Postmodernish

My relationship as a writer here at Florida State University has moved in step with my evolution as a student. For me, differentiating between writing, learning, and education is a false pretense; they are the same thing, they are all connected, and they all have the same end. In my case, I came into the university with the idea that writing was going to be my education. I was an English major, and I approached writing from the perspective that to write well was a necessary part of being a well-rounded student and professional. Because I did not have a specific career in mind, I never approached higher education as a step on the way to a guaranteed job or specific career, but rather education as a means to equip the individual to approach any kind of future work.

In this vein, the English major was a path to develop 'critical thinking, communication, and writing' skills that were seemed to be applicable regardless of my career choice. However, as my time here as progressed, my relationship with writing has entirely changed. Although it is still the case that writing is a valued skill that is useful in nearly professional environment, to pigeon-hole it as simply a skill; as a means of professional advancement, is to undermine the real significance of the writer at the university. Writing, as I approach it now, is a way of creating change in myself and the environment I live in. Writing in the university for me is the pursuit of personal critical literacy, and a means of developing and cultivating myself as a better, more responsible student and citizen. The role of writing in the university is equivalent to the role of education in society, and the end of both should be to produce critically and culturally literate members of the world.

  

This idea of education is grounded in the notion expressed in James Berlin's essay, "English Studies, Work, and Politics In the New Economy". Berlin, a noted cultural theorist, makes the claim that "the work of education in a democratic society is to provide critical literacy (224)," for students both at their time at the university and afterwards. In the piece, Berlin makes the point that the American system of Higher Education has undergone a transition from a Fordist model -- where education, skills, and students, were standardized, and produced as a part of an "economy of scale" -- to a Post-Fordist model of education, where decentralization has occurred, and workers are expected to cultivate a broad skill set, which can be relevant in multiple careers. The implication of this change for education -- and for writing -- is that for a long time in the 20th Century, this Fordist system of economics and education was representative of a "social contract" that students entered into when they attended a university.

The 'deal' was, that if they went to college and got a degree in something, they would have an all but guaranteed, well-paying job in a field of their choosing. However, as we entered the post-Fordist era of flexible accumulation, and companies began to expect different things of their universities and the students they produced, this contract became seriously complicated. More and more students have enrolled in institutions of higher education, only to find that the 'deal' in place was not what their parents promised them. In this post-Fordist, modernist vision of education, skills that writing emphasizes -- such as critical thinking and written/oral communication -- are valued for their relevance in the workplace. This, Berlin states, is the basis of the Modernist curriculum for institutions of higher education -- where writing is simply a means to acquire the individual and interpersonal skills needed to succeed in the workplace.

However, Berlin's extends this Post-Fordist model into a new Post-Modernist look that complicates the Modernist view of Higher Education even further. In this new delineation, the acquiring of soft skills, such as communication and teamwork, is not the whole purpose of higher education nor is it required for success in the workplace. In fact, to limit the intention of a Post-Modernist education to simply the workplace is to miss the point entirely. Instead, in Berlin's Post-Modernist framework, universities should, in addition to those aforementioned skills, teach the following: 

"The abstract and systematic teaching needed for the dispersed conditions of post modern economic, linear, and narrowly empirical mode of the modern. Students need a conception of the abstract organizational patterns that affect their work lives, indeed, comprehensive conceptions of the patterns that influence all of their experiences. In addition, students deserve an education that prepares them to be critical citizens of the nation that now stands as one of the oldest democracies in history."

In this definition, I have found my place as a writer in the university. Just as Berlin later says in his piece, the great worth of the English degree -- and by extension, the practice of writing -- is that it trains you in this mode of critical literacy whose outright objective is not necessarily to secure skills which align with a job, but rather, to give you the ability to be an effective agent and participant in the world we live in. Writing in the university to me should be a form of action. No matter the subject, it shouldn't be relegated as a means of assessment, but should be treated as means of cultivating a mindset that advances that person as a critically and culturally literate member of society, no matter what their chosen field is. Writing should be an arena of cultural contact zones and liminality; a place where norms are challenged and individuals are given the means to articulate their own experiences. In this way, rhetoric, identity, pedagogy, and community are all given a new breath: they are the arenas in which critical literacy occurs and derives meaning, and writing is the means of arrival at this new state.

As Berlin states in the following passage: "Education exists to provide intelligent, articulate, and responsible citizens who understand their obligation and their right to insist that economic, social, and political power be exerted in the best interests of the community as a whole." In light of this, my role as a writer and a student in the 21st Century Post-Modern university has been, and will continue to be, a striving towards an ideal of character and thought that will enable me to apply my skills in the most effective way possible, no matter the task, arena, or circumstance.