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What weird alternative universe is this person tweeting from? Schools don't teach people to think. They just don't. We would all notice if they did. We'd be surrounded by thinkers everywhere. That would be a very different Earth.

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@phildaian

· Jan 10, 2019

People that think @LambdaSchool is a good replacement for higher education fundamentally misunderstand education. We need a lot more than vocational training to power the future. It's a great initiative, but the purpose of school is to teach you to think, not train you for work.

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Andy Matuschak

@andy_matuschak

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@ESYudkowsky

Indeed. On this topic, you might enjoy "Building the Intentional University" documenting the approach at Minerva, an interesting new university model which takes that specific goal more seriously. mitpress.mit.edu/books/building

5:48 PM · Jan 11, 2019Twitter Web Client

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and

I remember reading about that... but did anything come of it yet?

Andy Matuschak

@andy_matuschak

Jan 11, 2019

They graduate their first undergraduate class in a few months. Some initial assessments show promising growth (included in the book), but of course it's all very preliminary, and I feel selection bias in admissions could still explain the measures published thus far.

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and

What do u think about the book? What excites you most about it?

Andy Matuschak

@andy_matuschak

Jan 12, 2019

My research has focused on K-12, rather than higher ed, so I learned much from it. My favorite thing about Minerva is that it takes its own ideas very seriously and plays out their implications. This is rare in institutional education.

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