Heinlein says I'm not a competent human?

[cellio]

I got this from filkerdave:

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. --Robert Heinlein

Let's see:

Change a diaper: I possess the theoretical knowledge. It would have to be really, really important before you'd get proof, though.

Plan an invasion: Sure, though I don't know how good the plan would be. But all that gaming experience has to be good for something, right? :-)

Butcher a hog: Nope, and not looking to change that.

Conn a ship: Nope.

Design a building: At what level of detail? I've helped specify one but didn't draw up the engineering diagrams, nor would I have had the right clues for materials requirements.

Write a sonnet: Not without a rules refresher. Maybe not even then. Now music, on the other hand...

Balance accounts: Yup.

Build a wall: For a suitably basic wall, yeah.

Set a bone: No one's ever asked me to and my first-aid card has expired, so I'll call that a "no".

Comfort the dying: I think so, though I'm pretty uncomfortable with it. (Aren't we all?) Ask again after the first session of the para-rabbinic program in a few weeks.

Take orders: Absolutely, but I have to believe the order-giver is in a position to do so.

Give orders: Yup, when necessary. The hardest part is establishing authority.

Cooperate: I like to think so.

Act alone: Frequently and I've been praised for the results, so yes.

Solve equations: Sure. I was doing that long before I was "supposed" to be. Mind, my knowledge of higher math (differential equations etc) is weak, but you didn't specify the domain. I grok algebra, basic calculus, and just plain logic.

Analyze a new problem: Don't we all? But yeah, I think I'm better than average at this.

Pitch manure: Um, I gather this involves more than applying first vertical and then lateral and then vertical motion to a shovel? Then I guess not. :-)

Program a computer: Yup.

Cook a tasty meal: Past guests have said so.

Fight efficiently: Probably. Martial arts and the real thing are pretty different, so I can't say for sure. And note that he said "efficiently", not necessarily "well". :-)

Die gallantly: If I say "no", does that get me off the hook for proving it? :-)

Comments

[cellio]

Interesting. I had no idea. I wonder if they have an exemption for those whose physical handicaps would prevent them from completing the test.

The article alludes to but doesn't describe other phys-ed requirements; do you happen to know what they are? While swimming is certainly valuable [1], it might also be useful to, say, make sure people can walk a certain distance, run a certain distance carrying a load [2], and stuff like that. I'm curious about why swimming is special, other than that the idea came from the swimming coach.

[1] The dissenter quoted in the article doesn't seem to get the concept of "broad education". Does he object to all courses outside his specific major on the theory that they're not relevant? I would have been more inclined to pay attention to an argument that swimming is less important than some other areas, but his blanket "this isn't relevant" does not sway me (or, I suspect, many other people).

[2] The argument given for the swimming requirement is one of life-saving, so you could plausibly argue for "carry a child from a burning building" or "flee a knife-wielding mugger" on the same basis, for example. But frankly, if I were designing the curriculum for a safety goal, I might place basic first aid above all phys-ed requirements.

[siderea]

I wonder if they have an exemption for those whose physical handicaps would prevent them from completing the test.

I believe they do.

The article alludes to but doesn't describe other phys-ed requirements; do you happen to know what they are?

Your choice of four quarters of Phys. Ed. classes. Varsity team membership can be substituted. Most Mitgaardi take fencing and archery. :)

The dissenter quoted in the article doesn't seem to get the concept of "broad education". Does he object to all courses outside his specific major on the theory that they're not relevant? I would have been more inclined to pay attention to an argument that swimming is less important than some other areas, but his blanket "this isn't relevant" does not sway me (or, I suspect, many other people).

WHAT "concept of a 'broad education'"??? MIT is an institute, not a university; it does NOT offer a liberal education, does NOT award BAs, does not and HAS NEVER defined its mission to be delivering a 'broad education'. MIT has never represented itself as otherwise. If you want a liberal education, walk north one mile.

MIT produces specialists. That's what it does, and that's what it's for. It does not think its job is to broaden its students minds (though the Humanities Department dissents.)

Overwhelmingly, students who attend MIT understand this, and chose MIT because of this, not in spite of it. Generally, MIT students bitterly resent being required to do anything which does not pertain to advancing in their chosen field. You should have heard the screaming when they added the freshman Biology requirement. At least the writing requirement, as intimidating and exasperating as it was, was largely seen as sensible: MIT decided it was not going to graduate anyone with insufficient English skills to write a paper for a English language journal, and that was widely seen as due diligence of its proper mission on MIT's part.

MIT also has a much-resented very heavy humanities requirement upon all undergrads, above and beyond the writing requirement, which amounts to essentially having to take a humanities class ever semester of a 4 year degree. It's a complicated system of "pick one from columns A or B, and one from..." which is meant to provide both depth (sort of) and breadth (sort of). Every undergrad has to have a humanities "concentration".

Plenty alums see the institution of this requirement as an example of how MIT started straying from its proper educational mission.

MIT

[cellio]

Ok, I didn't realize just how specialized MIT is in its approach. (I didn't go there, obviously.) Given what you've said, I'm kind of surprised they've made humanities requirements stick (beyond basic skills like writing and research).

In any program people are going to disagree about what's relevant, such as in the case of the writing requirement you gave (which I agree should be required). I don't care for heaping on irrelevant stuff either, but I'm willing to grant that there are some relevancies that faculty can see and that 18-year-old students can't on average, even very smart 18-year-old students. I thought my required chemistry class was pretty irrelevant, but I think it did teach me some important things about problem-solving that came to bear in physics, calculus, and maybe even computer science. On the other hand, I worked very hard to dodge the survey course in poetry, and I don't think I'm worse off for it. :-) Maybe the answer is better place-out testing, where the test is focused on the relevant skills/knowledge that are expected to come out of the course.

But yeah, if breadth isn't part of the charter, they've got problems with their phys-ed requirements and most of their humanities requirements. How'd things get so far down that path to begin with, then?

Re: MIT

[siderea]

How'd things get so far down that path to begin with, then?

It is much muttered that this, and many other things which are equally reviled, are a result of hiring non-scientists/non-engineers for administrative posts. They started hiring the leadership based on leadership experience at other institutions, instead of promoting from within the faculty, and apparently no differentiation was made between leadership experience in similarly technical institutions, and leadership at any old university.

So the joint is being run by people who do not get the culture and/or the mission, and are doing everything they can to normalize those things to what they're used to at more traditional universities.

The word "friction" does not begin to cover it.

I've heard it said that MIT's level of alumni giving is the lowest per capita for any school of its class. The joke is "Did you just hear what the MIT administration did this time?! Ooh, it makes me so mad! If I were giving them money I'd stop!"

I'm going to stop here before I launch into even more of a rant. It makes me so mad. If I were giving them money....

Re: MIT

[caryabend.livejournal.com]

MIT produces specialists. That's what it does, and that's what it's for. It does not think its job is to broaden its students minds.

My problem is the elitism that this fosters. The "I choose to do only this one particular thing" tends to promote the equally repugnant and useless response of, "So what good are you otherwise?" Thus exacerbating the "us vs. them" attitude on both sides.

Personally, I'm glad there are specialists, but its probably more important to have generalists who know when, where and how to use specialists to the greatest advantage.

Re: MIT

[gregbo.livejournal.com]

Perhaps it's just a biased small sample, but quite a few people on mitmit who are currently MIT students or recent graduates seem
to like their humanities courses. Several of them are concentrating in
music, and some of them seem to have considerable talent.

Re: MIT

[siderea]

I am a musician who MIT and found the music classes excellent.

That does not mean I appreciated being required to take them, or being required to go through the whole HASS-D "pick one from column A or B" hokey pokey. That does not mean I did not resent the academic and schedule burden, not to mention the high-handedness of presuming to dictate that I must "broaden" myself.

I don't think I'm the only one to make this distinction.

And the fact that I, or anyone else, enjoyed a class does not (1) justify its being required -- presumably degree requirements should have educational bases and (2) does not mean anyone else would enjoy the class. Presumably there are people at MIT who enjoy studying French; does that mean all MIT undergrads should be required to take French to graduate?

Re: MIT

[gregbo.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised by your response. I checked the HASS pages, and the requirements for distribution and concentration aren't much different from when I was a student (class of 1984). There's a lottery now, which I imagine must give some students grief, especially if they waited until their senior year to fulfill requirements. There also seems to be a class size limit, but I suppose this is to prevent some subjects from being overenrolled. Except for 9.00 (intro to psychology), my humanities classes were generally small. I concentrated in creative writing, and there were usually no more than ten people in my classes.

What do you think are appropriate humanities requirements?

Re: MIT

[sethg]

MIT started making some major changes to its humanities curriculum when siderea and I were undergrads because, in the words of the Dean for Undergraduate Education, "too many MIT graduates are working for too many Harvard and Princeton graduates". The solution to this problem, according to the sages in the upper echelons of the administration, was to "humanize" the engineers by making them take a more rigorous humanities requirement, and to tweak the admissions requirements by letting in people with stronger non-science-related skills.

Thus, with one fell swoop, the administration insulted the science and engineering majors, who considered themselves sufficiently human already, thankyouverymuch, and the humanities faculty, who didn't appreciate their fields of study being trivialized as adjuncts to a science or engineering education.

I should also point out that outside the curriculum, MIT has many theatrical and musical student organizations. (I remember one group, now defunct, putting on Ionesco's Rhinoceros at midnight, and packing a 250-seat lecture hall.)

My wife got her undergraduate degree from Brandeis and her Ph.D. from MIT. When Brandeis asks us for a donation, we cough up. When MIT asks, we snigger.

The swimming requirement has always been around, so I have no idea what prompted it. There is, of course, the standard urban legend.

Re: MIT

[siderea]

I should also point out that outside the curriculum, MIT has many theatrical and musical student organizations.

I'll add to this that MIT's extracurricular performing arts culture is so strong, that MIT does something I've never heard of another school doing. In a number of cases, MIT, in a nice example of "plant the grass and then pave where people walk", looked upon some of the student-run and student-founded performing arts groups, found that they were Good, and said "Let there be Credits, and here, kids, have some money to hire professional leadership."

So the whole "We must require them to take broadening courses so they're not artless, soulless technocrats" thing was not well received.