Re: elite/elitism (fwd)
Carolyn Dean (jcdean@GETONTHE.NET)
Sun, 13 Oct 1996 01:52:26 -0600
>More important though, I completely reject the claim you seem to be making
>here, that fy comp is a place to focus on grammar, to get down the five
>paragraph form down, to learn "proper behavior," to merely understand the
>rules (as if there are "THE RULES," as if fy comp alone can prepare
>students along these lines). I reject the idea that as a fy comp teacher,
>my job is to essentially "box" students-- that is, clean and package them,
>prepare them for shipping to the rest of the University machine, ready for
>consumption and participation in the "real" classes. I reject the notion
>that theorizing about pomo or anything else is the sort of thing only
>doable by grad students and some juniors and seniors-- fy students can
>certainly do this too. And I reject the notion that fy comp is just about
>teaching "effective language constructs," since most of my pedagogical
>practices are based on theories and concepts articulated by folks
>(pomo-types and otherwise) who rejected concepts like this as long as 20
>years ago.
>
>So, while you (like my culture studies colleagues I mentioned in my
>original post) might view fy comp as somehow seperate from the rest of
>higher education
I do not see fycomp as somehow separate from the rest of higher education,
nor did I say a word about grammar, behavior, rules, or the five-paragraph
essay. And I find it amazing that you and your colleagues rejected the
concept of the effective use of language. Is there no such thing in the
postmodern world as using the best word in the most effective way?
But I do see part of my job as preparing students for participation in
the rest of the University world (or just the rest of the World) -- that
is, teaching them to think, and teaching them to present those ideas
effectively.