Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life

by Deresiewicz, William
ISBN: 9781476702728
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Overview

A groundbreaking manifesto about what our nation's top schools should be--but aren't--providing: "The ex-Yale professor effectively skewers elite colleges, their brainy but soulless students (those 'sheep'), pushy parents, and admissions mayhem" (People).

As a professor at Yale, William Deresiewicz saw something that troubled him deeply. His students, some of the nation's brightest minds, were adrift when it came to the big questions: how to think critically and creatively and how to find a sense of purpose. Now he argues that elite colleges are turning out conformists without a compass.

Excellent Sheep takes a sharp look at the high-pressure conveyor belt that begins with parents and counselors who demand perfect grades and culminates in the skewed applications Deresiewicz saw firsthand as a member of Yale's admissions committee. As schools shift focus from the humanities to "practical" subjects like economics, students are losing the ability to think independently. It is essential, says Deresiewicz, that college be a time for self-discovery, when students can establish their own values and measures of success in order to forge their own paths. He features quotes from real students and graduates he has corresponded with over the years, candidly exposing where the system is broken and offering clear solutions on how to fix it.

"Excellent Sheep is likely to make...a lasting mark....He takes aim at just about the entirety of upper-middle-class life in America....Mr. Deresiewicz's book is packed full of what he wants more of in American life: passionate weirdness" (The New York Times).

  • Format: TradePaperback
  • Author: Deresiewicz, William
  • ISBN: 9781476702728
  • Condition: Used
  • Dimensions: 8.30 x 0.70
  • Number Of Pages: 256
  • Publication Year: 2015

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  • Big Ideas in a Short Book

    Kate M. - 3 years ago

    Deresiewicz takes on so much more than the admissions race to elite colleges in Excellent Sheep. Each chapter focuses on a specific part of the path to elite education and the attendant class pitfalls. The final chapter outlines his vision for a new system of higher education that leaves both aristocracy and meritocracy behind. He believes that the path to a truly democratic system of education is only possible when the US stops funding public schools through local property taxes--a system that he says perpetuates inequality like nothing else can. Excellent Sheep is a quick read though heavy ideas. While what Deresiewicz has to say may be uncomfortable, every step is accompanied by an answer to, "Yes, but what can I do?" It is, ultimately, an optimistic look at changes that are long overdue.

    HPB Staff Review