We talk so much about this intangible quality called "potential"; we spend so much time designing tests that will measure it, writing letters of recommendation that will testify to it, glorifying it in our pedagogical theories, and so on. All of this activity suggests that we know what we are talking about when we talk about potential. It also suggests that we believe absolutely that school is and ought to be the proving ground for it, that conformity to the norms of the school is not only an achievement in itself, but is also an indicator of whether one is likely to succeed in the world beyond school. These aren't entirely hollow propositions, but they are terrifically limited ones.

Consider the following profile of a profoundly undistinguished college student:

Without enthusiasm, he enrolled in the fall semester of 1919 as a "special student," a category that allowed returning veterans to enter the university without the usual qualifications, such as a high-school diploma. [He] would hang around for the next two years, taking courses, rarely turning in a paper or showing up for an examination. In one English class on Shakespeare, he was asked by his professor what Othello meant by a certain speech and replied: "How should I know? That was nearly 400 years ago, and I wasn't there." All teachers have encountered students like that, and we are usually quite happy when the semester ends and that wiseacre disappears into the mist.

Paying little or no attention to his formal course work, [he] nevertheless wrote a good deal of poetry and fiction, and he became a regular contributor to the student literary magazine. He also spent a lot of his time on the local golf course, and was a fixture at fraternity parties. His main academic influence was an English professor named Calvin Brown, who lived nearby. Brown read [his] work and offered advice; he also suggested directions for [his] reading. But the formal strictures of academic life had no appeal for the budding writer.

After kicking around for a couple of years without purpose, [he] got a job in the winter of 1921 at the university post office at Ole Miss. For the next three years, he lived with his parents and served as the man behind the grate who sold stamps and sorted the mail.

One of Parini's most interesting points concerns the degree to which academe's love affair with Faulkner--which eventually resulted in his becoming a writer-in-residence at the University of Virginia--may have contributed to the marked academic flattening of "literary" fiction that we see today:

It was quite rare, before the 1960s, for colleges or universities to provide a home for writers, and many of the well-known literary figures of the 20th century --ÝEliot, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, John Steinbeck, Wallace Stevens, and others --Ýhad little or nothing to do with academic settings. They often went out of their way to avoid them, as if fearing that somehow their time or creative talent would be sapped by the academy. Among writers of that period, Robert Frost was a notable exception. He was a familiar figure at Amherst, the University of Michigan, Harvard, Dartmouth, and Middlebury from 1917, when he first stepped onto the campus at Amherst, until his death in 1963. Interestingly enough, Frost also shared with Faulkner a sense of having been self-educated. He attended Dartmouth briefly, then Harvard for almost two years, but he never graduated, and it was not until middle age that he made his peace with the academy.
In some ways, the success of Faulkner at the University of Virginia may well have encouraged other institutions to invite writers into their midst.

Beginning in the '60s, writers have become familiar on campuses, and many creative-writing courses are taught by professors who have some experience themselves as writers. Given the broad access to higher education in the United States in the past four or five decades, it seems unlikely that writers will emerge --Ýor teach --Ýin the academy who have not been formally educated. That means, of course, that the rough-hewn idiosyncrasy that marks Faulkner's novels and stories may be a thing of the past, as readers now expect a certain conformity to the norms of "educated" writing. The obvious downside, perhaps, is that originality of a kind suffers, and contemporary fiction certainly does seem beset by an element of homogeneity, even a certain blandness. (Some of the exceptions, like Toni Morrison and Cormac McCarthy, owe something of their own freshness to their reading of Faulkner.)

Parini has just published a new biography of Faulkner, One Matchless Time: A Life of William Faulkner.

I don't have the exact quote handy, but Peter Drucker once remarked that focusing on a person's "potential" (as opposed to his demonstrated performance) is always an evil thing to do.

I have thought for a long time that a study of the influence of creative programs on American writing would be a terrific book or dissertation. How to approach the subject is an interesting methodological conundrum, though. (And, moreover, I'd be hard pressed to advise a graduate student or untenured scholar to take it on, as the backlash could be dire.)

I think it is highly suspect and intellectually offensive to make ridiculous generalizations about >. Examples? I think you will find that there are as great writers out there today as ever there were.

This is off-topic but I just reviewed Erin's posts from November 2003 when she was at Penn.

To wit:

A series of posts about a professor being crucified for using naughty words in class.

Another professor, also on her way to Calvary, for using the expression "nigger in a woodpile" in a non-racial context.

A professor who insisted that she could teach Milton without reference to religion.

Another who generally assigned anti-religious works in his literature class to 'educate' students out of their superstitions.

A prof who taped all his lectures as a defense against various harassment charges.

And so on....

Now, having moved to a high school, we find Erin posting fascinating stuff on grammar, literature, the craft of writing, and Faulkner, among other things.

Question:
What, if anything, does this tell us about the health of our incredibly expensive univerities?

Bill R

Don't forget science fiction (and fantasy) in the genre category; because they deliberately falsify a common assumption they can explore deep social issues in very provocative ways. Heinlein, obviously. But also Terry Pratchett, Sheri Tepper, and advocates of almost any cause you can imagine.