blog.shimer

Team Shimer at St. Baldrick's

Hola Amigos! How's it going? I know it's been a while since I rapped at ya (cf. Jim Anchower). Well, I thought maybe Sara would beat me to the punch on this, but it looks like I get to tell you about our adventure last week at the St. Baldrick's event at IIT's "Bog." In brief, I, Sara, and alumnus Eric Nicholson got our heads shaved to raise $$ for children with cancer (and me to get a haircut at the same time). We raised more than a thousand dollars, though I am not sure how much exactly. Eric's contribution was by far the most impressive though: he had been growing his hair for more than twenty years, after losing it all when he had chemotherapy in his own bout with cancer. Wow. So, he got the pony tail clipped and bagged as it was long enough to help make a wig for a bald child. Now that's giving. Here's a photo of us all after the clipping:

Montaigne Scholarship

    Yesterday was Valentine's Day. More importantly, to those looking for a scholarship, it was the second day of the Fourth Annual Montaigne Weekend. Forty prospective students came from all over the States to compete for the Montaigne Scholarship. Was the competition intense? Of course. Was it fun? Absolutely. Will four people come out of it with a major scholarship to Shimer College? Yes!
    All they had to do, other then find their way to Chicago, was read an essay by Michel de Montaigne before arriving. Once here they wrote an essay and participated in a discussion on the text. The judges will now decide who gets the scholarship and everyone is notified around March 1.
    Other than the competition, the students (and their parents) got to take a tour of our campus, eat lunch in our cafeteria and scope out the dorm rooms. Current students (including Naomi Neal of my last post, who is one of last year's Montaigne winners) answered questions and chatted with the prospies throughout the two days.
    To the above right is a picture of me one year ago yesterday at my own Montaigne competition. It's a horrible picture, but it brings back the exciting feeling I had the first time I set foot on this campus. I can only hope the students over the weekend felt the same way. Below are pictures of Sunday's Montaigne group. Please forgive/excuse the back-of-the-head phenomena that is my picture taking skill.
    To the right is Jack Dragu from California. He's a senior in high school and really loves the idea of a place where you can read all of the time and then talk about what you read. That's probably one of the things that sold me right off the bat as well.
   

 

     Above are two of the tables in the cafeteria of the Shimer group. On the far table both of the Admission staff are present as well as Aaron Garland who handles a lot of the Alumni stuff at our school as well as the school website.
    To the left is Amy Pritts. She's relatively new to our school, our new Admissions Director. She spoke with a lot of the parents and hopefuls, explaining a lot of the inner workings of our school and the application process.
    Below is first-year Ben Bornstein (left) eating and chatting with prospective Christian.

      To the right is facilitator Barbara Stone. "Facilitator" is the correct term for the teachers at our school because, normally, they do not lecture or profess--they facilitate discussions in the classroom, make sure we're moving in the right direction and grade/help us with our papers.
    Below  the group heading into the dorms. This year, Shimer students have three floors of Gunsalaus Hall. This group was shown one of the sample rooms on the first floor, a one-bedroom apartment. All of our dorms, no matter the size, come with their own bathroom and kitchen.
    There are no co-ed rooms, but the floors are mixed. My neighbors are boys.

Playing: Oblivion (of the Shivering Isles variety)
Classes Today: Natural Sciences 2 (Darwin), Social Sciences 2 (Machiavelli), Humanities 2 (Homer)

Last Week/MWA

     It's been almost a week since my last post. I was getting so used to it being a part of my week-daily routine and then my computer went on the fritz. I suppose I could have written my posts in Shimer's computer lab (which, although small, is quite nice), but to write I need my own computer, my own space.

     Last Week's thoughts (condensed):

The Wordiness of Worddom

     Being around words all day can make a person a little flustered. There are just so many to be remembered, thought about, argued over. Pronunciation can get a little confusing when people are from all over these states (and from around the world).
     So, making up words just adds to the confusion.
     As a general rule, certain words, that already have meanings, should not be re-defined. My roommate really hates it when I say 'triangulate' and mean 'a meeting between three people, thus making a triangle'. Seeing as that is not even close to the correct definition, I suppose I can understand her annoyance when I exercise my creative linguistic license.
     However, there are times in class when a well made-up word can really capture the essence of what needs to be said. Like when a certain Shimer student, when speaking of an omelette, says, "The omeletteness of the omelette is what makes it pure." Or, "the chairyness of the chair makes it seem more red."
     We all understand what he means when he says it, he (usually) follows the rules of English grammar. Sometimes it is actually helpful in class because once in a while there really is no one word that captures the meaning of what we are discussing.

Haiti

     The last Community Tuesday we had featured Erik Badger, an alum, who spoke about Haiti. He, along with Professor Steve Werlin, have been working down in Haiti for a while now and are especially busy since the recent devastating earthquake.
     He told us about all of the help Haiti could use right now, not just donations but volunteer work as well. He also filled us in on the current political situation and connected us (via Skype) with Steve Werlin who is still in Haiti.
     To read Steve Werlin's statement about the aftermath of the earthquake go to: http://alumni.shimer.edu/s/1028/index.aspx?sid=1028&gid=1&pgid=252&cid=1154&ecid=1154&crid=0&calpgid=61&calcid=772

Midwest Worker's Association

     Many Shimer students volunteer with the Midwest Worker's Association (MWA) on a weekly basis. "The Midwest Worker's Association's purpose is to provide a wide range of social and health survive-and-get-on-your-feet services and referrals to organize advocacy of working families not covered by traditional labor laws and organizations" (from Loyola University's Website).

     Shimerians help out by distributing food donations, getting in contact with other organizations that can help the people of Chicago and collecting supplies like food.
     People are encouraged to help out in any way they can, like donating clothing or canned goods or participating in drives like the Super Bowl Sunday Tamale Benefit. Students and other volunteers worked many hours to make vegetarian and meat tamales and then sold them around the community to raise money for the people in need of help in Chicago.
     Currently, many people in the dorms here are planning on donating clothing to the MWA to be distributed throughout Chicago.

Playing: Still Mass Effect 2
Classes Today: Nat Sci 2, Soc Sci 2 and Hum 2

Can Warriors Come Home?

    Tonight I teamed with Cheryl again on a caper that took us to CAN-TV, the Chicago Cable Channel 21 to do a live call-in show. We were joined by Ben Marquez, a Weekend Program student who’s been at Shimer for a year and a half now, and came in part by way of service in the U.S. Army. Ben also happens to belong to three American Indian Nations, Navajo, Hopi and Cherokee. He and I were on the cameras talking about the question “Can warriors come home?” I thought this might be of interest to viewers today, as it was Veterans Day. The question seems to me one that we’re asking a lot in the U.S. these days. It's also one that we entertain every year at Shimer in a variety of ways through our curriculum, but perhaps most centrally and poignantly in our classes on Homer’s Odyssey. I’ve led classes on the Odyssey many times. One of the questions that always gets discussed is when exactly Penelope, Odysseus’ mate, recognizes him once he's returned home from the war in Troy (as recounted in the Iliad, of course). One is led to think in many ways that she knows who her guest is - though he is at first disguised as a beggar from Crete - once Odysseus has slaughtered all of the young men who had taken up residence in his home during his twenty-year absence and were courting Penelope (and through her the position of headman in Ithaka). But Penelope even then plays a very emotionally-charged game with Odysseus, testing him through a series of questions about her husband and dropping hints at how things have changed in Ithaka and with her since he'd been gone. Finally, Odysseus becomes enraged, but I will let you read how. I just wanted to indicate that it would not seem to me strange if a similar tale could be told by many a homecoming warrior and their mates.

    And this was the sort of thing I thought we might be able to talk about on tonight’s show. In addition, Ben had brought a lot of other materials to discuss, including quotations from Senator Fulbright on the costs of the Vietnam War, and some ideas about Plato’s Republic, which is founded, arguably, on the idea that war and a warrior class become necessary to us once we decide to live in a certain way beyond what is most essential, or necessary to us, i.e. once we look to a life of "relish" and luxury. Of course, such a life also seems to make philosophy possible - and necessary - but that's just opening a can of worms that it'd be hard to get control of in a half hour slot. 

    But even so, much as we tried to stay on point and offer we hoped inviting but serious points for discussion, we didn’t get a single caller! Not a one (well, one, but they just called and hung up as the show was ending). Anyway, Ben and I had a chance to chat, and it was a gas, so we plan to do it again. So if you’re in the Chicago area, keep an eye on CAN-TV, and we’ll be thinking about a question to propose about Thanksgiving or Christmas, maybe. 

Cheers!

From our own correspondent

This being my first blog post, introductions are in order. I happen to be one of the human race’s more fortunate members: I’m on the faculty at Shimer College. I read and discuss “the best that has been thought and said” for work. Go figure. (I also happen to be Shimer’s current Dean of Students, but I’ll leave that for another post.) 

Most of the time, I ply my trade here in Chicago with the folks you already know - Brigid, Kieran, Sara et al and their colleagues in class. But now and then I get to take the show on the road. Last year I was the Director of Shimer’s program in Oxford (and just signed on for another stint there next year; life’s good. Here, by the way, is a link to the blog we did during our stay there last year.). But I write to you today to relate my recent jaunt up and down the coast of California with Cheryl Park, one of our Admission counselors. 

Some of you have already talked or written with Cheryl, I’m guessing. If you have you know how smart and nice she is in her unassuming way (and if you haven’t yet, tell her I sent you). I’ve known that since I met her, but what I didn’t know is that she’s a filmmaker. I found that out as we shot the breeze driving up and down the left coast between engagements to spread the word about Shimer. She makes documentaries mostly (or, that’s what I’ve been able to get out of her about herself so far), but she’s also an expert on experimental film. And she is the first person ever to get me to do karaoke. In short, the talent is deep here. 

Cheryl’s been out in Cali for going on three weeks now. I’ve been out twice myself during her tour, once a couple weeks ago to the LA area and Santa Barbara, and then just this last weekend to Monterey. On the first trip, I got to dine at the Jonathan Club on the beachfront in Santa Monica with Andrea and Rhos Dyke, the parents of Lance, who graduated last year (and, among other things, fenced for the University of Oxford and studied Lute last year on the program abroad). With us on that evening was Ruth Grubb, a College Counselor at Pacific Palisades High School. We talked a lot about the woes Californians are having with their state school system with the recent budget cuts. And we talked about more ways to get the word out about Shimer.

The next day, Cheryl and I went up the coast to Santa Barbara City College, a two-year college that sends many of its graduates on to four-year programs (most of them into the California State University and University of California system). Our host there was Professor Celeste Barber of the College’s English Department. Celeste helped design and now teaches in the SBCC Great Books program, and hosted a reception with students from the school interested in possibly attending Shimer. We went to lunch down in the harbor district with a student and Manoutchehr M. Eskandari-Qajar, a historian of Persia and political scientist who leads the Middle Eastern Studies club at SBCC. It was a filling and stimulating lunch. 

To finish off the weekend, Cheryl and I had a series of meetings with individual students around the area who had expressed interest in Shimer. That’s the thing about our Admission department - they give as personalized treatment as one gets all the way through the program at Shimer, where I know every student by name (and in most cases more than that). All told, Cheryl seemed to think the trip had gone well, and I had to agree.

Two weeks later - that is, just this past weekend - I went back out and met Cheryl up in the Bay area. This time, we were off to Monterey Peninsula College. We were joined on the visit by Ken Knabb, an alumnus of Shimer in 1964, back when the school was in Mount Carroll, Illinois. (If you’re not up on that history, it’s what I’d call a long story, but a good one. You can find more about the school’s storied past here.) 

Ken is a fascinating person. He came to Shimer in 1961 from the Ozark Mountains of Missouri, matriculating when he was just 16, an early entrant of the kind that Shimer’s welcomed since it adopted the Hutchins Program from the University of Chicago. When he graduated (in 3 years!) he moved out to Berkeley and has lived there since, in the same small cottage, lined floor to ceiling with his books. Ken’s a student of anarchism and especially the Situationists, whose writings he has translated and published, including here on his website. I’ve had the occasion to use his Situationist Anthology in a class and can tell you it’s an invaluable addition to any library of political thought. 

Cheryl, Ken and I made it to Monterey by about 12:30 last Friday and set up shop in a conference room in the Humanities building dedicated to Monterey Peninsula College’s Great Books Club. Our host in Monterey was Professor David Clemens, who is the Coordinator of the school’s Great Books program, with a significant interest in how technology interfaces with education. We also met a few other faculty in the Great Books Program, and two students, Joshua Converse and Jaclyn Carpenter. 

We had a great chat about the whole “great books idea,” which is the title of David’s introductory course to a curriculum of great books courses that Monterey Peninsula College hosts not only in its classrooms but also online. Beyond the ins and outs of doing great books education on the internet, our conversation ranged from the structure of Shimer classes and the curriculum to changes in American writing for the stage and beyond that to the evolving character of American heroic figures (from cowboys to private detectives to spacemen, e.g.). And we ate cookies. All in all, for a literate crowd, it was a total blast. 

More later, and very nice to meet you.

You can read more about Stuart on Shimer's Website.

Shimer sample

Faculty member Albert Fernandez joins us in this entry:

    Most of what is said in Shimer classes is, of course, said live and for the most part lost to posterity.  It's not easy to have an idea of what Shimer discussion is like unless you enroll or visit a class. But we also have cyber-exchanges, mostly by e-mail.  As a sample, below is such an exchange between one of my students, David Brault, in an upper-level course called Philosophy and Theology ("Hum 3"), and myself.

    The immediate context is class discussion of concepts that are sometimes claimed by philosophers or religious thinkers to be innate and to refer to transcendent realities--the concepts of God and of the Good are prime examples.  The more modern idea, mostly attributed to John Locke but originally articulated by Plato, is that all ideas are derived from experience and culture.

David writes:

Check this out: these two sites trace the history of the word "good" back to its original status as a word describing something actually physical, and then applied metaphorically to get the moral senses of the word.

http://web.archive.org/web/20080626165353/www.bartleby.com/61/roots/IE155.html

 http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=good&searchmode=none

"THE GOOD" is actually a metaphor related to the idea of being physically complete, taken over to mean complete in other senses too--

The prehistory of the word God has little relevance to the idea of a cosmic god:

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=god&searchmode=none

The prehistory of the word "justice," just to round things off:

http://web.archive.org/web/20080701024909/www.bartleby.com/61/roots/IE601.html

What is just is what is.... lawful. What is lawful is what... your culture's laws are. How would this all be explained form-wise [in terms of Platonic form]?  If you believe in Forms wouldn't there be an understanding of what these concepts are from the dawn of time, as they would not be metaphorically constructed concepts?

David  Brault

And my response:

    In answer to the question at the end of your message, I am channeling Plato, who says through me that, yes, the form of justice was present in human minds before there was any law, and indeed made it possible to conceive of law, even if that happened long before anybody had a concept of justice. Justice is a form older than the concept of justice or the concept of law, and is indeed the condition of possibility for thoughts of either law or justice.

  Thank you, Plato.  Speaking from a more modern perspective, what linguists call “language acquisition capability” is the condition of possibility for words or thoughts in English, French, etc. 

Can you really teach science in discussion classes?

The father looked at me skeptically. 

As we sat together in Infinity with his wife and the daughter who wanted to come to Shimer College, he was not ready to accept the idea that a Shimer education was the right one.  He had received his education in the physical sciences.  He made his business in software.  He served as CEO of his own company.  Even from his way of asking questions, I knew he was an intelligent, pragmatic, left-brained thinker.  So he asked,

“How can you teach math and science in discussion classes?  If the students just trade ideas with each other, how will they learn the facts, the truth?”

It was clear that he was not trying to trap me.  This was an open-minded and authentic question.  He was prepared to hear the answer even if he suspected that I could not give one.  My response was equally authentic.

“A good Shimer dialog is not a ‘rap session’, not just students pooling their ignorance.”  I said.  “It’s a dialog with the author as much as with each other, and we work together to understand what the author is saying.  If it’s Newton explaining Physics in the Principia, then we help each other achieve a correct understanding of what he’s teaching.”  The father’s mien softened.  “After all,” I added, “you probably know the old saying about the best way to learn something.”  I paused and he nodded, saying “To teach it.”  “Right,” I responded, “so if I can get the students to teach each other instead of my teaching them, they learn more and retain more.”  The father leaned forward, engaged.

I went on.  “Let me share with you my own model of teaching.  We Shimer teachers are often called facilitators, and so we are.  But I’m not just facilitating the process by making sure everyone gets a chance to talk.  I facilitate the learning process.  My model, my internal image of what I’m doing, is the sheepdog.  If the students are going in the right direction, I let them go, teaching and correcting each other.  When they wander off in the wrong direction or into a blind alley, I round them up and bring them back to the content of the reading and the message of the author.  After all, a good Shimer dialog is not just sharing opinions.  It’s understanding the material and being able to back up any statement you make with evidence and logic.

“I guess that the clearest example is when I teach calculus.  It’s not a matter of opinion what the derivative of X squared is: it’s 2X, period.”  The father nodded.  Apparently he remembered his calc lessons.  “My job is to make sure that they know that fact—from the book, not from me—and why it’s true.  Here’s how discussion works into it.  The students have a reading and they have problems to do (you don’t really know math if you can’t do the problems) and we start class with a discussion of the text.  Students share their questions or confusions and try to explain it to each other.  I participate in this as just one more person at the table.  When everyone else is stumped, I continue the discussion by explaining and sharing my knowledge until everyone gets it.  Then we turn to the problems and do the same thing.”

The father responded to this.  “Fine,” he said, “but does it really work?”  I could see here both his pragmatic nature and why he was successful at business.  I replied.  “I used to worry about this.  After all, most science faculty at other schools think a Great Books approach is fine for the Liberal Arts but ridiculous for Science.   The scientist in me wasn’t satisfied till I started to get data.”  What data?  “I’ll share two examples.  The first is my own experience.  I always thought that my Calculus students were learning the material, but wasn’t sure because I had nothing to compare them to.  Until Shimer moved to IIT.  Our first year here, one student who had taken Calc from me went on in math and took Differential Equations at IIT.”  The father winced.  Apparently he remembered his Diff Eq class.  “Half way through the semester, the student came back to me with the news: he had gotten his grade back from the mid-term exam.  His was the highest score in the class.  I finally had my comparative data showing the superiority of a Shimer classroom.  The other piece of data came from the National Academy of Sciences—the crème de la crème of American Science.  They studied themselves and found that their members disproportionately received their bachelor’s degrees from small liberal arts colleges, not from major research universities.”  The father looked amazed.  Why??  “I can’t say personally,”  I answered, “But they themselves said that it’s because they were educated more broadly and taught to think outside the box while at the large universities students focus on just doing pre-defined problem sets.  At Shimer, we do both of those in spades.”  Now he smiled, broadly.

We talked more and I shared some more examples and anecdotes.  In the end, I was rewarded with what every evangelist wants: a convert.  The father said “I would really like it if Sarah went to Shimer.”  This time, the daughter smiled.

Let's get some more geeks in here

I'm Jim Donovan PhD, aka JD.  As you can see from my bio at 

    http://www.shimer.edu/aboutshimercollege/JimDonovan.cfm,

I'm a science geek.  I came to Shimer to complete my education.  I'll probably chime in from time-to-time with something about science or how science relates to other fields.

JD

Notes from the Gadfly and the Every-Third-Weekend Program Director, Harold Stone

From time to time, we hope to post the thoughts of some of Shimer's great faculty members on this blog.  Some may even join the ranks of our regular contributors.  For now, Harold Stone, who you can read all about here, has shared these notes originally composed for the Gadfly, Shimer's newsletter for Weekend College, a program which allows adults to complete their undergraduate education in the Great Books here at Shimer.

Notes from the Director

Welcome to the Fall Semester of the 2009-2010 academic year.  The Weekend College is approaching its thirtieth year.  At one time, the rule of thumb was not to trust anyone over 30. I don’t know if the same skepticism was or should be applied to institutions.  As we approach the end of the Weekend College’s third decade, I can tell you the Program is strong, our continuing students have made remarkable achievements in one of the most challenging programs of undergraduate instruction.  Congratulations to those who have completed their Area Comprehensive examinations and to those who passed the Basic Studies Examination.  Welcome to our new students. I think you will agree as you get to know them that they are interesting individuals full of promise. If reaching and passing the thirty year mark is a passage perilous, I advise you to be confident because of the quality of the company engaged in this venture and the nobility of its purpose. 

This year is the 200^th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150^th of the publication of his best known work, On the Origin of Species.  As we continue our contribution to the life of the mind and the development of our own intellectual and spiritual resources, it is right to think back on what binds us to and separates us from this past.  To enter the world of 1809 requires a far greater imaginative leap than that of 1859, or so it seems to me.  There is something seductive about “The Masterpiece Theatre” presentation of the novels of Jane Austen, Elizabeth Gaskell or Charles Dickens that makes each of them so approachable even palpable.  This immediacy of the past can be deceptive.   To understand most things we need to withdraw from our immediate context and radically slow down the pace of what we experience.  This isn’t primarily because ‘back then’ life was slower, though that may be true. The primary reason to slow down is to allow us to stop, to pick up objects, and to explore them in their complexity.  You should use the same standard when it comes to your class preparation and your writing.  Set aside more time then you think reasonable to get your reading done and your papers written.  Call it time to think, time to day dream, your understanding of your readings will only improve the longer you allow yourself to wander and wonder with them.  Great authors and great books often have the unsettling effect of making you think they are speaking directly to you, and often that is true.  When you think you are succumbing to the power of an argument, beware that you are  loosing your critical judgment!  Slow down.

On other matters, remember that after the next Weekend College meeting on Sunday we will have the first meeting of the Assembly, the governing body of the College.  All staff and students are members of the Assembly.  Be sure to attend, consider serving on one of the committees that govern the College.   If you have any difficulties with your ID or have any other problems be sure to contact me.

Harold Stone

Director of the Weekend Program 
 

Fact Checking: The Perspective of the Great Books

Among the polymaths we study is the seventeenth French writer Blaise Pascal.  We read Pascal’s scientific treatises on air pressure and the vacuum in Natural Sciences One; his Pensées are a required text in Humanities Three.  In 1656 Pascal began a project which perhaps really began as a series of actual letters to an unnamed friend.  In any event, in their published form they are presented as a series of loosely connected letters which describe the state of theological debate in Paris to someone remote from the capital city.  In their published form we know them as The Provincial Letters.  In this compact volume of 18 or 19 letters one reads a withering analysis of the state of the moral philosophy and of the theological speculation practiced at France’s leading center of religious thought, the Sorbonne.   Not only does his work deal with fundamental questions of integrity and moral purpose; his irony is sublime, his wit is never merely corrosive or abusive, and some of his passages will make you roar with laughter.

The recent debate concerning what actually is being proposed in the healthcare legislation being considered by Congress reminded me of the initial issue that begins The Provincial Letters.  What got Pascal started was what might seem an obscure and insignificant matter.  A couple of decades before a theologian named Jansen had written a Latin treatise seeking to make a coherent explanation of the various remarks of St. Augustine concerning grace, and especially the saving grace God might give to individuals.  This was an important matter of contention between Protestants and Catholics at this time as those of you who have already taken the class know from your reading of Max Weber in Social Sciences One.  It was also an internal dispute between the different religious orders of the Catholic Church.  In the rush to discredit Jansen and his followers (whom we might regard as conservatives), a group led by the Jesuits (whose position might be called liberal) asserted that Jansen’s book contained four heinous propositions.  The Pope, on seeing the propositions, agreed;  he condemned the propositions and the book as heretical.  Pascal and his friend Arnauld had the further effrontery to point out that not only were these statements not contained in Jansen’s text, the text clearly said the  opposite.  To be sure, they agreed, if they had been in the text they would have been heretical.  The response of some of the Jesuits was to argue that Arnauld and Pascal should be condemned for pointing out that the passages couldn’t be found!

And, as you might suspect, this argument, while it looked like it concerned theology was in fact a political quarrel involving the prestige of the French King Louis XIV and the Papacy who were allied to the flawed scholarship of the Jesuits.  While these connections are interesting, what Pascal goes on to show is the moral bankruptcy behind the sloppy and unethical behavior of those who deliberately misrepresent what they read, or worse what they claimed to have read.  He goes on to show that those who sponsored and affirmed these fabricated propositions were part of an institution that promoted a rotten moral code.  Pascal did not hesitate to ridicule his adversaries and succeeded in making them not only look silly but he also showed they were merely petty men who were attempting to be bullies. 

Harold Stone