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    Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life
    Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life
    Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life
    Audiobook8 hours

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

    Written by William Deresiewicz

    Narrated by Mel Foster

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    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.

    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 and computer science, students are losing the ability to think in innovative ways. Deresiewicz explains how college should be a time for self-discovery, when students can establish their own values and measures of success, so they can forge their own path. He addresses parents, students, educators, and anyone who's interested in the direction of American society, featuring quotes from real students and graduates he has corresponded with over the years, candidly exposing where the system is broken and clearly presenting solutions.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateAug 19, 2014
    ISBN9781494572907
    Author

    William Deresiewicz

    William Deresiewicz was a professor at Yale until 2008. He is the author of the landmark essays “The Disadvantages of an Elite Education” and “Solitude and Leadership” and is a frequent speaker on campuses around the country. A contributing writer for The Nation and a contributing editor for The New Republic and The American Scholar, he is the author of A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter. Visit BillDeresiewicz.com.

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    Reviews for Excellent Sheep

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    • 4/5
      Needs to be updated with new numbers to see how Covid affected the education spending.
    • 4/5
      Deresiewicz is an excellent writer, as one would hope. He makes many points throughout his higher education book, many with which I agreed and some with which I did not. Though he sometimes contradicted himself, when he made a point with which I agreed, he articulated it perfectly. Many have and will continue to fault Deresiewicz for seemingly ignoring the larger population of college students in reality today, but he never intends to address every student everywhere, and makes it clear in the title of the book which group he will focus on. The only spot in which his laser focus disturbed me was in his discussion of MOOCs and online education. He may be right that the traditional 18-24 year old college student breaking into adulthood would do better to attend a brick and mortar college, but MOOCs and even more so other forms of online education are ideal for nontraditional students - adults with jobs and families returning to school. Because of these applications, Deresiewicz should be careful about ruling online education out completely. Interestingly, Deresiewicz's intended audience is students themselves - those in college and preparing for college. This may explain his frequent use of profanity. Nonetheless, I think Excellent Sheep is an important book for students to read, if only to encourage them to have a goal and a passion and work toward it, rather than working toward success for the sake of success.