Are Writing Centers Ethical?

[bobbie silk <bsilk@keller.clarke.edu>]

I love what Joan Mullin says so eloquently--that "we weave back and forth
across the line."  I see some of that weaving as that between orthodoxy
and experimentation, between personal and professional, between directive
and nondirective, between practicality and dreams of possibility, between
being dupes of the prevailing order and rebels on the margins. 

Sometimes we have to bob as well as weave.  I expected someone to jump
more forcefully on what I said on the "confidentiality" thread about my
personal intention to "serve students" rather than the "system"--afterall,
what that really means is that I serve the system indirectly.  But I don't
have a major problem with that.  I'm inclined to accept what Mike Rose
says in _Possible Lives_ about why many people send their children to
college, which is to help them get and keep a decent job.  Such a reason
may be shortsighted in that it may neglect many areas of human and
personal potential, but it's as good a reason as any, when we get right
down to it.

Sometimes I get rather peaved at the cultural materialist viewpoint, which
seems to assume that the prevailing order is necessarily oppressive.  All
the talk about ideology, while it has its point and its use in
consciousness-raising, ultimately proposes only to replace one ideology
with another. 

As Dave Healy explains in his recent post, conventions do serve the
purpose of permitting us to function in an overwhelming world--which does
not mean that conventions (of whatever sort) should be closed to challenge
and modification.  In this circumstance, I find an interesting correlation
between the orthodoxies and conventions of writing center theory/practice
and of the dominant literacy we seem to serve indirectly. 

Robert Cooper, in his book _Language Planning and Social Change_, observes
(rather than polemicizes) the issues of dominant literacy.  Most societies
practice multiple literacies, not only in terms of dialects and cultural
groups, but also in terms of function.  Thus societies such as Israel or
Ireland maintain *in practice* languages and literacies for reasons of
identity (Hebrew, Gaelic) as well as for reasons of conducting daily
business and filing legal documents (often in English but also in other
languages).  

A society might also (consciously or unconsciously) designate a specific
literacy for education.  This may seem like a form of oppression and
control, but we know what happens to "best laid plans..."  In what looks
like a good point in support for Chaos Theory, Cooper describes what
happened as a result of enforcement of an official language/literacy
program in Ethiopia: the language planning and literacy program eventually
united enough of the diverse, multi-lingual population to overthrow the
literacy-promoting ruler (Haile Salasee).

As I came into writing center work, I considered myself very much a
student advocate.  Still, I know full well that my advocacy has been
largely an effort to help students adjust to the system of academic
writing and demands.  Why not?  Of course, I'm inclined to think of myself
less as a handmaiden than as a "cut man" in a prize-fighter's corner, less
as a pimp for the system than as a shadchen (marriage broker).  Afterall,
arranged marriages can work--when the couple shares some of the same
goals. 

In his recent _WLN_ article, Jon Olson (inspired by Paolo Friere) 
proposes inviting "outsiders" into the writing center to share their
expertise in other literacies, other lives.  I think that, in a sense,
that is what Nancy Grimm is proposing a version of in her _WCJ_ article. 
In all our discussions of orthodoxy--whether dominant literacy or writing
center philosophy--when we cut through the haze of misunderstanding,
frustration, and even our own rhetoric, we come back to the notion of
collaboration and movement--outside to inside, inside to outside.  Sounds
like weaving.  (Thanks, Joan.)

  --Bobbie
    bsilk@keller.clarke.edu