Always fun to see @MinervaSchools come up in publications I care about! And there's a lot I disagree with about what this article seems to be suggesting, so here's...

a thread. 1/? https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1289979295578779648

To the extent that Minerva "worked," it was because of the 99% of the experience that wasn't online (namely, living with each other, traveling, exploring cities and meeting people in each place on the global rotation, etc.) and not because of the one thing that was (classes). 2/

And those in-person things are just as inaccessible during a pandemic for Minerva students as they are for students at any other institution.

Furthermore... 3/

I'm excited for the day that a journalist writing about Minerva will endeavor to represent student views and experiences more holistically. (thinking among other things abt the time @tvanderark wrote basically a press release for Minerva in Forbes https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomvanderark/2019/04/08/minervas-innovative-platform-makes-high-quality-higher-ed-personal-and-affordable/)

4/

Needless to say, that would probably be easier if students didn't fear that they would face administrative and social backlash for critiquing the school in public. 5/

(@ Minerva students who think that doesn't happen–just because your views have been deemed acceptable by Minerva doesn't mean that this fear is ungrounded! being forced to delete answers on Quora! the emails we got after writing critical responses to that Forbes article! Etc.) 6/

As someone who loves and appreciates much about Minerva and my own experience there, I have always fundamentally believed that we can only grow through honest assessments of and conversations about the school, including externally as well as internally. 7/

(oops I guess this turned into a thread not just about that article but whose views tend to be represented in articles like that and what students who feel differently encounter)

Anyway, I wrote an @nytopinion comment. 8/

One person (from class below) also responded to my NYT comment saying that Minerva doesn't discourage critique by students and also that my experiences were not shared by others esp. not by those outside my graduating class. 9/

...which is weird, because several people from my own class AND the class below me DM'd me to express agreement as well as nervousness about publicly agreeing. Seems like that's evidence in favor of what I was saying in the first place... 10/

I can't speak for "Minerva" or "class of 2019" or anything. But I can speak for myself and for the people who I know share my experiences. Likewise, you shouldn't speak for me!

I guess what feels frustrating is what has always felt frustrating. 11/

Which is that in the long-run AND the short-run, we (students, grads, etc.) and @MinervaSchools will both be better served by having conversations–in private and in public–that are honest, rather than self-censoring. 12/

And man, if I had $1 for each time someone said "agree–I'm just scared to be the one to do it" or "agree–it just feels like there's so much at stake right now/because I'm still a student/because I've graduated/etc"!

But I don't. So my response is the same as it's always been 13/

...which is that no one will ever actually "feel secure" enough that *they* will want to be the ones speaking candidly. The accumulation of that individual + collective incentive does far more harm than good, but it's very convenient! 14/

So here's one hope (for myself/my communities incl. Minerva/idk the world?): that we collectively eliminate the instinct that "caring about an institution" means "speaking positively about it," & that we stop over-valuing potential future harm relative to actual current harm. 15/

Because those fears come from lived experience and good reason, but they hold us back from improving our own experiences and the experiences of the people around us, and from holding institutions we care about (like @MinervaSchools) accountable. 16/16

@j_silb thinking of conversations we've had...!