
Marie Curie Got Her Start at a Secret University for Women - lermontov
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-secret-polish-university-for-women-where-marie-curie-got-her-start
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inputcoffee
I cannot imagine doing this today, although there are still places that need a
secret university. However, I wonder if we have the solution, at much less
risk.

I wonder if, 30 years from now when a whole new generation has grown up, we
will discuss poor countries (or, say, people under the Taliban, or in North
Korea) learning from the Khan Academy, Coursera and the like in the same way.

"What was it like, mom?"

"Well, kid, they didn't have these fancy holographs. First you had to find a
really good 'connection' ..."

~~~
lumberjack
Unlikely. Those people don't have the luxury of time needed to put any serious
efforts towards their education.

~~~
benbreen
You'd be surprised. A good friend of mine is an Afghan who grew up sleeping on
a dirt floor alongside his 5 siblings. When he was 15, his parents sent him
off to their family village in order to fight the Taliban.

I first met him at our PhD program orientation in the US. He speaks four
languages and and is one of the most well educated people I've ever met.
Granted, he's an exceptional person but by no means of a unique one.

Edit: can't help sharing something that just happened last week, I was with my
wife in Athens, where she had just started her thesis research, interviewing
Afghan refugees in one of the big Greek refugee camps. She befriends a 17 year
old Afghan kid named Javad, no family or money, speaks nothing but Dari, and
one of the first things he asks her is "can you send me a PDF of an
intermediate to advanced level mechanical engineering textbook?" We're
planning on sending him an ipad with a bunch of PDFs and sci hub articles.

I realize these are just two personal anecdotes but they have definitely
changed my mind on this subject. Curious people tend to be curious regardless
of their life circumstances.

~~~
Myrmornis
That's an awesome story. How was Javad planning to receive / read the PDF? Or
did he want a paper copy?

~~~
benbreen
His cell phone. He buys data 5 euro at a time from a shop in the town or goes
to cafes to download English and engineering textbooks. That's what my wife's
thesis project is about - specifically figuring out the best ways to share
useful information with refugees who have cell phones but not much else,
especially women who might not have a chance to go out in public much, or have
a formal education. It's not my field at all but I find her work to be
fascinating.

If you're interested, This American Life just did two whole episodes from a
Greek refugee camp. In the second episode they interview a guy who patched
into a power line under a tree to charge 6 cell phones at once! The group that
both TAL and my wife were talking to is really doing good work, they're called
the Greek Forum of Refugees.

[http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/592/a...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/592/are-we-there-yet)

~~~
pjc50
This is a salutary anecdote which I wish we could convey to all those people
who think that having a smartphone makes you "not poor". It's the exact
opposite: it's so useful that even people who have not much else will go
through hell or high water to keep their link to the world.

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ekianjo
> to a post World War II effort by Communist Russia, who once again took
> control of Poland

Inaccurate - it did not wait for post-WW2. Russia invaded already the second
half Poland as soon as 1939 (2 weeks after Germany) and on top of that,
without declaring War.

~~~
ch4ck
That was not Russia. That was Soviet Union. Those parts of Poland became parts
of Ukrainian and Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republics (Western Ukraine,
Western Belarus). Most of them are still parts of Ukraine and Belarus today.
In 1938 Poland invaded Czechoslovakia together with Germany and Hungary to
"protect" Polish population in Zaolzie. In 1939 Soviet Union "protected"
Ukrainian and Byelorussian population. In 1938 Stalin's plan to fight Nazi
Germany and protect Slavic Czechoslovakia was rejected by the West.

~~~
jazzyk
Let's not rewrite history here: _Germany_ invaded Czechoslovakia. Hungary and
Poland annexed small parts of ethnically mixed areas to their respective
countries

~~~
ch4ck
And Germany invaded Poland on the 1st September 1939. The problem is we signed
up treaties with Czechoslovakia regulating the issue You think the eastern
part of Poland was not ethnically mixed and there were no problems with this?

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Mz
Education for the sake of education, for people with a desire to learn. This
pretty much has to be better than education for the purpose of credentialing.

~~~
ajuc
They were mostly nobles (Poland had lots of these - almost 5% of population)
or rich middle class women before feminism (so - no need to work).

~~~
Mz
If you read the book "More work for mother," which details 300 years of the
history of housework, women have long been saddled with about 60 hours a week
of housework. In modern times, if a woman works a full time job of 40 hours a
week, that only falls to about 40 hours per week of housework.

I seriously doubt most of these women were living a life of leisure.
Additionally, let's assume you are right: How on earth does that rebut my
comment about educating people who _desire to learn_? Because surely the
leisure class could have been bar hopping and throwing or attending wild
parties instead of trying to learn something in spite of it being against the
rules to get an education.

~~~
ajuc
> Additionally, let's assume you are right: How on earth does that rebut my
> comment about educating people who desire to learn?

It doesn't, why should it?

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kaikai
I worked on a project called Free Skool that's essentially the same thing.
Even in wealthy, "free" countries, there are plenty of people that don't have
access to educational resources, and can benefit from sharing knowledge with
their peers. We had classes on everything from maths and philosophy to sewing
and figure drawing. Education shouldn't be something that only happens when
you have a ton of money and years of free time to spend on a university
degree.

~~~
KajMagnus
Do you have a website? Would you like to link to it (or send me via email?)

~~~
kaikai
I worked on Free Skool Santa Cruz
([http://santacruz.freeskool.org/](http://santacruz.freeskool.org/)) but we
stopped a few years back. It's entirely decentralized, and there's a bunch of
projects around the world. Here's a wiki page that has more links and
resources:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchistic_free_school](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchistic_free_school)

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Myrmornis
The one-person stage play "Manya - A Living History of Marie Curie" is
fantastic incidentally.

There's a clip here; I don't know if a full recording is available.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8GTXNkkFPs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8GTXNkkFPs)

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belorn
Looking through the sources, its bit unclear if she joined before the various
pro-education groups were united into a single secret university open for both
sexes, or after. Before 1885 she was tutoring, but I can't find any reference
if thats was connected with the university.

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c2prods
Fascinating how outsiders change the world. Despite their progress, it should
be food for thought for our modern-era universities too.

