Ironies of a Career in Composition
In my English 611 class, I learned that a professional career in teaching involved many ironic stipulations. As a new professor, I would be expected to teach a heavy course load, four units each semester, write and publish papers, compete for sabbaticals and tenure-tack positions, and, of course, fix the writing mistakes of all first year students that entered my classroom. Any practical person can tell you that trying to do all this, and more that will be expected of you, is unrealistic. It will only further tire and devastate already overworked, part-time teachers.
The irony I specifically focused on was how professors of composition are rewarded for succeeding in competition against their peers. Professors aren't considered prestigious, authority figures on their specific subject matters unless they have a Ph.D. and are publishing papers. Competition is not necessarily bad. However, when it drives a community of scholars apart, there is reason for concern. How are teachers expected to improve the structure of a composition classroom when they do not have the full support of those working in their department? I am not arguing that all English professors need to think alike. Changes do not occur if everyone thinks a certain way. Instead, I am proposing a new form of interaction amongst professors. Based off the readings of Kenneth Burke and David Blakesley, I have found some information that might help me deal with these ironies once I am a professor.
During the years proceeding World War II, Burke wrote his first book of theory Counter Statement (1931). In his text, Burke claimed that "knowledge is one product of social relations" (Blakesley 17). He argued that it would be best if members of a society thought along the terms of "competitive cooperation" when introducing distinct and contrary ideas in order to avoid a consensus, in which a group of people agree with an idea in order for the society to get along. He feared that silent agreement could be dangerous because it encouraged complacency and even complicity. He believed that the "purpose of intellectual inquiry [was] to transcend the limitations of individual perspectives or of the unquestioned linkages or associations that we make between words and things" (17). The terms he used to describe this theory were dramatism and dialectical.
One way I could implement this kind of thinking within a department is by encouraging my coworkers to read Kenneth Burke, maybe even photo-copying select passages for them to read about "competitive cooperation." I could also set an example by the way I interact with professors. I would treat all professors equally regardless of their status, whether full or part time, MA or Ph.D. I think it is important that professors recognize that globalization and capitalism are socially constructed terms. We should not let such qualifies rule us. Why buy into the belief that just because someone has a Ph.D. they must be wise? By looking at terms dialectically, we are able to recognize how the signifiers behind terms affect the social construction of society. For example, in On Symbols and Society (1989), Burke explains the exemplary relationship for people who are discussing various issues:
But insofar as terms are thus encouraged to participate in an orderly parliamentary development, the dialectic of this participation produces (in the observer who considers the whole from the standpoint of the participation of all the terms rather than from the standpoint of any one participant) a "resultant certainty" of a different quality, necessarily ironic, since it requires that all the sub-certainties be considered as neither true nor false, but contributory (as were we to think of the resultant certainty or "perspective of perspectives" as a noun, and to think of All the contributory voices as necessary modifiers of that noun). (256)
By willing to listen to everyone's ideas, despite the fact that they might be different, a contributing environment is created in which all ideas are considered equally relevant. However, in order for such a situation to work within a larger society, such as a Department of English, all people involved in the discussion must be willing to listen and try to understand another's point of view. For example, a person who teaches literature must respective his or her fellow professors in other areas of English, such as composition, rhetoric, linguistics, or speech. The hierarchy that was created by a colonial language, English, can be destroyed by dramatism.
Blakesley explains that dramatism can help people analyze the basis of their unity, for instance the inclusive field of English, in relation to differences, such as different focuses like composition, ELS, and literature, using rhetoric, which will ultimately create new communities or ways of identifying ourselves. This is very positive and, if utilized within a department of English, will strengthen not only our community with each other, but our teaching methods. What better classroom then one in which all students are willing to listen to each other as they engage in intellectual debates? Specifically, the "aim of dramatism is... to show us ways to develop our ideas so that we, the people who represent them, can continually find new reasons for identification even as we and our ideas grow more and more divided" (Blakesley 18). If professors can take the ideas of dramatism and dialectical awareness into department meetings, perhaps we would eventually implement a new structure to higher education.
For more information about hierarchies, globalization, communities, and collaboration, please view my English 600 web site.
Works Cited
Blakesley, David. The Elements of Dramatism. New York: Pearson Education, 2002.
Gusfield, Joseph R., ed. Kenneth Burke: On Symbols And Society. Chicago: U of Chicago, 1989.