Professor Stanley Fish
Professor Stanley Fish believes college professors ought to limit their activities in the classroom. Specifically:
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.”
The list of what professors ought not do in the classroom is much shorter:
Everything else.
Sounds like a guy from whom I could learn a great deal. I was particularly impressed with his thoughts on the teaching of writing skills.
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.
Not to suggest that I am a latter day Charles Dickens, but I do have the opportunity to read a fair bit of professional correspondence from a variety of educated professionals in the engineering field. And Professor Fish has a very valid point. Our ability to communicate via the written word is diminishing.
I'm not sure what to make of his assessment of the professorial class with regards to politics in the classroom.
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.
His evaluation of 10 percent sounds pretty close to me based on my experiences and those of my daughter. I take larger issue with his disparagement of "the neoconservative public relations machine". The perception that college campus faculty are largely populated by leftists comes from experiences with the faculty.
I had one professor that is a borderline socialist. He truly believes that private industry is generally a bad idea and that government is supposed to enforce equality. He is a classic example of the sort of professor that attempts to imprint his beliefs on his students. A friend of mine had him for a writing course a couple years after I had him for a humanities course. In the writing course, this professor assigned his students the task of writing an essay about why it was wrong for our military to be in Iraq. My friend is also a fellow veteran and was disgusted at the professor's blatant attempt at propaganda.
I had another professor for a political science class that was a bit leftish with libertarian tendencies. He usually argued the libertarian perspective in class as most students were either 'liberal', conservative, or some where in the middle. I did him the favor of letting him make the 'liberal' case in class while I defended the libertarian front. The obvious difference is that this guy knew who he was...and wasn't likely to change...but also respected the views of others. He was interested in a quality discussion.
My daughter has also had more than a few professors that let their personal politics 'slip' into the subject matter.
I think the good professor is attempting to minimize the lack of ideological diversity present on college campuses.
Update - I had the chance to discuss this issue with my daughter's significant other who is currently attending an Ivy League school. As there are fewer opportunities for indoctrination....as opposed to education....in the hard sciences, he's had much less experience with such things. However, passing by other classrooms he has heard a number of professors that step over the line.
The larger problem is the militant manner that his fellow students address various political issues. I use the word "address" because "discuss" and/or "debate" aren't appropriate descriptions for their conduct. Shouting people down having replaced thoughtful engagement in some circles.
by Dann
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