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William Deresiewicz on American Higher Education
06.03.2015
The current competition to get into one of America’s elite universities is designed to produce only “excellent sheep”. Ben Hill spoke with former Yale professor and best-selling author Bill Deresiewicz about what has gone wrong with America’s top schools and what can be done to save them.
The European: Dr. Deresiewicz, in your recent book, “Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and a Way to a Meaningful Life”, you level compelling criticism against the college admissions process. Could you briefly explain what makes someone an excellent sheep?
Deresiewicz: What makes students into excellent sheep is the college admissions process itself, and the childhood and adolescence that process creates for students whose parents aspire to send them to the Ivy League and other highly selective colleges. The admissions process has such a long list of requirements and, because it’s so competitive, their whole lives are geared towards it – often from seventh or fourth grade onwards, sometimes even earlier. It becomes a long process of jumping through hoops, checking off boxes, running as fast as you can, and doing what the adults tell you to do.
The European: Why do you call these students “excellent sheep”?
Deresiewicz: Kids, even from a very young age, are under tremendous pressure to be perfect, to do everything perfectly, and they are never given the opportunity to think about why they’re doing it, to decide whether they want to do it, to develop a real sense of purpose, a real understanding of what they care about, because they’re so busy trying to do everything the right way. They end up being very good at doing the things the adults want them to do, be it parents, teachers, or coaches. That’s why they’re “excellent.“ But they’re very bad at directing their own lives, because they are never given any autonomy to do so, so they’re “sheep.” And this has a lot of consequences for them later in life, and for all of us too.
“The problem is that students are risk-averse.”
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