Stanley Fish on Teacher Evaluations and Texas

The A & M University, among others in Texas, wants to change the student-teacher relationship into one of customer-supplier. There would be evaluations that would be based on approval protocols and questionnaires filled in the by the students. The general idea would be that students know best how they need to learn and could demand teachers adjust their styles to their accommodation. Stanley Fish, a highly esteemed teacher, has written a two-part essay (http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/21/deep-in-the-heart-of-texas/) on this idea for the New York Times. Obviously, he doesn't approve and methodically proves why such evaluations do not result in the better education of the student.

An important point which Professor Fish fails to consider is the current view of the Texas Board of Education on American History. The Board is revising American History and removing or reducing the status of important players and ideas, such as the role of Thomas Jefferson and the idea of the division between State and Church, from the school system. Thus, children in grades 1-12 are being taught a slanted and completely biased view of American History. Some thinkers would argue they are being taught incorrectly but the Texan School Board finds these changes more right than wrong. The Board is currently governed by an extremely right-wing group with a strong Christian agenda. The fact exists that Texan children are not being taught correctly, or with all the information required, to have an unbiased or thoroughly informed opinion of American History. Thus, students are graduating from a system in which they have not been properly educated. Thomas Jefferson is an important character in the history of the United States; he was a hypocrite and human but he strongly believed in the division between Church and State. Anyhow, in Professor Fish's essay, he fails to consider the impact of such ignorance on an University.

If students are taught to expect a customer-service approach to education, and they have been poorly educated from the time they began education, they are not educated. They are indoctrinated. Their expectations are biased from the beginning of their education and, if they only accept what they expect, they are not taught to think but to respond. Further, if a state-run school advocates this sort of approach, even if a private university does, the institutions are failing the students. Professor Fish argues these ways of thinking are becoming dominant modes of thought because it is thought Universities are over-run by faculty left-wingers and researchers inspired by science and not profit. Of course, he is right; Universities are research institutions after all. What is worrisome is how educational systems can continue to exist freely if this market approach continues to impinge further upon them.