This is the data point that slid off of Fish's Hook;
it's not as much that the number of Humanities Profs has decreased as
that the number of trade school adjuncts has increased.
The spectacular growth in American higher education has been on the
community college and state college (rebranded University) level, and
these institutions are vocationally oriented (I taught at one for
nearly 40 years).
The elites are still the elites -- they are just no longer the
mainstream.
On Jan 20, 2009, at 10:29 AM, Gaft, Sam wrote:
But the reality was in the article in his references to Phoenix.
They are big and they are growing.
Seems to me we, in Detroit, saw this happen when the late Henry
Ford II appeared on Meet the Press and ordained that "we'll give
the Jap's (sic) the small cars. . . ""
Lexus anyone?
-----Original Message-----
From: Ken Steele [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Mon 1/19/2009 1:25 PM
To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)
Subject: Re: [tips] The Fish Course (something fishy)
Paul Brandon wrote:
I haven't read this article, but I do occasionally read him for
amusement.
He's a philosopher, which means that he doesn't feel any need to
tie his
statements to reality, and has no appreciation for systematic data
collection.
Internal consistency is all!
Sounds like he's talking about himself.
Fish's degree is in English and he is a prominent
deconstructionist. I think he would agree with Paul that he
doesn't feel any need to tie his statements to reality because he
questions the existence of "reality."
A famous story illustrates Fish's view:
"A simple illustration of interpretive communities is Fish's
story of baseball umpire Bill Klem, who once waited a long time
to call a particular pitch. "Well, is it a ball or strike," the
player asked impatiently. To which Klem replied, "Sonny, it ain't
nothing 'til I call it" - saying, in effect, that balls and
strikes are not facts in the world but "come into being only on
the call of an umpire." This example shows how his scholarship
questions our conventional assumptions about fairness, justice,
and truth."
from http://www.biographybase.com/biography/Fish_Stanley.html
But substitute "surgeon" for "umpire" and "liver" for "strike"
and "lung" for "ball." I'm glad Fish doesn't teach in a med school.
Ken
Paul Brandon
Emeritus Professor of Psychology
Minnesota State University, Mankato
[email protected]
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