About book Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation Of The American Elite And The Way To A Meaningful Life (2014)
Excellent Sheep is a compelling case for a liberal arts education and a reform of the higher education system. It is more opinion based than fact based but still remains mostly objective. Lots of good personal stories and examples are included. I feel like the book discounts the intensity of an Ivy League education and makes it sound like the cheap state school is as good an option as Yale. While this can be argued, it is hard to believe. The author does a good job of highlighting specific struggles that students face in top tier schools. Although the title says it includes the way to a more meaningful life, there are few definite prescriptive methods to improve the current state except to get a liberal arts education and change focus from success to true education. High school and college students, their parents, high school faculty and administrators, college counseling personnel, and college faculty and administrators should read Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life. The author, William Deresiewicz, a former Yale professor, reports that elite high schools and universities are failing to produce thoughtful leaders. Instead, students are encouraged to become well credentialed and head off into high-paying careers that cater to the 1%; this is current badge of success. Deresiewicz believes that this approach fails everyone, starting with high school students, who are on a high-pressure conveyor belt leading to a handful of elite universities. Once in college, these students continue the quest for impressive credentials but leave adrift, having given little thought to the purpose of their lives. They are ill-equipped to think critically and creatively and have not developed the tools to undertake self-discovery. Deresiewicz makes the case for a liberal arts education, “where you pursue the trail of inquiry wherever it leads. Truth, not use [read: the ability to land a job] or reward [read: the ability to get rich], is the only criterion. That is why you don’t just learn a certain body of material when you study the liberal arts; you learn how knowledge is created. You don’t acquire information; you debate it” (p. 150). The ultimate purpose of a liberal arts education “is to help you to learn to reflect in the widest and deepest sense, beyond the requirements of work and career; for the sake of citizenship, for the sake of living well with others, above all, for the sake of building a self that is strong and creative and free” (p.155). Whether you agree or disagree with his arguments, there is a lot to think about in this book.
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A must read for prospective college students
—irin
