Great post as always -- I feel like there are more pockets of little Hamilton-ness than we realize. I teach at an underfunded community college with students who work long hours and are in the cross hairs of this regime and yet anytime I get in front of a classroom something great happens. my secret is I don't have to pitch a special class - just teach intro to lit or whatever and then do what you want and usually the powers that be are too "busy" to notice. Here's another piece on Silverblatt I found really moving: https://www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/youve-done-it-again-michael/
What a wonderful piece, John. Particularly impressed and hope-filled to hear the student recommend Borgmann to you. Borgmann’s device paradigm and the idea of focal practices is an excellent diagnosis of our modern moment, and of education specifically. We try to extract and isolate a particular end of education, and optimize for that end without more efficient means. When we do that we often lose more than we realize. Borgmann uses the analogy of central heating with a furnace compared to a hearth. The warm house might be the same, but these two are not even close to equivalent.
Anyway, I hope you spend some more time with Borgmann. I think you’ll enjoy him. I wrote a bit about some of my reflections on him here a while back. https://joshbrake.substack.com/p/degenerative-ai
I loved this, John - a great companion piece to the Kriss article--I was struck repeatedly by what seemed an almost suicidal detachment on the part of Roy Lee from the physical/unmediated world. (His crazily specific dating profile, "white-dog-having" - I'm laughing but also thinking what in the actual f?). The article was disturbing and darkly comic on many levels.
A hopeful piece of writing in a time that often seems hopeless. Cynics will lament the lack of solutions, but, to me, solutions emerge as the context requires. And so, I'm reminded of the old joke about the engineer, the physicist, and the mathematician and their approaches to "solving" a small fire in their hotel room--sometimes it's enough to know that a solution exists and then you can go back to bed. 😜
More seriously, humans have a long history of preserving essential knowledge in small, dedicated communities. Think, the keepers Indigenous Wisdom across multiple continents preserving right relationship between humans and place. Or, from my own experience, the practitioners of various Japanese koryu who embed hard-won martial principles in their bodies across generations because it's the only place those principles can truly live. Or, apparently, in small colleges in upstate NY with an open curriculum.
Does this mean those groups always succeed? Of course not. Some things don't and won't make it through. But, I have hope that eventually, when the context requires it, these pockets of wisdom will re-emerge.
John, it's very interesting and enlightening, as always, but this time kind of hopeful as well, and goodness knows, we need it. When I taught middle and high school students, I was amazed and inspired by their intelligence, open mindedness and basic decency. As for your recommendation, as often happens, I have not so much as heard of any of the books your correspondent lists, but I HAVE read A Different Drummer by William Melvin Kelley, thanks to you, and found it deep, multifaceted, and thought provoking, and unlike anything else, in the best way possible. 💖📚
If your post results in more readers of "How College Works" that alone is beneficial.
Those of us in higher education need to counter structural and attitudinal barriers preventing less selective colleges and universities from employing the Hamilton culture you've highlighted.
Chambliss is a 1975 graduate of New College of Florida, and has spoken about his own education there, which, until recently, very much resembled your description of Hamilton as a "high agency, high touch place, famous for its open curriculum that allows undergraduates to range freely through subjects." Alas. You might enjoy Chambliss in a discussion about student agency in a recent Alt Liberal Arts webinar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dp7ua-Bxm8g
Great post as always -- I feel like there are more pockets of little Hamilton-ness than we realize. I teach at an underfunded community college with students who work long hours and are in the cross hairs of this regime and yet anytime I get in front of a classroom something great happens. my secret is I don't have to pitch a special class - just teach intro to lit or whatever and then do what you want and usually the powers that be are too "busy" to notice. Here's another piece on Silverblatt I found really moving: https://www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/youve-done-it-again-michael/
What a wonderful piece, John. Particularly impressed and hope-filled to hear the student recommend Borgmann to you. Borgmann’s device paradigm and the idea of focal practices is an excellent diagnosis of our modern moment, and of education specifically. We try to extract and isolate a particular end of education, and optimize for that end without more efficient means. When we do that we often lose more than we realize. Borgmann uses the analogy of central heating with a furnace compared to a hearth. The warm house might be the same, but these two are not even close to equivalent.
Anyway, I hope you spend some more time with Borgmann. I think you’ll enjoy him. I wrote a bit about some of my reflections on him here a while back. https://joshbrake.substack.com/p/degenerative-ai
I loved this, John - a great companion piece to the Kriss article--I was struck repeatedly by what seemed an almost suicidal detachment on the part of Roy Lee from the physical/unmediated world. (His crazily specific dating profile, "white-dog-having" - I'm laughing but also thinking what in the actual f?). The article was disturbing and darkly comic on many levels.
A hopeful piece of writing in a time that often seems hopeless. Cynics will lament the lack of solutions, but, to me, solutions emerge as the context requires. And so, I'm reminded of the old joke about the engineer, the physicist, and the mathematician and their approaches to "solving" a small fire in their hotel room--sometimes it's enough to know that a solution exists and then you can go back to bed. 😜
More seriously, humans have a long history of preserving essential knowledge in small, dedicated communities. Think, the keepers Indigenous Wisdom across multiple continents preserving right relationship between humans and place. Or, from my own experience, the practitioners of various Japanese koryu who embed hard-won martial principles in their bodies across generations because it's the only place those principles can truly live. Or, apparently, in small colleges in upstate NY with an open curriculum.
Does this mean those groups always succeed? Of course not. Some things don't and won't make it through. But, I have hope that eventually, when the context requires it, these pockets of wisdom will re-emerge.
John, it's very interesting and enlightening, as always, but this time kind of hopeful as well, and goodness knows, we need it. When I taught middle and high school students, I was amazed and inspired by their intelligence, open mindedness and basic decency. As for your recommendation, as often happens, I have not so much as heard of any of the books your correspondent lists, but I HAVE read A Different Drummer by William Melvin Kelley, thanks to you, and found it deep, multifaceted, and thought provoking, and unlike anything else, in the best way possible. 💖📚
If your post results in more readers of "How College Works" that alone is beneficial.
Those of us in higher education need to counter structural and attitudinal barriers preventing less selective colleges and universities from employing the Hamilton culture you've highlighted.
Chambliss is a 1975 graduate of New College of Florida, and has spoken about his own education there, which, until recently, very much resembled your description of Hamilton as a "high agency, high touch place, famous for its open curriculum that allows undergraduates to range freely through subjects." Alas. You might enjoy Chambliss in a discussion about student agency in a recent Alt Liberal Arts webinar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dp7ua-Bxm8g
Borgmann is the best.