Great essay Truman — I used to teach philosophy, and always made most progress with students in small group discussions or office hours where I’d force them to defend their papers or reconstruct the argument from that week’s reading.
It’s invigorating stuff, and totally possible to do in an inclusive way if you’re charitable with the students who struggle a bit.
I’d love to see more of it, particularly given how unprepared students are for the ringer of debate in the workplace — where grade inflation just doesn’t happen and critical thinkers tend to rise like corks in water.
My head spins as I read this piece from the "new" right, knowing what the founder of the movement-Don, has to say about universities. The list is long, I'll point out just one novel suggestion from JD-another "new" right luminary. JD holds up Viktor Orban's approach of putting universities under government control... Yes, I'm serious.
Truman may want to bone up on his history-how authoritarian leaders of the past have treated universities and other centers of free thought-coupled with the echoes so obvious today. At least, I hope he's just naive. I shudder at the notion that he knows the history, and actually supports it.
US wages are significantly higher than wages in the UK, so if you tried to compare funding and endowments in terms of the FTEs they can support, I think that it would become apparent that the tutorial model isn’t really sustainable in the US except for schools with very large endowments. I say this as a graduate of a US school that follows the tutorial model and hasn’t been able to get itself on firm financial footing.
An important part of the tutorial system is the grading. Instead of the current adversarial system, which has largely withered in the face of market pressures, with tutorials students and faculty collaborate to succeed on a university-wide test. Even this test normally just validates the apparent with the vast majority receiving a low pass or high pass.
Great essay Truman — I used to teach philosophy, and always made most progress with students in small group discussions or office hours where I’d force them to defend their papers or reconstruct the argument from that week’s reading.
It’s invigorating stuff, and totally possible to do in an inclusive way if you’re charitable with the students who struggle a bit.
I’d love to see more of it, particularly given how unprepared students are for the ringer of debate in the workplace — where grade inflation just doesn’t happen and critical thinkers tend to rise like corks in water.
My head spins as I read this piece from the "new" right, knowing what the founder of the movement-Don, has to say about universities. The list is long, I'll point out just one novel suggestion from JD-another "new" right luminary. JD holds up Viktor Orban's approach of putting universities under government control... Yes, I'm serious.
Truman may want to bone up on his history-how authoritarian leaders of the past have treated universities and other centers of free thought-coupled with the echoes so obvious today. At least, I hope he's just naive. I shudder at the notion that he knows the history, and actually supports it.
US wages are significantly higher than wages in the UK, so if you tried to compare funding and endowments in terms of the FTEs they can support, I think that it would become apparent that the tutorial model isn’t really sustainable in the US except for schools with very large endowments. I say this as a graduate of a US school that follows the tutorial model and hasn’t been able to get itself on firm financial footing.
An important part of the tutorial system is the grading. Instead of the current adversarial system, which has largely withered in the face of market pressures, with tutorials students and faculty collaborate to succeed on a university-wide test. Even this test normally just validates the apparent with the vast majority receiving a low pass or high pass.