Your references to Yale call to mind a book my Appalachian-born son read when offered a scholarship to Yale: "Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite" by William Deresiewicz. Instead of being part of the university's "diversity " quotient, he found a meaningful life outside Yale. I taught a boy who did go to Yale on a div…
Your references to Yale call to mind a book my Appalachian-born son read when offered a scholarship to Yale: "Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite" by William Deresiewicz. Instead of being part of the university's "diversity " quotient, he found a meaningful life outside Yale. I taught a boy who did go to Yale on a diversity scholarship, one offered to Appalachian students. He's a successful distiller in Brooklyn. He's written a book. Success comes with being free to be whatever you want. Deresiewicz exposes the herd (or flock) mentality of education for purpose of status rather than for the purpose of discovering one's authentic purpose and meaning of success.
Deresiewicz was a professor of mine when he was formulating many of the arguments that he made in Excellent Sheep and he's gone on to be a real intellectual hero for me. He's absolutely spot-on. Students at Yale at that time (as well as now, I imagine) believe themselves to be at the top of a meritocratic system. Deresiewicz's critique is much more accurate - that they're basically box-checkers and real worth is to be found elsewhere.
Your references to Yale call to mind a book my Appalachian-born son read when offered a scholarship to Yale: "Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite" by William Deresiewicz. Instead of being part of the university's "diversity " quotient, he found a meaningful life outside Yale. I taught a boy who did go to Yale on a diversity scholarship, one offered to Appalachian students. He's a successful distiller in Brooklyn. He's written a book. Success comes with being free to be whatever you want. Deresiewicz exposes the herd (or flock) mentality of education for purpose of status rather than for the purpose of discovering one's authentic purpose and meaning of success.
Deresiewicz was a professor of mine when he was formulating many of the arguments that he made in Excellent Sheep and he's gone on to be a real intellectual hero for me. He's absolutely spot-on. Students at Yale at that time (as well as now, I imagine) believe themselves to be at the top of a meritocratic system. Deresiewicz's critique is much more accurate - that they're basically box-checkers and real worth is to be found elsewhere.