I think both sides of the argument make very good points when considering what being literate means. One side of the coin, as argued by Salvio and the Port Huron Statement, stresses that students be able to think objectively, analyze and assess information, but also students who take these skills they have learned at institutions of higher learning and apply them to real world issues. This is great, except there is a very fine line that may be crossed when you make academic subjects too political, as Fish argues. The goal of higher education, for the instructor especially, is to remain objective so as not to bias student’s thoughts and opinions. The institution itself, i.e. public, private, proprietary, etc, largely determines to what extent issues in the classroom can become political and how vocal an instructor can be about certain moral and political issues.
The other side of the coin, as argued by Fish, stresses that it is not the goal of institutions of higher learning to make students better moral or political thinkers, but only to increase their knowledge and develop their skills in analysis, assessment, and commenting. Instructors should academicize subjects in the classroom. While I agree that instructors should remain neutral in the classroom, the institution of higher learning itself is to be held to a much higher expectation, and in turn, produce students who are not merely concerned with social connections, getting good grades, and getting a good job. The Port Huron Statement makes a good point when it says that “…the universities are an often overlooked seat of influence”. Salvio also makes a good point in saying “…attention is being paid to social status…much too, is paid to academic status. But neglected generally is real intellectual status, the personal cultivation of the mind”. I think that what Fish’s ideology of what the goal of education should be leaves something to be desired, by the student and community at large. What do students do with all the knowledge they acquire in institutions of higher learning? What do they do with the analytical, assessment, and commenting skills they develop? Put these newfound things in the back of their closets with the textbooks they were unable to sell back to the bookstore? There really would be no point in learning these things if you didn’t put the skills to some use, other than that at the “good job”. Salvio draws a parallel between the protests led at Berkeley and the civil rights movement of the 1960’s. The first image I conjure up is of SNCC. What would Fish have to say about those students?