Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Catherine Project: A new experiment in liberal education

hedgehogreview.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 198 posts

Re: The Catherine Project: A new experiment in liberal education

#111

Post by WalterBright »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #91
WalterBright wrote: post #26

> 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.

I'm not sure that cramming to keep the material in your brain just long enough to pass the final constitutes "learning".

I'm sure that doing nothing is even less effective.

Re: The Catherine Project: A new experiment in liberal education

#112

Post by burnished »

WalterBright wrote: post #26

> 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.

I thought this was a school based entirely on a love of learning? Your questions don't seem to apply to TFA.

Re: The Catherine Project: A new experiment in liberal education

#113

Post by LudwigNagasena »

iskander wrote: post #10
hyperman1 wrote: post #3

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.

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).

> universities have become administratively bloated and primarily function as a very expensive resort community for 18-22 year olds

The worse thing is that people seem to really enjoy it. Every time I have a discussion on it with someone I inevitably hear arguments like “it was such a formative experience”, “university is not only for studying” and so on. It’s really crazy that a huge part of the population is convinced that pouring thousands of money into an overpriced 4 year holiday should be a societal norm.

Re: The Catherine Project: A new experiment in liberal education

#114

Post by LudwigNagasena »

pdmccormick wrote: post #32

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…

It’s far more ethical than applying education theories that have proven to fail.

Re: The Catherine Project: A new experiment in liberal education

#115

Post by schoen »

throwawaygh wrote: post #53
schoen wrote: post #2

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…

> 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 countri…

I worried a bit about the phrasing when I was writing that -- I definitely did not mean to say "no university required (to create Software Foundations)", just "no university required (to benefit from Software Foundations)"!

Re: The Catherine Project: A new experiment in liberal education

#116

Post by WalterBright »

cmh89 wrote: post #104
WalterBright wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

No one is saying tests 'have nothing to do with knowing the material'. The point is that a test environment isn't ideal for gauging how well someone knows materials. Our system of testing incentivizes teaching to the test and a focus on pointless memorization. Our schools aren't supposed to be competitions, at least not primarily. Comparing them to athletics events is silly. If we wanted to find out "who is the best…

> The point is that a test environment isn't ideal for gauging how well someone knows materials.

Nobody said it was "ideal". Sheesh. But nobody has found a better way.

> Our system of testing incentivizes teaching to the test and a focus on pointless memorization.

News flash: some tests are poorly conceived.

> It comes down to, what is the point of testing students?

Allow me to reframe that. Would you get on an airplane piloted by a fellow who was never tested on his flying knowledge and skill?

Re: The Catherine Project: A new experiment in liberal education

#117

Post by seneca »

SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #22
seneca wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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.

Sorry, that's not the point I meant to make. The poster I was responding to was saying that the point of intellectual discussion groups is never to discuss Marx. I was pointing out that that is because Marx's theories have been thoroughly shown to lack merit.

It's not so much that they're dangerous as that they were discussed, quite a lot, and then acted on. Those discussions and actions lead to some of the largest events of human suffering in history. I'm not sure what more discussion there is to have at that point other than "how do we make sure that doesn't happen again".

I've read Marx myself. I've also read what little of Mein Kamf I could manage to get through. I don't believe in banning books or ideas, but I do think it's ridiculous to ignore history and pretend that proven bad ideas ought to be given another chance.

Re: The Catherine Project: A new experiment in liberal education

#118

Post by titanomachy »

throwawaygh wrote: post #79
glial wrote: post #61

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…

> Like a bible study, but without the bible. Yeah, exactly. Or hackerspaces. Or OSS. Or presenting at DEFCON. (And, yes, these folks will include this project in their tenure/promotion cases and therefore indirectly benefit professionally even if they don't charge just like in the cases above.) My only real "criticism" of this model is that the people doing this work shouldn't shy away from asking for "tithes"... hum…

I agree students should be encouraged to donate if they are able. However, charging something close to "market rate" for this kind of thing would definitely affect who ends up attending.

Re: The Catherine Project: A new experiment in liberal education

#119

Post by WalterBright »

csa wrote: post #84
WalterBright wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many people do you know who read textbooks in their spare time? And what percentage of them do the exercises in the book?

Not the original person you are replying to, but several including myself. That said, I think that your question is a bit loaded. Textbook-level treatment of a subject is usually very shallow (depending on the subject, I suppose).

> several including myself

Nice to meet the unicorn! Meanwhile, how many textbooks are on the shelves at Barnes&Nobel? Not exactly bestsellers, right? Even the University of Washington bookstore puts the textbooks in a separate room in the basement.

> Textbook-level treatment of a subject is usually very shallow

Maybe the ones you read are. The ones Caltech uses aren't, like this one:

https://www.amazon.com/Gravitation-Charles-W-Misner/dp/06911...

Re: The Catherine Project: A new experiment in liberal education

#120

Post by throwaway984393 »

tbjohnston wrote: post #83

Gentle note - I participated in one of the Catherine Project's events - a two hour session on Genesis 1-5. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Everyone involved came prepared, asked good questions, and listened thoughtfully to what others had to say. I'd cheerfully participate again. I don't understand the skepticism either. If people want to engage a great text with a community, what's the harm?

Well, call me crazy, but doesn't that already exist? Free lectures are available in a variety of media and locations in a variety of subjects. Libraries have a ton of content, and often the space available to host talks/lectures. The Internet has pretty much all information you will ever need in one form or another.

If the Catherine Project is indeed just one more form of that kind of decentralized ad-hoc learning, then the only downside is that it'll be just as successful. That is to say, a bunch of random people learning random things without a curriculum. Which is not really "an education", and carries a series of challenges and burdens for a great number (maybe most) of the population, that traditional academia is intended to address.

Post reply on HN