[HN Gopher] The Catherine Project: A new experiment in liberal e...
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The Catherine Project: A new experiment in liberal education
Author : besmirch
Score : 52 points
Date : 2021-11-23 20:45 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (hedgehogreview.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (hedgehogreview.com)
| hyperman1 wrote:
| Can someone explain what Vice-President and Climbing wall mean in
| the context of higher education?
|
| If I had to guess, a Vice-President might be someone who monitors
| a room full of students or checks their tests, and a Climbing
| wall might be a hard assignment meant to get rid of less
| interested students.
|
| This might be a really dumb question. In that case, sorry.
| nxrabl wrote:
| I understood "climbing wall" to be a stand-in for a category of
| amenities which colleges offer to students to convince them to
| apply, which are flashy and expensive but don't actually lead
| to anyone learning anything.
| telotortium wrote:
| It's a sarcastic reference to the fact that in the US, as
| tuition has gone up far past increase in general cost of living
| in the past few decades, what actually seems to have been
| purchased with the increased tuition is greatly increasing the
| number of administrators ("Vice-Presidents") and improving the
| on-campus dorm comfort, athletic amenities, etc. ("climbing
| walls"), rather than paying professors more (in fact, they're
| being paid less and replaced with lower-paid and insecurely
| employed adjuncts) or actually educating students better or
| providing a better environment for intellectual inquiry.
| tgb wrote:
| I think they're meant literally (actual vice presidents of
| universities and actually climbing walls in a rock climbing
| gym) , as examples of the overhead that is present in most
| universities.
| iskander wrote:
| It's a joke about how universities have become administratively
| bloated and primarily function as a very expensive resort
| community for 18-22 year olds. To "compete" with each other,
| universities hire increase numbers of administrators whose job
| is to build out a more complete "college experience", including
| fancier gyms catering to modern exercise trends (aka climbing
| walls).
| [deleted]
| acatnamedjoe wrote:
| I took both literally: a vice-president is a member of senior
| management who does KPIs and meetings and stuff but doesn't
| teach, and a climbing wall is an expensive sports facility that
| appeals to prospective students but has no academic merit. Both
| antithetical to the traditional priorities of a liberal arts
| institution, but both increasingly common in higher education.
| Could be wrong though.
| derekjdanserl wrote:
| Vice president is a nondemocratic executive position which is
| overwhelmingly bureaucratic at best. Vice president positions
| can be granted for any number of unclear reasons, from granting
| prestige to a donor's kin to reforming the business affairs of
| the institution. Vice presidents are unlikely to hold a
| commitment to quality education.
|
| Climbing wall is the regular dog-eat-dog competitive nature of
| living and working in a capitalist society.
| taion wrote:
| Strong recommendation for Zena Hitz's book _Lost in Thought_. As
| an engineer, it's hard to take a step back and enjoy the pure
| intellectual pleasures of my work and hobbies, but I found it
| quite worthwhile to do so, and her book did a lot to encourage me
| here.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > Since education rather than money is calling the shots, we have
| the freedom to ask unheard-of questions.
|
| Who is paying the bills, then?
|
| > no grades
|
| There's a reason why students cram at the end of the semester.
| Without pressure from grades, they won't do the work of learning.
| I know for a fact that I don't learn if there aren't exams and
| grades.
| sodality2 wrote:
| > There's a reason why students cram at the end of the
| semester. Without pressure from grades, they won't do the work
| of learning. I know for a fact that I don't learn if there
| aren't exams and grades.
|
| We call this pumping-and-dumping. You pump the info into your
| brain then dump it on the test, then you forget it. This is not
| really meant for learning.
|
| The type of student that won't learn unless strict deadlines
| and grades are placed on them is a very different type of
| student than one that will learn more with less deadlines and
| grades.
|
| Take away deadlines and grades, and you will divide the class
| into two groups: that which genuinely learns the information
| better without deadlines and grades, and that which will slack
| off without strict deadlines and grades. The education system
| is (or should be!) designed to push students into the former
| category.
|
| Unfortunately "desire to learn" is incredibly difficult to
| measure, let alone objectively, hence the standardized testing
| (you never get complaints about favoritism if everyone gets the
| same test).
|
| > edit | delete | flag| favorite[-] | on: The Catherine
| Project: A new experiment in liberal...
| BoumTAC wrote:
| It's fun, to me it's totally the opposite. I only learn if I
| learn by myself. In school I had a bad memory of the learning
| process.
|
| Now ten years after finish school I think I have learn a
| hundred time more by myself than from my scholarship.
|
| There is a quote from Taleb which looks something like this
| "What I learned on my own I still remember."
| thelettere wrote:
| Maybe you aren't everyone. There are already a number of
| colleges and universities that don't use grades, and many have
| been around for a half century or more and are among the most
| prestigious liberal arts institutions in the country.
|
| But maybe you're right and it's all a sham.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > Maybe you aren't everyone.
|
| I didn't say "all students".
|
| > a number of colleges and universities that don't use grades
|
| An example of a prestigious university that doesn't use
| grades would help your case.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Of the things you learned under pressure of exams and grades,
| how many of them do you actually remember? That is, did you
| learn for long enough to pass the test", or did you _learn_?
| WalterBright wrote:
| I'm well aware of the modern movement to discredit tests,
| arguing that doing well on tests have nothing to do with
| knowing the material. I'm not a subscriber to that. If you
| are, I expect you'll be disappointed with the results.
|
| It's also why there are athletic competitions. It brings out
| the best in athletes as they strive to win. Are their
| achievements fake?
| stagger87 wrote:
| Is it controversial/surprising to say that one would learn
| more from studying than not studying?
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Is it controversial to say that cramming (remember, we're
| talking about studying _under the deadline of a coming
| test_ ) is not a great way to learn for long-term
| retention?
|
| Is it better than not studying at all? Probably... but not
| much.
| jancsika wrote:
| > I know for a fact that I don't learn if there aren't exams
| and grades.
|
| There's a reason a lot of first-year grad students end up
| dropping out. :)
| glial wrote:
| Interesting to see the deep skepticism in the comments.
|
| I attended St John's College - which is probably as close as a
| "real" school can get to the Catherine Project - and loved every
| minute. Grades were not given, and there were no professors or
| lectures.
|
| Seeing criticism about the business model and lack of tests,
| worry about educational fads, etc, is missing the point, in my
| opinion.
|
| Consider the possibility that a group of adults may want to
| engage in rich and historically important works of thought, but
| have no interest in the trappings of educational institutions,
| with their tuition, grades, etc. Like a bible study, but without
| the bible. If you feel threatened by this, ask yourself why.
| derekjdanserl wrote:
| As a humanities dropout currently rushing through a cheap CS
| degree, it all sounds like delusional charity work to me. Plato's
| Republic is great, but utterly meaningless outside of political
| practice. And while engaging with Plato sounds nice, in a modern
| capitalist society Plato's anti-democracy is almost universally
| misinterpreted to favor the same libertarian crap that created
| this nightmare. Evading politics, and especially political
| economy, is not the solution but the problem.
| 0kl wrote:
| Plato's republic is primarily about the soul...
| dang wrote:
| Please make your substantive points without fulminating and
| name-calling. That's in the site guidelines:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
|
| We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29323747.
| xhevahir wrote:
| I don't get it. You think people shouldn't read The Republic
| because they'll inevitably misunderstand it? Studying Plato
| isn't going to turn everyone into a Peter Thiel, if that's the
| concern.
|
| FWIW, The Republic has a lot of things to say about other
| subjects besides politics. Things like art, and education,
| ancient Greek society. I read a really interesting book a few
| years ago, Preface to Plato, that argued Plato was mostly
| criticizing the traditional, oral culture of Greece, with its
| emphasis on rote, formulaic learning. (That's a crude summary
| of the argument, but anyway...)
| slibhb wrote:
| > FWIW, The Republic has a lot of things to say about other
| subjects besides politics. Things like art, and education,
| ancient Greek society.
|
| Agreed, and beyond that the sun/line/cave allegories are the
| most famous thing ever written about epistemology.
| barry-cotter wrote:
| You have interpretations of the Republic. Other people have
| different ones. Discussing them is the point.
| derekjdanserl wrote:
| It is not a mere coincidence that discussing Marx's _Capital_
| is never the point.
|
| They are approximately equivalent in their influence on
| humanity, but only one of them offers a critique of the
| immediate situation.
| seneca wrote:
| > It is not a mere coincidence that discussing Marx's
| Capital is never the point.
|
| > They are approximately equivalent in their influence on
| humanity, but only one of them offers a critique of the
| immediate situation.
|
| And only one of them lead to the death of millions of
| people. There is a reason some things are discredited.
| People don't generally spend time debating the points of
| Mein Kamf either.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| I'm surprised to see "this book is dangerous" as a reason
| why a book shouldn't be discussed in intellectual spaces
| in a place like HN.
| zepto wrote:
| It's not that it's dangerous. It's that it has been tried
| and shown not to work.
|
| It certainly merits a history lesson and a post-mortem
| discussion, but that's about it.
| _jal wrote:
| This is an oft-repeated nonsense line to dismiss some
| really interesting philosophy.
|
| Marx was not writing a plan of action, and all that has
| been proved is that authoritarian assholes are assholes.
| (I take if you also think Adam Smith should be discarded
| because parts of "Inquiry into the Wealth of Nations"
| doesn't map well to modern capitalism?)
|
| Here's a real test of a free thinker. Are you willing to
| read "dangerous ideas" for yourself? Or do you just allow
| yourself to be steered by what you hear people repeat?
| rsj_hn wrote:
| > Marx was not writing a plan of action, and all that has
| been proved is that authoritarian assholes are assholes.
|
| The Communist manifesto is _literally a plan of action_.
| It calls for an authoritarian government in which all
| financial assets, credit, real assets, and land are
| centralized and controlled by the state. It calls for
| seizure of all personal property of anyone who wants to
| leave the country. It calls for conscripting the public
| and forcing them to work in agricultural and industrial
| armies, also controlled by the state. It calls for state
| monopolization and control of the press and all forms of
| communication and transportation, etc.
|
| _These measures will, of course, be different in
| different countries.
|
| Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following
| will be pretty generally applicable.
|
| 1. Abolition of property in land and application of all
| rents of land to public purposes.
|
| 2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
|
| 3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
|
| 4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and
| rebels.
|
| 5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by
| means of a national bank with State capital and an
| exclusive monopoly.
|
| 6. Centralisation of the means of communication and
| transport in the hands of the State.
|
| 7. Extension of factories and instruments of production
| owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of
| waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in
| accordance with a common plan.
|
| 8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of
| industrial armies, especially for agriculture._
|
| https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communis
| t-m...
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| > Marx was not writing a plan of action
|
| Then he failed his own "the point is to change it" test.
| zepto wrote:
| > Marx was not writing a plan of action, and all that has
| been proved is that authoritarian assholes are assholes.
|
| No - what has been proved is that Marx's theories don't
| limit the effects of the machinations of assholes.
|
| If there is one thing a political system should do, it is
| this.
|
| > I take if you also think Adam Smith should be discarded
| because parts of "Inquiry into the Wealth of Nations"
| doesn't map well to modern capitalism?)
|
| I don't think it should be discarded, but I do think that
| we know enough about the problems of capitalism that we
| shouldn't be claiming that Adam smith has written a
| prescription for our times.
|
| > Here's a real test of a free thinker. Are you willing
| to read "dangerous ideas" for yourself? Or do you just
| allow yourself to be steered by what you hear people
| repeat?
|
| Have you considered that free _thinking_ means doing
| _your own_ thinking? That means being able to recognize
| when an ideology is past its sell by date and not
| fetishizing a particular historical figure as being
| uniquely insightful.
| _jal wrote:
| > what has been proved is that Marx's theories don't
| limit the effects of the machinations of assholes
|
| What a weird test. No system of government does, and Marx
| was not writing a system of government. I guess it is
| time to throw out all political theory, though.
|
| > that we shouldn't be claiming that Adam smith has
| written a prescription
|
| Funny, the people making that claim about Marx are
| equally wrong, and yet you want to discard all of it.
|
| > means doing your own thinking
|
| ...Which apparently can only lead to your conclusion?
| That's hilarious.
|
| > and not fetishizing
|
| I'm not the one with the fetish here.
| dls2016 wrote:
| Centralized, state planned communism with dictatorial
| leaders was tried and failed, ergo Marx is trash.
| ksdale wrote:
| You don't think anyone ever discusses Marx?
| zepto wrote:
| The big difference between Marx and Plato is that Plato's
| political theories have never been empirically tested.
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| Huh? Why can't people discuss Marx's Capital? Whether or
| not you agree with his political philosophy, his historical
| work in Capital is fantastic and I recommend everyone read
| it at least from an economic history perspective.
|
| > but only one of them offers a critique of the immediate
| situation
|
| So you're a socialist. The whole point is that not everyone
| is, or maybe some people _are_ and they need to read the
| Republic and then Capital to come to that conclusion.
| Reading groups are all about access to new ideas, they
| aren't meetups of political groups. But there's so much
| more. Read Rousseau to understand the Social Contract,
| Bakunin for anarchy, etc
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| The big difference is that (early-middle) Plato mostly asks
| questions and poses problems, whereas Marx expounds
| doctrine.
| civilized wrote:
| In theory, _communism_ works. In theory. -- Homer Simpson
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| That's just dodging the parents point though, which isn't
| the implementation of whatever is in the pages of a text
| but that the text itself doesn't get as much discussion
| intentionally because it's more relevant than other works
| that serve as feel good dopamine hits for the
| intellectual.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| While you can read the republic as a political discussion, and
| I won't blame you if you do that given how piecemeal antique
| philosophers are often taught in contemporary academia, but in
| context it really is more of a discussion about the nature of
| justice, rather than a political manual. That is what he is
| trying to do, explore a just society would look like, and
| through it, trying to find the nature of justice. That is
| actually still a fairly interesting discussion.
|
| Justice is very much part of the zeitgeist, but how many
| actually stop to ask what that even means? What does it mean
| for a society to be just, for a person to be just? If we can't
| produce an answer to those questions, how are we ever going to
| produce justice, or be just?
|
| Plato's critique of democracy isn't something we should reject
| on the account that it's a critique of democracy. He makes a
| few good points, it's not some intellectual check mate, but
| it's something any follower of democracy should have answers
| to, they are problems any democracy needs to work toward
| solving. If there is any take-away from Plato, it is that we
| get closer to truth by asking questions, by exploring murky
| half-thought thoughts and figuring out where they don't quite
| add up.
| throwawaygh wrote:
| _> it all sounds like delusional charity work to me._
|
| To me, it sounds like a constructive alternative to Sunday
| morning sermons.
|
| I'll never tithe in my life. Where does that money go instead?
| Well, where did it go originally? 90% of tithing these days
| goes to supporting a developed world middle-class lifestyle for
| folks who give one lecture a week and spend the rest of their
| time providing constitutionally protected unlicensed mental
| health services.
|
| So, there is a business model here. Professors are paid _so
| poorly_ that individual tutoring for the intellectually curious
| in the professional class could provide meaningful additional
| income. $60,000 /(24 x 3 x 3) = $277/student/class for a
| typical 3+3 load. But I'd happily pay $500 to take a 3-4 person
| class with a good prof on a topic I enjoy. $500 x 4 = $2,000
| per seminar. Which is quite a lot of money when you're only
| making $60,000 -- especially if you're already prepped to teach
| that seminar. And my guesstimates here are actually high for
| the humanities at some institutions!
|
| I'd happily pay $500/mo to attend intellectually engaging
| seminars with a small group of like-minded folks, even online.
| And I view that as morally equivalent to tithing, since it's
| achieving roughly the same thing (sponsoring someone's life-of-
| mind).
|
| So, there is a market for the idea outlines in thep ost.
|
| (The Plato's Republic thing feels pretty off-topic; I also
| think it's over-rated fwiw, but if others want to read it more
| power to them.)
| wantsanagent wrote:
| "We rely on donations from readers and benefactors to pay our
| staff director and expenses like our Zoom subscriptions."
|
| So begging is your business model?
| telotortium wrote:
| Most universities in the US continually harass their former
| (tuition-paying) students for donations, which make up a large
| proportion of the budget (especially for more elite private
| universities - the less elite are more reliant on tuition and
| public universities on the state in addition).
| smt88 wrote:
| > _So begging is your business model?_
|
| Begging is a valid, profitable business model. Louis CK[1] and
| Radiohead[2] famously did it.
|
| Although nonprofits don't get to retain profits or pay taxes on
| them, they can certainly _earn_ a profit, which means there are
| thousands of organizations whose business model is begging. You
| may be interested to learn that the (supposedly) ultra-
| capitalist Ayn Rand Institute is among them.
|
| 1. https://theweek.com/speedreads/570880/louis-ck-released-
| new-...
|
| 2. https://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/did-radioheads-in-
| rainbo...
| Closi wrote:
| Well, two things:
|
| 1) It's not profit generating, this is a not-for-profit
| organisation, so 'business model' is a bit of a loaded term.
|
| 2) The practice of having clubs / social groups where members
| are encouraged to donate money to help with the running costs
| is pretty common, and is not typically considered begging.
|
| I help run a local theatre group which we fund with a whip-
| around with our members to assist with the venue hire and a
| donations bucket at the door of our to shows. Is that begging?
| I don't think so (I look at it as people giving money to keep
| something they enjoy experiencing running, which is different
| to begging).
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| "this is a not-for-profit organisation, so 'business model'
| is a bit of a loaded term"
|
| This particular not-for-profit may have no business model,
| i.e. no revenue outside of donations.
|
| But there are _many_ not-for-profit entities that rely on
| services /fees (as opposed to donations) to fund their
| operations. For many of these non-profits, the main things
| that distinguish them from for-profit companies is that:
|
| A) The founders don't get rich from an exit. They (and their
| cronies) get rich from buying their own services.
|
| B) They can more easily get contracts from government
| entities that can for-profit companies. Because somehow
| people see outsourcing to for-profit companies as
| 'privatization', but outsourcing to non-profits as supporting
| the local economy.
| Closi wrote:
| Let's not grow this thing into something bigger than it is
| - it's effectively a nice book club focussed on philosophy,
| and which had 115 readers as of June last year.
|
| It looks lovely, and looks like they have great growth, but
| let's not blow it out of proportion.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| My comment was not about The Catherine Project.
|
| I was responding to part of your comment, which seemed to
| assert that "not-for-profit" is inconsistent with
| "business model".
|
| I pointed out that many non-profits do have business
| models. But I was careful to point out that this may not
| apply to The Catherine Project ("This particular not-for-
| profit may have no business model, i.e. no revenue
| outside of donations.").
| Closi wrote:
| Sure, not for profits can have a business model.
| Apologies - I thought we were discussing in the context
| of the article.
|
| But yeah, of course, anyone can have a business model and
| lots of not-for-profits do.
| glitchc wrote:
| Profit generating is not the same as revenue generating. A
| non-profit can (and do) pay salaries to employees and
| directors, which is profit generating for those individuals.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > business model
|
| Even if one has no intention of making a profit, the
| accounting still has to be done, the books still have to
| balance, and there has to be enough revenue to cover the
| expenses.
| Closi wrote:
| Sure, you have to account for things (especially if you are
| a registered not for profit), but as long as Donations >=
| Expenses you don't really have to worry all that much about
| a 'business model'.
|
| In fact, it often happens in reverse for these sorts of
| clubs/societies - Because the base expenses are very low (a
| PS11.99 zoom account and to start with it is volunteer-led)
| rather than requiring enough revenue to cover expenses, you
| usually gather donations which let you spend money, and you
| don't spend money that hasn't already been donated. If less
| money gets donated, you can just slow down spending.
|
| In terms of not for profits here we aren't talking about a
| company the size of Oxfam - we are talking about a reading
| group that has 12 volunteer hosts.
| pdmccormick wrote:
| Has anyone ever stopped to consider the ethical question of
| applying the latest unproven fads of educational theory to
| unwitting students? Ideally before large scale rollouts?
|
| As someone who grew up during a tumultuous time for the public
| education system in Ontario, Canada, it felt like ever year or
| two whole curriculums were thrown out and the latest and greatest
| "cutting edge" approaches and fads were foisted upon us. I can
| see a lot of parallels in software development, but I wonder
| about the specific potential for lasting damaging effects for
| children and young people. I know I experienced some gaps that
| took a long time to be addressed.
| throwawaygh wrote:
| "Great Books in Small Seminars" is one of the older educational
| models [1], and is itself in the tradition of one of the oldest
| approaches to education in history. This project doesn't seem
| substantially different from other Great Books approaches,
| except in that it doesn't charge tuition.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_books#Program
| hereforphone wrote:
| They've been applying the unproven fads of educational theory
| to unwitting students for decades or more.
| schoen wrote:
| In the spirit of the "things you can (actually) do (without
| asking permission)" posts, another one is
|
| * create a small seminar of your own for an academic or quasi-
| academic text or topic that interests you, and meet and discuss
| it
|
| I'm currently participating in a seminar on
|
| https://softwarefoundations.cis.upenn.edu/lf-current/index.h...
|
| and some people I know are running their own read-through of
| Plato's _Republic_ at the moment. No university required!
| throwawaygh wrote:
| _> I 'm currently participating in a seminar on [Software
| Foundations]... No university required!_
|
| Take Software Foundations as an example. The tool it's written
| about, the logical foundations underlying that tool, and
| generations of pedagogic experimentation in explaining those
| idea that led to Software Foundations would not have been
| possible instances of the modern Research University in at
| least a half dozen countries (but most notably France and the
| US).
|
| Even the human inputs to such a seminar probably require a
| university more often than not. The number of self-taught
| programmers who could work through Software Foundations is
| certainly miniscule.
|
| There is certainly a viable community-building model here, not
| dissimilar from the Community Church or Hackerspace models!
| Just want to call out that it's sort of (virtuously!!!)
| grifting off of the spoils of research universities.
|
| BTW: I'd love to see a Computer Science "Great Books"
| Curriculum. TAOCP, Cinderella, Dragon, Foundations, ... what
| else?
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(page generated 2021-11-23 23:00 UTC)