking to defund one’s department, one is on the right path and the outcome is in sight.

Buzz, at 2:25 pm EDT on July 4, 2008

Part I: Kane/Thatcher Debate

Prof. Ethan,Say hello to historiographer Hayden White for me. I’m curious, Prof. Ethan. What do you think of the state of the present empire? May I use your books in my classes?

Look, I feel a burden of proof. Note throughout how I don’t present these as doctrinal truths, but considerations to be thrown into the mix, without which I believe I would be indoctrinating by default.

Nor is each and every class devoted to such like. I do spend 60% to 90% of class time on skills and what would be called mainstream discourses. Moreover, not all of the following occurs in freshman composition, but in my literature and film studies classes (i.e. psychoanalytic theory, etc.) But there’s an important principle at stake. May those who likewise take a political approach (what could be more political than feminism?) take heed as well.

Point of clarification: Is it gassing off to direct students to texts written by leftist feminists, sociologists, political scientists, economists, professors of ethnic studies, in order to show that there are indeed academic specialists and experts whose studies lead them to support policies substantially to the left of Obama? (At least I hope you supported Kucinich before the media forced him out.) If students don’t know there exists any such discourses they won’t have the chance to think beyond the usual liberal/conservative debate, often based on what Alexander Cockburn calls “the bogus issue.” Freshman composition too soon for that? I think it rather late.

I disagree that such pedagogy constitutes indoctrination. Quite the contrary, at least in my own case, since my students aren’t required to adopt my conclusions. When I explain a concept or present a narrative, they are encountering one more text in their search for truth value. So I respectfully submit that trying to silence alternative perspectives at the freshman level on the grounds that an educator is not her- or himself a specialist in a defined field itself constitutes a form of indoctrination. For one thing, it may not adequately speak to the experience of many, many students. Moreover, it has to do with the etymology of the word “educate,” meaning “to lead forth,” a point I will revisit below.

I suggest you read some, say, Marxist literary theory where you will find that the aesthetic tension in Hawthorne can be revealed as psychological, social, historical, economic, political. It is not aesthetic in a vacuum. Self-contained expertise is good because it raises loftier and loftier questions, even as it also limits the kinds of questions that can be asked. But see also what happens to the text under a feminist light. Or that of Queer Theory. Or even racial concerns, even if there are no people of color in the text. These “outside” disciplines retain the power to crack open a text in new ways, teaching us much about cultural history. More truth shall always set us more free.

James W. Gettys, at 6:20 am EDT on July 5, 2008

Buzz

You left out Emily Monroe Norton, Raymond, and Jerry Thompson.

James W. Gettys, at 6:20 am EDT on July 5, 2008

Kane/Thatcher Debate Pt. II

An earlier post alluded, for example, to French Impressionism in the arts. I direct you to Fredric Jameson (again a literary theorist venturing outside literature) who argues in works like _Marxism and Form_ and _The Political Unconscious_ that Impressionism was an emotional (psycho-social) response to daily life in a particular historical situation. It was not merely a development in painterly fashion within some autonomous realm of art. (There is no such thing as the autonomy of art or literature.) Jameson is able to generate the insight through interdisciplinary investigation, whereas a self-contained art history would not allow such an analysis.

(As for me, a non-expert, I think the precursors to Impressionism were painters living longer so their eyes were going bad.)

But see art historian John Berger in _Ways of Seeing_ to discover how his knowledge of social history enhances—and politicizes—what he can say about the form and content of European art history.

Students will end a 4-yr program or more having taken a number of courses in several disciplines. Don’t we want them, ultimately, to see the interrelationships among these fields for a sense of history and culture? Ever hear of Writing across the Curriculum?

In my professional opinion, mainstream culture tends to discourage all of our (not just students’) exposure to a wide enough range of discourses, and it impoverishes all of us as citizens in a democracy. Like all professors, I’m fallible. But a professor professes. In the classroom, as an expert, so you, Prof. Ethan, are also only a text. Do you remind your students of that? There are other specialists, I’m sure, whose research and whose claims differ from yours. That’s what we do in our scholarly books and journals: differentiate ourselves. Knowledge is advanced in being contested. I hope your students are well aware of that. Otherwise, even experts can give the impression that they know the truth.

My concern is that the whole of the U.S. education system is one of indoctrination, which contributes to much unnecessary suffering in the U.S., nay, in the world. I allude to the argument that NAFTA, the displacement of Mexican people off their land, and other corporate-orchestrated trade and foreign policies (like the Ponzi debt imposed on Latin American countries in the 70’s) are so many factors in the immigration issue, an argument conveniently omitted in the press. (What’s that Freud said about suppression, repression, denial, rationalization?)

My philosophy of teaching would problematize our education system’s indoctrination by showing how I think that already existing indoctrination works. That means directing students’ attention to experts in various fields whose work tends to support such a counter thesis. Again, knowledge is advanced in being contested. Again, additional or “taboo” texts for students’ deliberation.

What is a thesis? A claim. Students must evaluate the evidence and warrants for their own in relation to what various experts of various opinions argue. I see to it that those opinions represent a wider range than usual. It’s called The Inquiry Method. Inquiry may well take us across disciplines and into sometimes “forbidden” discourses like feminism, Marxism, anarchism, Buddhism and The Simpsons. It’s a fun job but somebody’s got to do it.

James W. Gettys, at 6:20 am EDT on July 5, 2008

Kane/Thatcher Debate Pt. III

Students must also know that there are many Marxisms, just as there are many feminisms and anarchisms and several Simpsons. All fields and all human existence is shot through with politics. The sooner we accept that and develop rhetorical skill in negotiating it the better. It pertains to the workplace, the community and the home.

It is important for students to know these kinds of analyses exist in scholarly books and learned journals. I thought the idea of self-contained disciplines went out by the late 70s. That notion was thought an ideological strategy of containment. So-called disciplines are useless if knowledge and epistemological strategies cannot be interchanged, tested against and overlapped with one another.

I emphasize that all these discourses, all these thinkers (say, Cornel West—African-American theologian, philosopher, historian, social theorist) offer more, perhaps, in their styles of thinking than in their conclusions. You are never required to adopt any historian’s or any philosopher’s or any theorist’s conclusions. Not Freud’s, not Lacan’s not Judith Butler’s.

Take Hegelian dialectic. Or Marx, who proclaimed Hegel’s dialectic should be stood on its head. I myself do not subscribe to Marx’s conclusions, certainly not his politics. (I once had a “discussion” with a student who, I felt, needed to complicate his overly enthusiastic understanding of “surplus value.” Was I thereby indoctrinating him? But Marx’s style of thinking may generate interesting and useful insights, and, in my professional opinion, when some students resonate with them there may be inklings already lurking within those students. And the encounter with a radical text happened to draw it forth. (See Stanley Fish on Reader Reception Theory.)

In short, our students are diverse not only in ethnicity and gender but in learning styles, backgrounds, experiences, desires and their own—I repeat, THEIR OWN—potentially unique insights. Education should not be seeking to homogenize them, confine them, but rather preparing them to make their own future world, even if Exxon Mobile and McDonald-Douglas is anxious about what kind of world it would be, perhaps in solidarity with third-world women in guaranteeing access to potable water. Who knows? All I’m saying is that a wider range of discourses in our schools couldn’t hurt. But for that we need academic freedom for all students, not just one dem

Fish to Profs: Stick to Teaching

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Academe articles

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