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The Catherine Project: A new experiment in liberal education

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

#171

Post by CrazyStat »

WalterBright wrote: post #156
CrazyStat wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reed College is another famous example, and Brown University allowed students to take all classes as pass/fail.

> Brown University allowed students to take all classes as pass/fail Meaning they're still taking exams. "The goal of the Reed education is that students learn and demonstrate rigor" https://www.reed.edu/about-reed/history.html Demonstrate rigor sounds like tests. "Among the requirements for the major are successful performance on a junior qualifying examination, completion of a yearlong senior thesis based on origin…

I was answering a question about grades, not tests.

Also "demonstrate rigor" absolutely does not imply tests. In my undergrad (math) the level of rigor of tests was uniformly (and necessarily) much lower than homework and other assignments without the same time pressure. I would expect the same to be true in many other fields.

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

#172

Post by throwawaygh »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #88
dbt00 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even in churches without official tithes, there's a collection plate passed. Operations must be funded, employees need to be fed, housed, clothed.

I guess growing up people would toss a few bucks in the collection plate. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I learned that my Dad would write a significant check to the church every month in addition to the few dollars we passed in the plate (we were a blue collar family, but my parents prioritized tithing, which helped to subsidize the school that was affiliated with the church). My understanding is that the plate…

> Dad would write a significant check to the church every month

That's also tithing (and is completely normal for regular church goers... bible says 10% to the church and a lot of folks follow that prescription)

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

#173

Post by throwawaygh »

gjvnq wrote: post #122
justahuman74 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just enormous, seems like a strong disincentive to join

Depends on how it is calculated, if it is after tax that isn't so much. Also, people who are supporting church will often use a lot of their services so it's not like giving money to a charity you will never directly see their work (like environmental groups). Finally, the 10% rule comes from times where the state had a much lesser role in fighting poverty.

Exactly. At most churches, tithes mostly pay for the physical plant and the full-time staff (who provide services in the form of weekly lectures, counseling, misc. community organizing, and sometimes directly contribute to physical plant upkeep as well).

Tithing is more like a PBS membership or seomthing.

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

#174

Post by _jal »

zepto wrote: post #62
_lqaf wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> What a weird test. No system of government does I’m surprised you don’t think it’s important for power to be accountable. It’s ok if you don’t, but I think limiting the power of tyrants is an important political principle. >> 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. Who said it…

> I’m surprised you don’t think it’s important for power to be accountable.

You're just making shit up now with no relation to what I'm writing. I don't waste my time on bad faith.

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

#175

Post by throwaway894345 »

throwawaygh wrote: post #172
throwaway894345 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess growing up people would toss a few bucks in the collection plate. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I learned that my Dad would write a significant check to the church every month in addition to the few dollars we passed in the plate (we were a blue collar family, but my parents prioritized tithing, which helped to subsidize the school that was affiliated with the church). My understanding is that the plate…

> Dad would write a significant check to the church every month That's also tithing (and is completely normal for regular church goers... bible says 10% to the church and a lot of folks follow that prescription)

Yes, of course. But I'd be surprised if the majority of churchgoers tithe 10%. My guess is that there's some Pareto principle wherein 20% of the congregation ("members" in some churches) seriously tithe and the other 80% might toss a little into the collection plate but aren't giving anywhere near 10%. Of course, I expect this varies tremendously from church to church and even from denomination to denomination.

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

#176

Post by ntnsndr »

I love this idea and, as a person with a special devotion to St. Catherine of Alexandria (who persuaded all the mighty scholars of her truth, which got them executed), I love the name. But isn't it ironic that, for a project named after a woman who schooled haughty men, all the listed books have male authors (except George Eliot, who felt she had to disguise her gender)? Catherine teaches us to look for wisdom outside the canon of official authorities.

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

#177

Post by cmh89 »

WalterBright wrote: post #116
cmh89 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 airpl…

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

I mean, there are plenty of people who have found a better way. They get pushback from folks who think testing is the end-all-be-all of knowledge assessment.

>News flash: some tests are poorly conceived.

It's more like they are flawed from the get-go

>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?

I don't think it really benefits anyone to come up with irrelevant strawmen. Just like athletes, with pilots we care about their performance under specific conditions. Of course pilots should be tested in the conditions they should be working in. Obviously testing for specific things is necessary.

The problem with the analogy is that the testing we use in K-16 doesn't mimic any real world conditions.

A QB needs to be able to perform on the field and thats what we gauge them by. There is no reason an 8th grader needs to be able to solve X amount of problems in 50 minutes or whatever. It's adding elements to the assessment that are irrelevant for gauging knowledge.

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

#178

Post by throwawaygh »

theonething wrote: post #164
Turing_Machine wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a quick, non-exhaustive web search: http://ascensionfairview.org/contribute/parish-membership/ (Orthodox) $450/year https://www.templeshalom.org/dues (Jewish) $3,950/year (based on 2 adult household) https://www.buddhistchurch.org/membership (Buddhist) $44/month https://beulahbaptist.org/flc/membership/ (Baptist) $30/month As I said, few churches (or others houses of worship) will charge you a fee for attending…

Thanks for your response. Out of the four you listed, the only church in the traditional sense of the word is the Greek Orthodox parish. The next two are Jewish and Buddhist temples and the fourth one is community/health center offering things like ballroom dance lessons. But if we expand the scope to houses of worship, then temples are included. I think I've heard of churches charging nominal fees for church members…

> I think I've heard of churches charging nominal fees for church membership, but not requiring tithing

Requiring tithing is not particularly common, but I'm also not surprised when I hear of churches where it happens. A lot of this probably depends on your tradition and geography. Requiring tithing is entirely unheard of in the mainline and very uncommon in the northeast generally, for example, but seems to be slightly more common among the particularly "charismatic"/"corporate"-style evangelical churches in the suburban and exurban midwest.

In any case, I think social pressure on members to tithe is MUCH more common than formal requirements. This might be the source of virulent disagreement. Just because there isn't a formal requirement doesn't mean that there isn't intense social pressure that creates a de facto requirement.

IMO both sides of this argument are correct -- formal tithing requirements are rare, but de facto requirements for members to tithe, enforced via social pressure, is probably quite a bit more common than folks who depend on that tithing for their salaries are willing to admit/realize.

> the only church...

The following rant is specific to the USA.

This irritates me beyond words. Christian churches avoid BILLIONS in taxes via laws such as the Parsonage Exemption, whose original de jure justification was "to spread the gospel" -- about as clear a violation of 1A as you can get (to say nothing of the role that "spreading the gospel" played in the cultural and sometimes actual genocide of native populations).

Judges uphold these incredibly generous tax laws because, they reason, words like "church" and even "gospel" aren't specific to one religion and ought to be interpreted broadly. Excessively broadly, in the case of "gospel". This review does a good job at explaining the case history and legal reasoning: https://lawreview.law.ucdavis.edu/issues/51/3/Articles/51-3_...

Without that reasoning, laws like the one that establishes the parsonage exemption would be prime facie and blatantly unconstitutional. Most churches would lose substantial special tax treatment for many parts of their physical plant and fall into financial hardship.

That's all fine. Really. But don't try to have it both ways. In the USA, either (a) don't insist on using "church" in a religion/tradition-specific specific way, or (b) start paying a lot more taxes.

Anyways, that's all a bit off-topic. The actual point was that I think these folks should accept donations with large nominal "recommended donation" amounts, since I think what they're doing offers way more value than the typical church pastor.

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

#179

Post by zepto »

_jal wrote: post #174
zepto wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What a weird test. No system of government does I’m surprised you don’t think it’s important for power to be accountable. It’s ok if you don’t, but I think limiting the power of tyrants is an important political principle. >> 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. Who said it…

> I’m surprised you don’t think it’s important for power to be accountable. You're just making shit up now with no relation to what I'm writing. I don't waste my time on bad faith.

> I don't waste my time on bad faith.

I think it’s more that you simply don’t have a good response to the points, and making an accusation of bad faith is a cheap way for you to avoid facing that.

I’m not making anything up. Let’s take a look at what you wrote:

Me:

> what has been proved is that Marx’s theories don’t limit the effects of the machinations of assholes

You:

>> What a weird test. No system of government does

There is no difference between limiting the effects of the machinations of assholes, and holding power to account.

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

#180

Post by JackMorgan »

watwut wrote: post #159
mahogany wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what ways are the (current) traditional models in public education "proven"? Genuine question. Speaking of ethics, it doesn't seem entirely ethical to force students to memorize a bunch of facts (chosen by whom?) and regurgitate them for arbitrary grades for over a decade, as if that has something to do with education. Certainly there is some lasting psychological damage inflicted by that methodology.

You are building strawman there. No one said anything about testing something you memorized years ago. And also, quickly changing methodologies sux, because they change faster then teachers can really learn and become experienced in teaching that way. And same applies to students, because different methodologies have different expectations on how they should behave. So, you have constantly teachers doing something th…

I don't believe it's a strawman at all. I was a middle school teacher for years in the USA.

Modern education is overly concerned with fact memorization, since it's the easiest and most precise way to grade. In America we force (not ask) our children to attend institutions that greatly resemble totalitarian dictatorships, where they are not even allowed basic rights like bathroom use without being given permission.

Then we force them to memorize countless facts, many of which are never brought up again for the rest of their lives.

Consider this essay from 1991 from a celebrated educator. https://www.cantrip.org/gatto.html

The system we have isn't designed this way because it's best for the individual, and it's not a strawman to question it.

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