Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life (English Edition)

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		Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life (English Edition)
		Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life (English Edition)

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).

网友对Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life (English Edition)的评论

本来选的是广州的进口公司，但拿到的发票上是湖北的，底页的条形码位置也没有贴纸，之前买过的书都有，不知道为什么这次没有，其他的除了纸张的页边裁剪有点参差不齐外内容还没啥问题。

问题发现的不错，利于个人反思。解决办法太理想化了

Excellent Sheep by William Deresiewicz, was a kind of enlightenment experience for me. The book denounces the American elite education (i.e., Ivies) by disclosing all its dark sides and negative impacts on the students, faculty, and the society at large. It was by far the most engaging and brutally honest voice by a humanist I have recently encountered. The book argues that the culture of elite schools are not concerned about the "real education" (by which he means "liberal arts" - that encourages one to think independently and pursue his or her own dreams instead of others') except producing "leaders" by which they mean (according to the author) the most successful people at the top of everything.

Author argues from both his experience and various testimonials that students at these schools, however hard worker they may be, are by and large the product of American educational system beginning with primary school and tend to be full of egoism and self-pomposity for which they are really to blame as much as the school and the system which feed them endless compliments to the extent they "don't know what to do with". Also, it is very difficult for even the very few outliers who want to listen to their own voice to pursue their own paths, when their peers are working 24/7 in resume building and getting prestigious internships. Students at the most prestigious schools are pressured in every direction, from friends, parents, faculty, to pursue "success". How in such an environment, he asks, can one think for oneself?

The author also argues that even the quality of teaching at these schools is far from satisfying as the system gives incentives to the faculty based on the quantity of research, not the quality of teaching. Thus, time devoted to teaching tends to become less valuable than time devoted to research. Teaching becomes less important than research. The author writes that great scholars do not necessarily mean great teachers. Research and teaching are very different field. He writes that great teachers do not teach courses. They teach students. He advises that if one wants to get a real education, he should consider going to public institutions or liberal arts colleges where professors tend to put more effort in teaching and interacting with students who are also less focused on success than their peers at top schools. I got the answers from this book I was seeking during my freshman year - if the most prestigious schools will provide the better environment for education than the less prestigious ones, which answer was no by any factors - culture, students, or faculty.

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