Academe: October 2007 Archives
Yeah, I know. But I've read the past couple of pieces Fish has written in the NYT about the academy's response to accusations of indoctrination, and they've been pretty well balanced. His latest piece includes the following:
In response to the Students for Academic Freedom's insistence that professors "should not be making statements ... about George Bush if the class is not on contemporary American presidents," the subcommittee offers this grand, and empty, pronouncement: "[A]ll knowledge can be connected to all other knowledge." But if the test for bringing a piece of "knowledge" into the classroom is the possibility of connecting it to the course's ostensible subject, nothing will ever fail it, and the only limitation on the topics that can be introduced will be the instructor's ingenuity.
My point is made for me by the subcommittee when it proposes a hypothetical as a counterexample to the stricture laid down by the Students for Academic Freedom: "Might not a teacher of nineteenth-century American literature, taking up 'Moby Dick,' a subject having nothing to do with the presidency, ask the class to consider whether any parallel between President George W. Bush and Captain Ahab could be pursued for insight into Melville's novel?"
But with what motive would the teacher initiate such a discussion? If you look at commentaries on "Moby Dick," you will find Ahab characterized as inflexible, monomaniacal, demonic, rigid, obsessed and dictatorial. What you don't find are words like generous, kind, caring, cosmopolitan, tolerant, far-seeing and wise. Thus the invitation to consider parallels between Ahab and Bush is really an invitation to introduce into the classroom (and by the back door) the negative views of George Bush held by many academics.
Read the whole thing - for Fish, it is remarkably succinct, perhaps because the NYT has a pretty strict word limit on op-eds.
This article posits an interesting hypothesis regarding the death of Edgar Allan Poe, and brings back memories of my American Lit survey courses from sophomore year.
I remember 2 things clearly from that course, taught by a specialist in Poe:
- Edgar Allan Poe didn't go by Edgar Allan Poe, he was just Edgar Poe. The Allan got added in posthumously.
- My professor was convinced, based upon this daguerreotype , that Poe died of a stroke. He always noted the way that one side of Poe's face drooped.
If it turns out that Poe did suffer from a brain tumor, then perhaps my somewhat eccentric, banzai-tree-pruning Poe specialist professor (who is still at Davidson and still teaching, I'm pleased to note!) was at least partially correct - brain tumors can be a factor in making strokes more likely to occur, after all.
Say that 3 times fast.
Over at Durham in Wonderland, K.C. Johnson explores the intent and assumptions behind a call for fellowship applications from the John Hope Franklin Institute. His analysis, as usual, is interesting, so read if you're looking for insight into the intersection of the humanities and politics.
Me, I'm more appalled at the intersection of the humanities and illiteracy. Why? Check out the title of the fellowship's theme:
The Alternative Political Imaginaries
Okay, what? No, really. What part of speech is "imaginaries" supposed to be in this context? A noun? The second part of a compound subject, the first part of which is "political?" If either, then what the hell is an "imaginary," since we need to define that first before we go around pluralizing it. Is it someone who imagines alternative politics? Is it an escapee from a Disney team of "Imagineers" who has decided to defect to academia and build Che Guevara-themed tea rooms? Is it just a really poor pun on "luminaries?" Evidence that the author may be overfond of absinthe with his or her morning toast?
Read the excerpts over at DIW for further examples of literacy-challenged and unclear prose.
I wandered over to the foundation's website and discovered that the institute was all about being interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, uber-disciplinary - you get the picture. Somehow over the past decade the humanities have decided that it's a really good idea to take all their disciplines--some with thousands of years worth of complicated contextualized content--and make gumbo out of it. Gumbo tastes good, it's pretty cheap and filling and a clever way to get rid of leftovers, but you generally don't learn much from it.
Except, apparently, how to turn words into meaningless mushy nonsense.
Okay, at the risk of doing some totally inappropriate girly gushing, I've gotta say thanks to all of you super-awesome folks who have volunteered to send a postcard. It's really cool getting emails from readers from places I've never been, or only visited once in passing...yay! Plus, since most folks read w/out commenting, it's nice to know that there's actual reading taking place. So again, yay!
But that's not the only reason why it's like Christmas on Thursday in October. Oh, no. You see, today I picked up a copy of the Chronicle of Higher Ed, and guess what was on page B4 in the Review section?
A David Horowitz article slamming the AAUP. For those of you who may have just fallen off a turnip truck, publishing Horowitz in the Chronicle criticizing the AAUP is kind of like tossing a hunk of pure sodium into a bucket of water. Wheeee! I'll be keeping a watch on the discussion boards over there just for my own amusement.
On a related note, another academic has published an op-ed in Inside Higher Ed arguing against professors inserting personal political viewpoints (or really much personal info at all) into the classroom. In reading several such articles over the past weeks, and in the comments section to this one, I've come across more than one commenter quoting Kurt Vonnegut:
" I argued that it was a teacher's duty to speak frankly to students of college age about all sorts of concerns of humankind, not just the subject of a course as stated in the catalogue. "That's how we gain their trust, and encourage them to speak up...."- Kurt Vonnegut
and using it to argue equivalence between "offering information about all the different viewpoints on a particular subject" and "me, me, me, glorious me, fabulous me, here's what I think, me, me, me, let's have a rap session, man, because students totally can't learn unless a viewpoint is embodied."
I don't know if Vonnegut intended that quote as encouragement for those professors with egotistical leanings toward the cult of personality (cough, WARD CHURCHILL, cough), who feel the urge to cover students with wild-eyed rants about the fabulousness of themselves and their opinions, but in my experience the kinds of folks who sling Vonnegut quotes around to justify their harangues are also pretty overdeveloped in the self-esteem department.
I don't think you can draw any large conclusion about the "all me, all the time" culture of the 60's and 70's and the subsequent development of this mindset, but it is interesting. Plus it gives me another excuse to blame the baby boomers for every evil thing that's ever happened, ever, so it's a win-win for me.
So a friend of mine forwarded me a post that's been making the rounds on a mailing list frequented by the thinky folks in the education world. No, not the people who actually DO the educating; the people who think about how the people who do the educating should go about educating other people. Yeah. Those people.
The article deals with the oh-so-topical-and-touchy subject of "advocacy in the classroom." Short summary? See title of post above.
Anyway, the article, she is long, so I'm doing the excerpt thing here. Follow the link above for the whole article. First, I'll give you the paragraph wherein the authors defend advocacy over neutrality:
"While such advocacy has costs and risks, we give it a conditional defense. First, for the educator to take a neutral stance on such issues would tend to give students the relativistic message that no answers are better or closer to the truth than any others regarding moral, political, and religious questions. This is to promote a dubious
doctrine that students are too ready to embrace out of laziness, defensiveness, and postmodern cultural influences. A neutral instructor could try to preempt this relativistic implication by notifying students that her own refusal to advocate a position is due to the neutrality required by her role and not because of personal indifference or the lack of objectively correct answers. Yet such an explicated neutrality still has the disadvantage of failing to model a concerned but responsible defense of a position. Such modeling may contribute to the educational goal of creating engaged and independent citizens. A professor who never advocates conclusions can model critical reasoning but not commitment. The neutral professor might try to further close this "commitment gap" by giving examples of sincere engagement by other intellectuals and activists. For example Pope John Paul II's opposition
to abortion could be contrasted with the arguments and stories of feminists defending abortion rights- thereby giving students models of engagement to choose from. However, such pedagogy still has a cost. Students would not encounter flesh and blood individuals taking a stand on contemporary issues- commitment would only exist on paper or in classroom videos, not in professors."
So if a professor doesn't take a stand, students believe that there is no answer? Couldn't a professor say, "Here are the arguments for and against. Pick one and defend it." And students are incapable of dealing with ideas unless they are physically embodied inside the classroom by a professor? Curious argument, and somewhat revealing in terms of what the authors think about the mental capacity of students.
It goes on in this vein. Perhaps sensing that their article might be considered long and rambling, the authors helpfully summarized their ideas in a numbered list, which I will produce here (my comments in bold):
"Our discussion of advocacy yields the following proposal:
1) Professors should avoid indoctrination in their advocacy. In particular professors should not:
* Attempt to influence students to believe things without regard for the evidence
* Coerce student agreement or silence to secure the prevalence of their own views
* Lie about or distort material
Sounds good so far! How's that working in reality?
2) Professors must support independent intellectual inquiry. In particular they should:
* Make clear that different views and questions are welcome
* Present a balanced discussion of reasonable alternatives and relevant considerations regarding issues discussed
Okey-dokey.
3) Professors should avoid advocacy which prevents the accomplishment of course goals.
Sure. Note to former professor who I shall refer to only as Grendel girl (explanation to follow) - PAY ATTENTION TO THIS ONE!
4) Professors should only advocate positions which they have good reason to believe are correct.
Um, okay? Isn't this a bit subjective? Some people apparently have good reason to believe that fire can't melt steel...or that the earth is flat...But okay, moving on.
5) Professors should only advocate when they have reason to believe advocacy will contribute to student development. The value of advocacy may include:
* Fostering values necessary for education and inquiry
* Teaching basic humanitarian principles and virtues necessary for good citizenship
* Promoting views that are not taken sufficiently seriously by students
What are these values? Who decides? No, really. Who decides? Because this goes beyond a professor presenting pros and cons of particular items within the subject's purview. Plus, when people start talking about "virtues" and "good citizenship," I get that creepy feeling. Again, who decides?
6) The pedagogical value of advocacy in item 5 should outweigh any costs of advocacy in class time or the unintentional alienation or intimidation of students."
Woah. So advocacy is bad, unless it's for subjects that are self-evidently "correct," or that a teacher "is reasonably sure are correct," or that an instructor feels are "virtues," or items that "students aren't taking seriously," in which case: ADVOCATE!
Taken by itself, this seems a fairly innocuous list - the usual pablum about "challenging viewpoints," etc. And within the context of liberal arts/humanities education, this sometimes is useful. Particularly in literature, when you spend a lot of time making connections between past and present in terms of literary themes. But the reality is different, as anyone who's taken lit courses in the past decade or so knows. When Beowulf becomes a vehicle for discussing Palestinian liberation in every class, it's no longer about stimulating student reflection, unless you think Grendel authored the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. And let's get serious about what sort of advocacy one is liable to encounter in today's academy, particularly on the humanities side. I'm at one of the more conservative universities in a pretty conservative state, and yet - Grendel! Palestine! WTF!
As for neutrality, to this day I have no idea of the political persuasion of my MA thesis advisor, someone with whom I had a close enough personal relationship to invite her to my wedding. And yet, I somehow managed to read and understand both sides of the arguments I was presented with, and to utilize deductive reasoning within her classes, all without being exposed to Points Of View in The Flesh!
For me, this is about trust. I don't trust people who are overwhelmingly on one side of a debate to offer guidelines about advocacy, particularly when every example of advocacy within their article falls conveniently on that side of the debate. If the roles were reversed, I'm sure the authors would see the double-edged-ness of this particular sword.
