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02/13/2005 Archived Entry: "Theories of Scientific Management as Writing"

Theories of Scientific Management as Writing
It used to be that a WPA listserv post might provoke me into responding. But the lack of discussion these days on the list really makes me feel that listserv discussions on WPA go nowhere fast. And between Edbauer, Donna, and me, we had more discussion on our blogs than the list did. So here's another post from the master of scientific management in composition studies. Although I'm sure he doesn't remember, on another listserv, I once called his understanding of program administration Taylorist. We hear Taylorism again in this post. It starts with a move against cultural studies, language learning, or related areas of thinking about writing (which other list members group together under the generic label of theory):

So what I think about these days, instead of worrying about whether
language accomplishes anything meaningful or injustice continues
infecting the human spirit, is whether each individual caught up in the
process of first-year composition at my school actually ends up writing
more effectively.

And then states:

This forum needs to think about how to teach AND ADMINISTER freshmen
composition better. I see continuing calls for information and surveys
and calls for presentations and such, and people pointing out this book
or that article to go to, but I don't see anybody figuring out and
describing in any detail how large composition programs using graduate
students as instructors can do the job better than the miserable way it
is being done now.

The answer to this problem, if you know the school said writer admins at, comes by way of a Taylorist-efficiency grading machine built out of file sharing software and conformist curriculum (everyone does the same thing).
The answer, as this post claims, also is to think about graduate teaching as one of incompetence. It attempts to solve that incompetence by removing the instructor from teaching itself. Teachers can't teach, this response says. So what do we do? We do everything for them. They come in, do what they're told, offer no input, and go home to their other work when the day is done. In and out. One best way. Assembly line pedagogy. Students, too, become part of that assembly line; doing the same work semester after semester. Problem solved, right?

I guess. If you think education should be run like a Model T factory. So much to critique here, but I guess one item worth mentioning is how said admin seems to think that the only answer to the labor issue (too many sections of comp/not enough instructors who make real livings) is to just dumb down the work we do. Remove thinking (on the side of instruction and learning) and that will make the machine work even better. If we don’t think about what we’re doing, we can’t do it wrong, right? And we can’t complain, right? And we can’t show how this method is screwed up, right? And students won’t know that they’re getting crappy instruction, instruction far worse than if instructors in this system could think about what they are doing, right? And said students won’t gripe because they’re not thinking about their education, right?

Right.

Posted by John L @ 02/15/2005 02:51 AM EST

Oops. I think I didn't see the cfp!

Posted by jeff @ 02/13/2005 05:45 PM EST

Amen, Jeff.

The thing that really bugs me is how there's an overwhelming pull in the WPA discourse to think "administration" can only be an exercise in a kind of vulgar pragmatism.

So why didn't you submit something to my Critical WPA call last fall?? Could've really used a perspective like yours.

Posted by Donna @ 02/13/2005 05:38 PM EST