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>>MICHAEL: A Great Books School is a college where people read only source documents, instead of textbooks, and they have, generally, very small-sized class discussions, usually no more than 12 students, having discussions concerning these texts.
>>HAROLD: The reason that they're chosen is that they make possible a kind of conversation about fundamental issues.
>>ERIC: I think it's pretty clear to everybody who's here, all the time, that everything you read has a purpose, has a point, has a message, and that that it's a pretty important one.
>>DINAH: The student-teacher ratio is pretty small, I mean, every classroom has a maximum 12 people to one teacher.
>>HAROLD: So much active learning goes on in the interchange between students in the classroom. And students and the instructor, the students interacting.
>>ALLISON: At Shimer we don't call our professors professor, we call them facilitators, because it's based in the idea that, you know, they're not there to profess to you, to teach to you, they're there to facilitate discussion.
>>JIM: When I'm sitting there with ten students around the table and a copy of Newton's Principia in front of us,
then I'm not the teacher, Newton is the teacher. I am there helping the students learn from Newton. Newton's a better teacher than I am, so I think that's the best thing to give him anyway.
>>BARBARA: I consider that, in fact, probably my major job in the classroom is to work with the dynamics and to make sure that the class is really focusing on central issues in the text and making the connection with other texts.
>>DORIAN: You know, sometimes in class people might get kind of emotionally charged about particular issues, but I think what I love is that this is a place where a lot of people really care about what we're reading and the ideas that we're talking about.
>>ALLISON: One of the most unique things about Shimer is kind of the classroom setting, is that there really isn't teachers and students, it's kind of just a gathering of people sitting around this big, octagonal table, and there is no sense of hierarchy.
>>BARBARA: There's a mutual respect, and I never feel as if, you know, I'm the expert.
>>JESUS: We're kind of encouraged to put ourself out there and to argue for a viewpoint that might not be something that we would traditionally accept or might be completely opposite to either the text or maybe even the facilitator.
>>DORIAN: The goal is to be genuine, and if you genuinely have a question, to ask it, and to be comfortable with not knowing, or being confused, or sounding stupid. I've become very comfortable with that.
>>MICHAEL: The fact that you are in Chicago
>>JIM: Really a world-class city, if you really get out there, it's a phenomenal, phenomenal resource.
>>ERIC: Access to all of the cultural amenities and benefits Chicago provides, both on the university level and also just on the public level with things like the Art Institute, and the Symphony Orchestra, and stuff like that.
>>JESUS: There's a great metal scene, you know, I'm into metal, I play metal.
>>ALLISON: I also love the cinema in Chicago, there's a lot of really cool small art theaters
>>DORIAN: It's cool being in the big city, when it's like the whole city is your campus
>>JIM: We share this space with an internationally-known and respected technical college, Illinois Institute of Technology, and also actually on the campus here, VanderCook School of Music. Shimer has a cross-registration with those schools.
>>MOHINI: It's really easy to pick and choose what you're interested in, and if it's not at Shimer and you can't get a tutorial or an elective started at Shimer about it, you can, you know, conceivably go to IIT or Harold Washington, or VanderCook
>>JESUS: I've cross-registered at VanderCook, which is the music school that's also on campus.
>>DORIAN: I do want to take an architecture class at IIT.
>>ALLISON: I've also done courses at Harold Washington, in Statistics and Art
>>ERIC: I cross-registered for a class in abnormal psychology my second semester here.
>>MOHINI: When you figure out that, not only do you get access to four or five colleges in Chicago alone, but that you can go to England and get credits that don't interfere with your graduation, it's like a whole world opening up.
>>MICHAEL: Like any other slightly arrogant high schooler, of course you would want to be able to go to Oxford without actually having to get in.
>>ALLISON: If you have a very obscure desire to learn something very obscure, you know, it's much more possible to do that in Oxford.
>>HAROLD: For the students that were there it was a transformative experience.
>>ALLISON: Shimer students and faculty and staff and board of trustees get a share in how the college is governed, and that it's not one body kind of laying down the law,
it's everyone involved having a say, kind of pitching in together to create what they want this place to be.
>>DINAH: You get to hear everything that's been voted through, everything that's being proposed, your voice is completely heard.
>>ERIC: Shimer sort of represented a way for me to take control of my education in a way that I just really didn't have the ability to do, either at my high school or at most colleges that I looked at.
>>DORIAN: I visited my junior year and I absolutely fell in love with it, and I was obsessed with it, and I kept talking about it.
>>JILL: Once I came to my mother saying "I found this great school called Shimer that is just so amazing and I don't want to go anywhere else" she went "I wanted to go to Shimer" so she completely supports me and she loves the fact that I'm here.
>>DON: At Shimer your son or daughter will learn to find his or her own voice, will gain a kind of courage.
>>DORIAN: I've had a lot of people tell me, "Liberal arts degree, what are you gonna do with that?"
>>M. BERRY: It wasn't strictly knowledge that they gave me, but it was more methodology
of how to approach complex problems, with critical reasoning, with critical thought.
>>DINAH: Because in Shimer you're taught to think critically at every point, so you're not just listening, you're listening and really deconstructing what's being said.
>>DON: The kinds of skills that the world needs
in terms of being able to communicate, being able to evaluate, being able to speak one's mind, are part and parcel of what Shimer is.
>>DORIAN: It just changes the way that I look at the world, myself, and other people, and I feel like that, is to me, that is the most practical thing of all.
>>JESUS: I remember sitting there and asking the facilitators "Hey, have you guys figured it out, do you guys have an answer?" and them looking at me and saying
"Welcome to the club."
>>DORIAN: Here's where I was to begin with, when I came to Shimer and it's just like
PSCHOOOOO