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1-Page Summary of Excellent Sheep

Overall Summary

William Deresiewicz’s book Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life examines elite education in America. In his work, he discusses how students at top colleges are not taught to think critically or independently. Rather, they’re trained to follow rules and regurgitate information for tests. They learn what is expected of them rather than how to think for themselves. This leads many graduates into jobs that do not utilize their degrees but instead require mindless labor such as answering phones or data entry.

The book is divided into four sections: “Sheep”, “Self”, “Schools”, and “Society”. The first section tackles the titular theme of how elite students are as clueless and passive as a flock of sheep. It also looks at the role that parents, schools, and students play in this system. In order to emphasize that things don’t have to be this way, he reviews the history of Ivy League colleges since the 19th century to show how their purpose and student bodies have changed over time.

In part 2, Deresiewicz discusses the purpose of college, which is to help students find their unique identity. He uses George Eliot’s novel Middlemarch as a model for this process and argues that today’s elite students should be leaders who create new paradigms rather than working within the system.

The third section of the book talks about how schools should help students find their true self. The best way to do this is through a liberal arts education, which teaches students how to think rather than what to think. This approach helps them adapt and change with an ever-changing world. However, a liberal arts education alone isn’t enough; it needs informed professors who can guide students in their learning over time. Therefore, Deresiewicz recommends that college-bound students choose smaller liberal arts colleges instead of Ivy League schools.

The final section of the book looks at how elite education reinforces stratification in society. It creates a club-like atmosphere where people think they’re better than others, and it doesn’t help to improve society in any way. The author argues that we need wholesale changes to improve our educational system and make everyone’s life better.

Introduction

The author’s book, Excellent Sheep, began as an article. He went to many schools and talked with students about his ideas on higher education. The main idea of the book is that elite higher education exists in America for those who are part of the upper class or upper classes. The title came from a student who said that Deresiewicz was saying that students were just “really excellent sheep.”

Part 1, Chapter 1: “The Students”

Students are experiencing a crisis. On the surface, they seem amazing, but in fact, they’re not happy with their lives. One of the reasons for this is that students don’t want to appear vulnerable and thus hide their feelings from others. Deresiewicz (2015) writes about Stanford Duck Syndrome: people who seem serene on the surface while paddling madly underneath.

Students are unhappy because they feel lost in their education. They’re not getting the intellectual stimulation that they crave, and this is because of a focus on credentials rather than learning for its own sake. In addition, many students arrive at college excited to learn but lose that drive after being exposed to the credential-focused environment of higher education. The author argues that it’s due to an emphasis on study and activities with utilitarian value (like economics), which can be found in the popularity of careers like finance and consulting. It’s easy for students who have been conditioned by school to jump through hoops, and those career paths seem clear.