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

Deresiewicz, Professor William

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1476702713 ISBN 13: 9781476702711

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, 2014

Synopsis

Title: Excellent Sheep( The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life) <>Binding: Hardcover <>Author: WilliamDeresiewicz <>Publisher: FreePress

About this title

Review:

"William Deresiewicz's book is in and of itself a higher education, and to read it is to learn what's a college for. The author is an inspired teacher, and his lesson is of a truth sorely needing to be told."--Lewis Lapham

"William Deresiewicz is one of America's best young public intellectuals. He has written a passionate, deeply informed, and searing critique of the way we are educating our young. Whether you agree or disagree - and I found myself doing both - you must read this book. It should spark a great debate on America's campuses and beyond."--Fareed Zakaria, author of The Post-American World

"Deresiewicz offers a vision of what it takes to move from adolescence to adulthood . . . it is only through introspection, observation, connecting the head and the heart, making meaning of experience and finding an organizing purpose that you build a unique individual self. . . . [Deresiewicz] reminds us what a moral education looks like. That is largely abandoned ground."--David Brooks "The New York Times "

"Unofficial required reading at selective schools."--Jennifer Schuessler "The New York Times "

"In Excellent Sheep, William Deresiewicz sets out to unnerve the current and future college students of America (and their parents). He succeeds brilliantly, with an indictment of elite education that should launch a thousand conversations. Read this book to remember what learning should be, and then pass it along to the next sheep who should leave the flock behind."--Emily Bazelon, author of Sticks and Stones: Defeating the Culture of Bullying and Rediscovering the Power of Character and Empathy

"This is a book of great importance to our society. It deserves to transform our understanding of integrity and achievement and success. William Deresiewicz is a genuine humanist with a profound faith in the promise of democracy, and he has an uncommon gift for wisdom without platitudes. Excellent Sheep is a withering analysis of the transactional spirit that rules American education and American life, and an inspiring example of a better ideal. A true teacher speaks here. He has my admiration and my gratitude."--Leon Wieseltier

"William Deresiewicz's Excellent Sheep is a searing and important critique of our morally bankrupt educational system. He argues, correctly, that colleges and universities, awash in corporate money and intend on churning out corporate managers and conformists rather than scholars, have betrayed not only their mission, but the students they purport to teach and by extension the wider society. Independent thought is subversive, uncomfortable and lonely. It requires us, as Deresiewicz points out, to challenge and question reigning assumptions rather than kneel before them. Deresiewicz's book is not so much a call for reform as for revolt."--Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author, with Joe Sacco, of Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt

"Excellent Sheep is likely to make...a lasting mark...for three reasons. One, Mr. Deresiewicz spent 24 years in the Ivy League, graduating from Columbia and teaching for a decade at Yale....He brings the gory details. Two, the author is a striker, to put it in soccer terms. He's a vivid writer, a literary critic whose headers tend to land in the back corner of the net. Three, his indictment arrives on wheels: 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."--Dwight Garner "The New York Times "

"Excellent Sheep challenges parents to break from the herd mentality, to question what we really want from our children, who we really want them to be. The book filled me with both hope that there could be a more authentic, creative way to raise a new generation of thinkers--and with the courage to try to find it."--Peggy Orenstein, author of Cinderella Ate My Daughter

"Not only does Deresiewicz speak with candor about the ins and outs of the educational hierarchy from an insider's point of view, but he prompts some serious questions about the potential for reform and what we as parents can do to encourage our children from a young age to change the way that they're learning, and as a result, what they take from the world in exchange. A much recommended read, especially for those currently with or planning to have children."--Briana Burns "High Voltage "

About the Author:

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.

About this edition

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1476702713
• ISBN 13: 9781476702711
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256