Posted on 10/18/2011 9:35:29 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Sarah Benson last encountered college mathematics 20 years ago in an undergraduate algebra class. Her sole experience teaching math came in the second grade, when the first graders needed help with their minuses.
And yet Ms. Benson, with a Ph.D. in art history and a master's degree in comparative literature, stood at the chalkboard drawing parallelograms, constructing angles and otherwise dismembering Euclid's Proposition 32 the way a biology professor might treat a water frog. Her students cared little about her inexperience. As for her employers, they did not mind, either: they had asked her to teach formal geometry expressly because it was a subject about which she knew very little.
It was just another day here at St. John's College, whose distinctiveness goes far beyond its curriculum of great works: Aeschylus and Aristotle, Bacon and Bach. As much of academia fractures into ever more specific disciplines, this tiny college still expects -- in fact, requires -- its professors to teach almost every subject, leveraging ignorance as much as expertise.
"There's a little bit of impostor syndrome," said Ms. Benson, who will teach Lavoisier's "Elements of Chemistry" next semester. "But here, it's O.K. that I don't know something. I can figure it out, and my job is to help the students do the same thing. It's very collaborative."
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Sarah Benson has a Ph.D. in art history and a master's in comparative literature, but this year she is teaching geometry. [Shannon Jensen for The New York Times]
Students in Ms. Benson's class discussing Euclid. [Shannon Jensen for The New York Times]
Somehow, I don’t see this working; could just me ... time will tell.
Modern ‘higher education’ ... gotta dumb down everything, even the poetry dupes. I can see it now, third level Applied EPR taught by the female basketball coach who is also a member of the English Department faculty.
For a classic Liberal Arts or Arts and Sciences degree I see no problem. For specialization an undergraduate certificate from another school might do the trick.
It’s definitely not for everyone—but provides an excellent education for those suited to the approach. Their system is the same or very similar to that used at Thomas Aquinas College in California, and perhaps in one or two other places.
Physisists teaching poetry?
I’m good with that ... finally poems we can understand !!
There once was a neutron Flomb.
Who had enough energy to make a bomb.
He shot through the air ...
Without any care ...
But because freakin EPA regulations and envirowhackos designated him as a threat to something or another, he was replaced by a government funded, dead-end, green project that caused the taxpayers to take it up the Rumb.
Okay ... maybe I should keep my day job.
The look of despair in the second picture makes me laugh.
There is a high likelihood that every student in the class knows the material better than the teacher.
I once found myself in a similar situation the first year I was on the faculty. The dean informed me I was now the faculty adviser to several students. Having no knowledge of the college’s requirements, very little acquaintance with course offerings (other than my own field), I was thrown into the deep end with no preparation or help. I chose to offer my “students” general advice on course loads and how to approach work and study. They were told, “You can read the catalog as well as I can, you find me the requirement you have to meet for your degree, show me the pages and I’ll sign off on it.”
I suppose it taught them some independent thinking and resourcefulness, but it was not a smart move on the dean’s part. At least I wasn’t required to teach Quantum Physics.
I like the approach, but the 43,000/yr tuition seems excessive.
The only difficulty that Proposition 32 presents is not uncommon in mathematics: It’s conclusion is so painfully obvious that it seems hard to get there from here when you’re already there. Anyone with a modicum of perspicacity might resolve the difficulty, only with the requirement that they accept that there is a proof to be had, on the authority of Euclid.
The thread that should be here has already burnt this out. It’s all my fault...
St. John’s is a highly remarkable institution; in an age of dumbing down and eschewing the classics, this institution not only demands mastery of the basics and a familiarity with the full range of Western intellectual history, it relies almost exclusively on classical texts in its curriculum.
In an age of morons, St. John’s holds the line.
The diagram on the board behind Ms. Benson is in Heath’s Euclid, Book II, Proposition I. This book is the geometrical expression of elementary algebra, and Prop. I is nothing but our old friend, Mister Distributive Property, as I always like to say.
I have to admit that I would like to know what’s up with the arrows and bars on the vertical lines of the diagram, though! Added for emphasis, I guess.
I liked it!!!!!!!!!!!!
This school is using the classical model for their academic standard. They understand what it means to be educated in the real and lasting sense. Most people in the United States view college as a vocational school where you earn a degree necessary for a particular job. St. John’s on the other hand, is teaching students to think independently. SOunds like an excellent school, but certainly expensive.
I like it. Think I’ll put it on my FB wall.
Well, Geometry is pretty simple.
I hope they don’t ask her to teach linear algebra or calculus without some training though. I’m not sayin
she is not smart enough to do that...I think anyone of
average intelligence could if they were so inclined.
My daughter is 16 and a sophomore at a major university. She started at 13. I’ve spent countless hours on campus in the library listening to absolutely moronic conversations. She recently had mid-terms and scored in the top percentile in her classes. There were more Ds and Fs in her classes than As, Bs, Cs combined. Universities are so dumbed downed someone with half a brain could teach most of the classes.
I’m a little amazed that there are only 16 courses at this school. That’s only four per year. Does each course last an entire (academic) year?
I ask you ‘cause you seem to know a thing or two about the place.
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