Is it worth reading nowdays? I'm talking about Harvard Classics, Great Books Reading List and Curriculum, etc. Princeton Classics Department not even require Greek and Latin for students anymore.Why most college and university reading lists nowdays are 10 books tops? Cambridge recommends I Am Malala, Life Of Pi, Dune, but not Seneca, Plato or Aurelius.
>>24862308I thought it did collapse at least twice in my life time with Common Core (2010) and No Child Left Behind. (2002). Surely it has not taken sixteen years to still be about to collapse? What is coming next...?
>>24862308because it's so over for the west
>>24862308And what is "fake classical education"?
The field would likely improve if more people who actually like and enjoy the Classics went for it.>>24862329Probably the "Destroy the Classics because liking Plato is racist and sexist" folks that were all over the news a few years ago.
>>24862338>is racist and sexist" folks that were all over the news a few years agoOh, you mean the enemy?
because the indians and chinese people that fill ivy leagues are not capable of understanding the greeks so they had to be removed from the curriculum
>>24862338>hurr durr it's probly big red at it againIt's just catholics infighting with other homeschool / classical educators for not being catholic enough.
>>24862308I am making a website for self-education to remedy this
>>24862318Common core math was a great idea. Whether implemented properly is debatable. Teaching kids how to think about math instead of just rote-memorising formulae is a good idea. Read Lockhart's lament, which itself is also idealistic, but paints the same picture: understanding comes first.
>>24862354I should note, it's centered around Europe and European history and culture
>>24862318I went in school almost 30 years ago and we still read Walter Scott, Charles Dickens and Goete during summer programm. Now, they say student struggle to read a single book: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/11/the-elite-college-students-who-cant-read-books/679945/>>24862338>actually like and enjoy the Classics went for it.Tbf what I read back in the days was hard to enjoy. I think the one should acquire some experience to understand what and why "classic" worth reading. I also found philosophy boring, but today Meditations is my desk book. I also heard that people get into source material after reading stuff like Daily Stoic.
>>24862308I would say it is, yes. At the very least, its going to become a vanity/status activity, or at least the results will be. Think of how tech ruined peoples physical health due to sedentary behaviour. Well, I imagine the same thing is going to happen to the intellect with AI. So people who train their intellect will be seen as high status much like how people who are fit are the same.The funny thing is, that might actually drive sincere re-engagement with the classics/humanities.I swear, that the biggest change that will happen in academia as a result of AI will be in the humanities, and if it is managed well, it could result in a massive boom. >>24862366Well, there is a reason why reading the classics has been considered a life-long activity.
>>24862369At least AI can (after some improvement) translate some things that are still untranslated, such as the SVF (the collection of early Stoic fragments, available in Latin only).
>>24862369>I imagine the same thing is going to happen to the intellect with AIThe very same thoughts ignited interest in old books for me. I wonder if those works built a mindset of the greatest generation, will they do make me a better person? Like the Goggins said, it is easy to be great nowdays, because so many people are weak, but applied to mindset and the intellect.
>>24862387Same here. And really, with the internet, it has never been simpler. We have access to all the great works of art at our fingertips, and the ability to discuss it with people instantly and easily. At the same time, the ease of distraction is the challenge.I am truly curious what would happen if I reduced my intake of junk art to a minimum, and truly spent my recreation time with only the greatest works, what would happen.
>>24862413I've been using chatgpt as a tutor, to give me great works toe read/watch/listen/look at and I can discuss the works with it. Pretty good as a learning method. Shame it has come to this though, if you know what I mean.
>>24862360>Lockhart's lament, which itself is also idealistic, but paints the same picture: understanding comes first.He's pointed in the right direction, but I balked at this dialogue of his:>SIMPLICIO: But don't we need third-graders to be able to do arithmetic?>SALVIATI : Why? You want to train them to calculate 427 plus 389? It's just not a question that very many eight-year-olds are asking. For that matter, most adults don't fully understand decimal place-value arithmetic, and you expect third-graders to have a clear conception? Or do you not care if they understand it? It is simply too early for that kind of technical training. Of course it can be done, but I think it ultimately does more harm than good. Much better to wait until their own natural curiosity about numbers kicks in.>SIMPLICIO: Then what should we do with young children in math class?>SALVIATI: Play games! Teach them chess and Go, Hex and backgammon, Sprouts and nim, whatever. Make up a game. Do puzzles. Expose them to situations where deductive reasoning is necessary[...]Understanding and mastery of basic operations is foundational, period, end of storySaying 'But most adults are retarded!' is not a point against the early teaching of basic operationsEven suggesting 'teach them chess' helps to defeat his own assertion: teaching a kid the basics of how numbers can be applied and manipulated is analogous to teaching a kid how the pieces move: kids can't begin to play until they know the rules!
>>24862463I've been trying GPT at first, as a high-level coverage. It is great for some things (having more data on needed topic) and horrible for other things (it has no understanding on topic, hallucinating, making up facts, etc). After some time, trial and error I come up with two solutions:1) Reading and taking notes (e.g. commonplace book)2) Finding a book club to discuss what you read - which isnt trivial as it is, and finding a club that has read schedule of anything but Harry Potter makes it even more difficult.As for commonplace books, it is preferrable to take notes by hand; my first page is always titled "INTENTIONS" and those are I've come up so far:>A commonplace book used for collecting and organizing relevant information. It is a tool of structure and purpose. A personal encyclopaedia for study, memorisation and retrieval.>Why? To fight media owherwhelm. To consume content worthy of keeping. TO learn the topics and mastering the subject. Writing down on paper leads to better information aquisition, deeper encoding and retrieval than a typing.
>>24862463This might be supremely retarded, but I use AI to ask for breakdown of what I write and to see if it understands what I'm trying to convey, and I feel like it works very, very well. I don't use it to explicitly write though, just to see if it picks up on scene structure and subtext.
>>24862510i write a page or two everyday on just my thoughts, but I do it pen and paper as well. There is superior about pen and paper, like it uses more of the brain or something.
>>24862551I havent used it for that, but I do use it to discuss some piece of art or lit that I am learning and it works great. Like I will have it recommend a great painting to me, and then we will discuss it for an hour. And I find I gain a lot from that. Is the future of education going to be interacting with an AI tutor? Honestly, for a lot of children, especially bright and curious children, it would be a godsend. And really, the tutor-style education is far better and more natural than the mass-industrial style education of now.
>>24862551That's very interesting. Can you provide some example prompts?
>>24862510>>24862578I started learning history like this, right now I'm on the Early Middle Ages. Picrel are the recommendations, this is the prompt:>First, we focus on the early middle ages, history and philosophy. I want you to make a program that entails reading around 210-250 pages per week combined for a total of 10 weeks. Keep Wickam as central for the history. No trade/pop history books. Again, we don't need to read something cover to cover, instead focus on the correct academic way, so only sections we need. I want you to find the books that fit these criteria if possible by checking Oxford/Cambridge/Harvard/Yale/Stanford/other big universities for their reading recommendations. Again, pick editions that are as long lasting/well made as possible like folio society or loeb. This time, I want you to write a short argument for why you've chosen a specific book, but I don't mean a non-specific argument like "it's the best fit for this slot", I mean actual arguments like "it appears in this and this university's reading list" or "the academic consensus is that is this is the best book regarding this period/event" or "it was published long ago but has retained its qualities" or "it was massively influential on our current understanding of X topic". Don't make up arguments or sources/books, make sure they are all real and well researched.Bear in mind you have to have whole conversations and not just use single prompts during which conversations you will guide it to the outcome you need. In the next post I'll show you where we refine what exactly the reading program looks like over the course of a week. When I get to a specific title I haven't heard of I also do sanity checks through quick /lit/ archive, google and r*ddit searches about specific book titles and authors to make sure what the AI is saying about the books is true.
>>24862340>the enemyKek
>>24862387Yes. It will. The classics, reading Plato, Aristotle will sharpen your mind. It beats what we all were force fed for 12 years in state sponsored 'education' centers. I honestly did not know how much I would love to learn
>>24862708I had to instruct it to look for hardcovers from reputable publishers and in general books with a high quality comparable to loeb or folio wherever possible because I want longevity for the books I do buy (though I download a bunch because these are expensive and hard to get sometimes). Picrel is the inside of a single week of reading. The benefit of having an account and having had other conversations with the AI is that it has some semblance of how I operate best, which is why it recommends what it does in this case. I also talked to it about how to take notes in the case of history and philosophy because I like the Cornell method and it helped me refine that for the specifics of this program.You still have to use good judgement and pick some thing beforehand, I chose Chris Wickham's book as a core for my Early Middle Ages from what I know of it and made it run with that as the spine of the program. Also, if anyone wants to try this, find video lectures on the subject and go through them rapidly without taking notes and even without paying too much attentions (I did 5 yale lectures in the car in a day when I had to drive a lot) because it gives you an overview and you can orient yourself and know where to 'fit' the knowledge that comes from reading the books later.
bumperoni
My AI tutor recommends me a work from the western canon (currently on Plato's Republic) and we set up a thing called a tryptych, where it recommends a movie, painting, and music.
>>24862308>the coming collapse of modern education>coming
>>24863265Its funny how there have been predicting this moment from twenty years ago. The world is full of Cassandras.
