response to stanley fish September 2, 2009
Posted by KC in academia, education, teaching, writing.add a comment
The following is a comment I made on Stanley Fish’s recent New York Times blog posts, which can be found here and here. This won’t make much sense if you haven’t read both his posts first.
Okay, here’s my exercise, Dr. Fish: Neither this sentence nor the next one will be particularly meaningful, because they aren’t situated in any kind of context. See?
But seriously, I thank you for clarifying (or perhaps backpedaling on) your position. I agreed with one of the premises of the first post, which was that writing courses ought not be literature or cultural studies courses in disguise, with a thin veneer of writing instruction layered over the top. I, too, have seen too many courses like that, and I think it comes from the fact that many composition instructors are/were literature grad students who didn’t find jobs teaching literature, so they use comp. courses as a surrogate. I think this does a disservice to students. Actual writing instruction is a good thing.
However, I’m not sure I agree with you about what actual writing instruction involves. Your neither/nor exercise gets at style, but does little in terms of other canons of rhetoric, like invention or arrangement. Students cannot practice discovering the available means of persuasion if they don’t a) have some topic they are treating (we might call this “content”) or b) have some audience they are aiming to persuade. Learning how to write shouldn’t be disconnected from having something to say.
I teach freshman composition as a course in ethnographic writing, not because I think learning how to do fieldwork is all that important (although observing and interviewing are useful skills), but because it provides a definable context for learning how to describe and analyze cultural behaviors and artifacts. That is, it gives students a motive to write. Even a literature-based composition course could use a poem or a novel as an occasion to write. I think it is not a question of either/or — either content or form, literature (or cultural studies) or writing. Instead, it is a matter of foregrounding the appropriate activities, which in the case of a composition course would be the writing.
you, sir, are no professor x September 24, 2008
Posted by KC in education, teaching.3 comments
It’s been out for a while now, but I was just recently pointed to a piece in the Atlantic, titled “In the Basement of the Ivory Tower,” in which an adjunct college instructor complains at length, under the pseudonym of “Professor X,” about how “unfit for college” his students are. No, really:
For I, who teach these low-level, must-pass, no-multiple-choice-test classes, am the one who ultimately delivers the news to those unfit for college: that they lack the most-basic skills and have no sense of the volume of work required; that they are in some cases barely literate; that they are so bereft of schemata, so dispossessed of contexts in which to place newly acquired knowledge, that every bit of information simply raises more questions. They are not ready for high school, some of them, much less for college.
I think this perspective is so vile and loathsome, so indicative of a total misunderstanding of the educational enterprise, that it hardly needs comment. However, I got to thinking about this author’s choice of pseudonym.
Professor Charles Xavier.
Art by Aaron Lopresti
You see, this Professor X is all about the “non-traditional” students – in this case, mutants. Perhaps the Atlantic’s “Professor X” also thinks of himself as working with mutants. Here’s how he describes one of his favorite ways of talking about students:
I don’t have cause to use much educational jargon, but deficits has often come in handy. It conveys the seriousness of the situation, the student’s jaw-dropping lack of ability, without being judgmental.
First he’s dismissive about “educational jargon,” and then turns around and uses a term — “deficit” — that no self-respecting educator has used in decades. In what universe is labeling a student as deficient not judgmental? I’d expect the real Professor X (yes, I realize he’s a fictional character, but bear with me) to speak in terms of what his students have, rather than what they lack. I peg the Atlantic’s “Professor X” as more of a Magneto type.
If you don’t believe in the inherent educability of everyone, then perhaps teaching isn’t the best profession for you. I think “Professor X” probably deserves the students he complains about, but his students certainly don’t deserve him.
a vision of students today October 22, 2007
Posted by KC in education.1 comment so far
Check out this thought-provoking video about undergraduates from cultural anthropologist Michael Wesch:
I’ve been using Rebekah Nathan’s book, My Freshman Year, in my ethnographic writing courses to discuss the experiences of being a college student, but I like the fact the material for Wesch’s video was generated by the students themselves.
either/or priorities? June 25, 2007
Posted by KC in education.1 comment so far
NPR’s Steve Inskeep recently interviewed Merrill Vargo, a school testing consultant, about the impact of No Child Left Behind (listen to the entire interview here). When asked about the curricular choices schools sometimes have to make, she had this to say:
“Life is full of trade-offs. If you’ve got a student population that is struggling to learn English, their lives depend on their getting good at that. And if you need to walk away from your music class, your art class, you may need to do that. That’s not the best of all possible worlds, but that may be the best choice in the real world.”
Nonsense. Learning is posited here as an either/or proposition: either you can do art and music, or you can learn English. I think most of us understand that the most powerful learning happens in an enriched environment. By focusing only on “basics,” we teach students to hate school, where learning becomes a joyless enterprise. If students’ lives truly depend on learning English (which seems like a weird idea in itself), then maybe we should make school a place worth going to every day. When I was in high school, sometimes the only reason I got out of bed in the morning was for the music classes. I don’t think arts education is optional.
The real limiting factor here is not students’ ability to learn, but instead schools’ willingness to devote resources to subjects like art and music. Schools have limited budgets. And, when it really comes down to it, it’s the schools, not the students, who depend on students performing well on standardized tests. Thanks, NCLB!
