Stanley Fish on the curriculum

A colleague sent me a link to a piece by Stanley Fish that asks "What should colleges teach?" Fish is sympathetic to a fundamentalist view of the curriculum:

As I learned more about the world of composition studies, I came to the conclusion that unless writing courses focus exclusively on writing they are a sham, and I advised administrators to insist that all courses listed as courses in composition teach grammar and rhetoric and nothing else. This advice was contemptuously dismissed by the composition establishment, and I was accused of being a reactionary who knew nothing about current trends in research...

Nevertheless, I found myself often nodding in agreement when I was reading ACTA’s new report. In it, the 100 colleges and universities are ranked on a scale from A to F based on whether students are required to take courses in seven key areas — composition, literature, foreign language, U.S. government or history, economics, mathematics and natural or physical science...

Credit for requiring instruction in mathematics will not be given for linguistic courses or computer literacy courses because their “math content is usually minimal.” Credit for requiring instruction in the natural or physical sciences will not be given for courses with “weak scientific content” or courses “taught by faculty outside of the science departments” (i.e., the philosophy or history of science). Credit for requiring instruction in a foreign language will not be given for fewer than three semesters of study because it takes that long to acquire “competency at the intermediate level.” And credit for requiring composition will not be given for courses that are “writing intensive” (there is a significant amount of writing required but the focus is on some substantive topic), or for courses in disciplines other than English and composition (often termed “writing in the discipline” courses), or for courses in public speaking, or for remedial courses. In order to qualify, a course must be devoted to “grammar, style, clarity, and argument.”

I wonder if those of us who oppose the current interpretation of "multiple inquiries" are thought to hold this kind of "fundamentalist" view of the curriculum. I certainly don't. My only objective is to have a curriculum that is intellectually coherent and furthers our students' education rather than being a barrier to it. One thing that I think we want our students to get out of the courses they take here is a breadth of knowledge about important topics. I want them to know something about biology, economics, etc. I also want them to understand how different disciplines answer questions (the "modes of inquiry") but this is a secondary consideration, best developed over a number of courses, particularly those in the students' majors. I don't know why we have a curriculum whose avowed purpose is only to expose students to different modes of inquiry, and not at all to have students gain knowledge.