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

As an admittedly privileged parent of two young girls (ages 4 and 6, to be exact), I have been on a quixotic mission to figure out what the ideal education looks like for this generation: Is it the best prep school money can buy? Homeschooling? Unschooling? Montessori? Waldorf? STEM-led? Boarding school? Charter school? Free online-based Khan Academy or Stanford High for 36k/year? What about the non academic components of extracurriculars, and how does this marry with early studies? More elusive yet has been the question of what early education is supposed to manifest when they reach young adulthood. Is it a ticket to the Ivies? An engineering college? What does that ideal college look like? Fundamentally, how can I as a parent ensure that I have successfully guided my daughters to a juncture where they may take the reigns in the quest for their own self-actualization? Does college even help with that, these days? More still, have I accomplished this enough in my own life to ensure I'm modeling "success" well enough for them? With every question came the growing unease that no school or system seemed to hold the answer, and that I wasn't capable of figuring it out on my end.Deresiewicz's book has not, unsurprisingly, answered all of these questions. It has, however, provided an excellent trail guide of what to expect at most Ivy League/elite institutions. The book is a much-needed, refreshing spanking of these universities as it speaks to how they've contributed to the morass of society's brilliant but confused and self-congratulatory "leaders." They have indeed bred a group of people who are largely capable but brittle, owing to the lack of time and guidance required to cultivate a sense of self. A lot of books provide great info on how to package and train your child like a show poodle to get into these elite institutions... but few of the authors are standing at the "goal" post explaining the negative consequences of playing the game. All parents I know understand that marching up the mountain sucks, but few like Deresiewicz have critiqued the view at the finish line. Fewer still highlight the obvious: the "finish line" of getting admissions is really just the start.My only initial criticism was that towards the end, the author came across as a bit like Holden Caufield deriding everything as "phony." Considering he too is shaped and moulded by the same privilege he condemns, it came across as somewhat hypocritical. My initial impression was that Deresiewicz had created a bit of a strawman in imagining this demographic to be so monstrously unlikeable as an easy way to puff it down. It wasn't until I watched the 2014 "20 Questions" video of the author at Harvard that I realized his analysis was spot-on. The panel's tone deaf, ardent defense of the status quo ("why can't investment bankers be soul searchers too," and, "why should professors be responsible in a "no souls left behind" project since we only have 4 years with students?") really proves his point. Scarily still was the audience's uproarious applause. What I first mistook as a disingenuous "not like other Ivy Leaguers"-attitude ended up being actually true: he's not. Moreover, he proved beautifully why this is a good thing, and the heads of Harvard proved why their farts don't smell like roses. The book and subsequent presentation really shook the notion that every parent should endeavor to send their child to such schools. Perhaps it's glib to take the anecdotal soundbites of these video presentations and extrapolate a broader picture, but when I explored these gate keepers of the most prestigious schools, too few of them come across as worthy of emulation.His book helped me drop my belief that where my children attend school is a reflection of my parenting (and by extension, that the better the school, the better the job I'll have done). While I was before dead set on both children using their college investment as a means to a career, I now align with the belief that it should help them become better people capable of creating a more just world. Instead of implementing a rigorous curriculum with the marker of success being a "5" on their AP tests, I'll be implementing more qualitative benchmarks: how did the material change their broader view? Did any of the material have that "aha" moment of, "this is about me and my place in the world?" I will learn to expose them to failure and comfort them after, rather than doing my best to shield them from it--another U-turn in my parenting philosophy. While it's embarrassing to admit that I did dabble with thoughts of what it means to map a child's future such that they had reasonable assurances of a T20 college admission in today's hyper-competitive environment, this book has convinced me otherwise. I understand why parents engage in this behavior, though, given that it's the safest kind of parenting. I too wanted the assurance that I as their earliest guide in life had led them to a path of success. I now see the fact that this kind of curation is both possible and successful is representation of the system's failures. While I would get that parenting gold star, it would likely be at the expense of my child's own agency--a crucial, yet overlooked thing. Moreover, it's learning the painfully uncomfortable point that what is best for a child--risk taking, failure, and u-turns--is antithetical to getting admissions to a top college. And the former needs to take priority over the latter, every time, Princeton be damned. Having said this, I don't know if an LAC is something worthy of promotion. In light of events like Kieran Battarchariya getting expelled for questioning the existence of microaggressions at UVA, I do worry about universities becoming less tolerant when their version of "truth" gets critiqued by ignorant students who need educating now more than ever; not censoring. It's my deepest hope that amazing schools still serve as a place where students can freely exchange thoughts, ideas, and questions... but the current climate is such that I do not take it as a given."Excellent Sheep" is a book that I'll be re-reading over the years. In a sea of pop-psychology parenting books and college guides, I haven't found any to serve as a decent compass. This is one such book. I'm so grateful to the author for not necessarily giving me answers, but, as any good teacher does, teaching me how to ask better questions. Great book and a must-read for any other well-meaning but misguided parent like myself.

This critique of the elite higher education system is an excellent book by a former Yale English professor that should be read by every university president, college admissions officer, and student headed to college, because it applies to all colleges in some degree. This does not mean that it is without bias. In my view, the major problem with higher education today is the indoctrination of students in the PC-progressive world view. Deresiewicz either doesn’t notice this or thinks it is how things should be, because he is a progressive. Universities believe in every kind of diversity except diversity of opinion. Saying anything not PC in the prevailing zeitgeist is the quickest way out of the university for a student or a professor. Thomas Sowell, PhD says, “The next time some academics tell you how important diversity is, ask how many Republicans there are in their sociology department.”With a school-teacher father, I didn’t have the money or academic background to think about college. I made the best decision of my like; I enlisted in the United States Marine Corps after high school in 1964. If you want diversity and an education in people very different from you, the Corps is the place. You will meet real people solving real problems. I learned more there than in college.Following Vietnam, I left the Corps to go to college, planning a political career, earning an AA in Liberal Arts and a BA in government. I had to take the SATs to get in, and four years after my dismal high school efforts, I scored in the 95/98 percentile. A counselor at MWCC advised me to apply to Clark University, but I didn’t want the debt and went to University of Massachusetts. When I was at U-Mass in 1970, there were two Republicans on the political science faculty. The rest were Democrats or Socialists. It is probably worse now. We undergrads knew we were there to pay the bills, as few resources we devoted to teaching. I found better instructors at both MWCC and Fitchburg State, where I earned a masters’ in history. (Only because I love history.)The year I graduated from U-Mass, I was elected to the Massachusetts State Senate. I was the only U-Mass grad in the body. I served five terms, earning my masters’ at night, and spending six more years in the Marine Reserves. And I retired undefeated to become an association executive, a career that was good to me until I was forced to retire in 2013 to have a lung transplant. I am Deresiewicz’s ideal; a student who set my own course. At 76, I continue to educate myself, reading at least a book a week, and continuously writing, including over 400 life stories for vets at the VA.I recommend you read Deresiewicz’s book, but think about both it and what I say with a skeptic’s heart. Still, I wish I’d had a course with him. Maybe he should apply for a position at a small public college?Robert A. HallAuthor: "Quotes for the Conservative Heart"

Review courtesy of www.subtleillumination.comIn recent years, between a third and a half of graduates of elite US colleges with a job head to finance or consulting. In contrast to the popularity of those fields, whole areas have disappeared: clergy, military, teaching, electoral politics, even academia to a lesser extent. Excellent Sheep worries that this stems from the warped perspective promoted by these colleges, that in telling the students endlessly that they are the elite and the special, they rule out whole worlds of possibility by implying they are a waste of a fancy education. Schools, Deresiewicz argues, are complicit in this because they like the fat donations they receive from graduates in consulting or finance, far more than they receive from a happier but poorer graduate who ends up as a minister or teacher.Where the book suffers is when it turns to broader societal implications. The author’s background is in English, and though that should never be a bar to writing anything, in this case it betrays him a little when he attempts to look at issues of policy, society, and statistics. He also doesn’t really have any insight into structural solutions: his advice to students to go to a second tier school is all very well, but hardly scalable.Excellent Sheep’s opening sections are interesting, persuasive, and well-written, and are definitely worth reading if this is something that interests you: his New York Times article gives a good sense of it, since it's mostly excerpts from the book. The second half does fall a bit short though. Still, as a book that makes you consider your own education it’s worth a glance, even if you end up preferring Steven Pinker's perspective (who has a great counterpoint in the New Republic) to Deresiewicz's.

This was an excellent read. Deresiewic has a light readable style with nice rhetorical gestures that enliven his passionate plea for a liberal arts education. I found myself nodding in agreement with much of what he said and found some of the direct testimony of the students who have spoken or written to him poignant. When I was at university in Edinburgh I read Michael Oakenshott and came away feeling that his vision of a "conversation" was only partly a reality there. Since then, of course, there has been a further evolution of the game. It almost seems that universities are due to become training institutions for high tech industries and medicine. The old job of actually educating people- engineers and doctors included- needs to take place somewhere else. A smart young man I know came out of King's College, London, saying it was no more than a very expensive library card and that the standard of teaching was worse than he had at his high school.

Seems to me to be an essential read to understand the present state of elite higher education in America and of America's privileged young. You get a feeling for the country at large and its present intellectual condition as well. Gives an insight also into the emotional wasteland that America has become for the sake of economic advancement. Not only do the parents sell their own souls to a brutal and humanly destructive system for economic interests, this treatise shows how they sell their children's souls as well even before the children realise it.

A brilliant analysis of everything that is wrong with elite education and elite careers. The conclusion is to follow your heart and your interests to the study and work that makes you feel more alive, rather than to join the rat race and compete for 'prestigious' positions against every other identikit high performance clone.

It's very good:1. The evolution of high education admission which unveil the 'plot' behind the game.2. How should we educate ourselves to be a wholesome individual? What's the end goal? You can find the answer here. This is also in line with old Chinese philosophy. Amazing, isn't it?!3. Whether we need university education at all? The answer is NO, or NOT always necessary. If you liberate yours life from this game earlier, you can benefit more.