4 ms·

Or teaching that math is racist... If you want to learn humanities, you can pretty much read any book anytime in your life (in fact most of the teaching in hum

by cm2187 6y ago

Or teaching that math is racist... If you want to learn humanities, you can pretty much read any book anytime in your life (in fact most of the teaching in humanities is just assigning books to read). I would say that there the value added of a college over an online reading list is marginal. For STEM, completely different story, it is very hard for someone who hasn’t been trained formally to pick it up later in one’s career.

jimbob21 6y ago
>in fact most of the teaching in humanities is just assigning books to read I don't know what college you went to, but at mine, reading was the homework, and the discussion on the books (even with the professor's inherent biases) in the class with my peers is what developed the profound thoughts and ideas that I still carry with me. Humanities might not contribute to jobs, (I'm STEM) but I don't for a second regret the philosophy classes I took.
- malandrew 6y ago
  A lot of this is dependent on class size and class level. It's not until you get to class sizes of less than 20 and at the 300 level and up classes that you get actual discussion instead of lecturing and leading questions. And even smaller class size and higher level isn't a guarantee of good critical dialogue. I went to a large well ranked public university class in the United States, have both a STEM and non-STEM degree with over 200 credit hours over 4.5 years and I can think of exactly two humanities classes that had real discussions that weren't just being assigned books, largely uncritically accepting their contents and being lectured. Both classes with real dialogue were higher level classes with just over 10 people in them. One class was about the intersection of art and technology and the other was a philosophy of science class. There was way more critical thought and dialogue on average in my STEM classes.
rexpop 6y ago
> most of the teaching in humanities is just assigning books to read To you, apparently, one book is as good as another?
SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
> I would say that there the value added of a college over an online reading list is marginal. If you can read through Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy and get everything out of it without help good on you, but I certainly couldn't.
adamsea 6y ago
Good luck with James Joyce's Ulysses ... or Samuel Beckett. Or Thomas Pynchon. Or -- the author you didn't even know existed until the domain expert (aka professor) assigned/suggested it. Or, you know ... history? Or even Shakespeare, for that matter. For some, a course makes reading such material hugely more enlightening.
- cm2187 6y ago
  You are describing a reading list.
  - adamsea 6y ago
    A list to support my argument :)
na85 6y ago
>Or teaching that math is racist... Can you elaborate further?
- cm2187 6y ago
  things like this: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/black-lives-matter-oxford-will-decolonise-degrees-c7dkhbtnd https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/black-lives-matter-oxford...
  - na85 6y ago
    Paywalled, but the part I was able to read wasn't suggesting "math is racist". Sorry I asked.
    - leetcrew 6y ago
      no you're right. I was able to read the article in full and it doesn't say anything like that. the only thing it said about the math department was that they were going to allow students to apply for "lenient grading" if they felt their studies were negatively impacted by the george floyd killing. to be fair, there is a subset of leftist thought that advocates placing lived experiences above statistical arguments. you can see this play out on social media where people are scolded for not being fully convinced by an individual's personal story about {insert macro issue}. the argument here is not that math itself is racist (how could it be?), but that the study and application of it can be. in other words, if statistics is disproportionately studied by an already-dominant subset of society, its application will likely lead to conclusions that more or less support the status quo.
      - sokoloff 6y ago
        If your studies were negatively impacted by <whatever factor outside your control>, why would "lenient grading" be the right response? "You get a no-penalty 'incomplete' and can complete the course later" seems vastly more appropriate than saying you learned something that you haven't. I'm sure some people were negatively impacted; they should not suffer a poor grade as a result. Nor should they be granted a better grade than the ability they demonstrated.
munchbunny 6y ago
If you want to learn humanities, you can pretty much read any book anytime in your life (in fact most of the teaching in humanities is just assigning books to read). The pragmatic part of humanities is argumentation and writing. You can't get that from just reading. What you're saying is like "the value of a computer science degree over just reading programming books is marginal." It's ignoring that the most important part of the learning happens in application.

by cm2187 6y ago

jimbob21 6y ago

>in fact most of the teaching in humanities is just assigning books to read I don't know what college you went to, but at mine, reading was the homework, and the discussion on the books (even with the professor's inherent biases) in the class with my peers is what developed the profound thoughts and ideas that I still carry with me. Humanities might not contribute to jobs, (I'm STEM) but I don't for a second regret the philosophy classes I took.

malandrew 6y ago
A lot of this is dependent on class size and class level. It's not until you get to class sizes of less than 20 and at the 300 level and up classes that you get actual discussion instead of lecturing and leading questions. And even smaller class size and higher level isn't a guarantee of good critical dialogue. I went to a large well ranked public university class in the United States, have both a STEM and non-STEM degree with over 200 credit hours over 4.5 years and I can think of exactly two humanities classes that had real discussions that weren't just being assigned books, largely uncritically accepting their contents and being lectured. Both classes with real dialogue were higher level classes with just over 10 people in them. One class was about the intersection of art and technology and the other was a philosophy of science class. There was way more critical thought and dialogue on average in my STEM classes.

rexpop 6y ago

> most of the teaching in humanities is just assigning books to read To you, apparently, one book is as good as another?

SketchySeaBeast 6y ago

> I would say that there the value added of a college over an online reading list is marginal. If you can read through Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy and get everything out of it without help good on you, but I certainly couldn't.

adamsea 6y ago

Good luck with James Joyce's Ulysses ... or Samuel Beckett. Or Thomas Pynchon. Or -- the author you didn't even know existed until the domain expert (aka professor) assigned/suggested it. Or, you know ... history? Or even Shakespeare, for that matter. For some, a course makes reading such material hugely more enlightening.

cm2187 6y ago
You are describing a reading list.
- adamsea 6y ago
  A list to support my argument :)

na85 6y ago

>Or teaching that math is racist... Can you elaborate further?

cm2187 6y ago
things like this: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/black-lives-matter-oxford-will-decolonise-degrees-c7dkhbtnd https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/black-lives-matter-oxford...
- na85 6y ago
  Paywalled, but the part I was able to read wasn't suggesting "math is racist". Sorry I asked.
  - leetcrew 6y ago
    no you're right. I was able to read the article in full and it doesn't say anything like that. the only thing it said about the math department was that they were going to allow students to apply for "lenient grading" if they felt their studies were negatively impacted by the george floyd killing. to be fair, there is a subset of leftist thought that advocates placing lived experiences above statistical arguments. you can see this play out on social media where people are scolded for not being fully convinced by an individual's personal story about {insert macro issue}. the argument here is not that math itself is racist (how could it be?), but that the study and application of it can be. in other words, if statistics is disproportionately studied by an already-dominant subset of society, its application will likely lead to conclusions that more or less support the status quo.
    - sokoloff 6y ago
      If your studies were negatively impacted by <whatever factor outside your control>, why would "lenient grading" be the right response? "You get a no-penalty 'incomplete' and can complete the course later" seems vastly more appropriate than saying you learned something that you haven't. I'm sure some people were negatively impacted; they should not suffer a poor grade as a result. Nor should they be granted a better grade than the ability they demonstrated.

munchbunny 6y ago

If you want to learn humanities, you can pretty much read any book anytime in your life (in fact most of the teaching in humanities is just assigning books to read). The pragmatic part of humanities is argumentation and writing. You can't get that from just reading. What you're saying is like "the value of a computer science degree over just reading programming books is marginal." It's ignoring that the most important part of the learning happens in application.