"Don't Send Your Kid to the Ivy League" (Deresiewicz)

Rather than doing homework this past Monday night, I found myself packing into the McCormack theater. Though I had arrived five minutes early, both the floor and the upper balcony were packed with a mix of students and what appeared to be faculty. We were all here for a talk by William Deresiewicz.

Deresiewicz is known for writing an article titled "Don't Send Your Kid to the Ivy League", which was actually an excerpt from his book, "Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life." I had only skimmed the article when it first popped up on my RSS feed, but I was interested in hearing what he had to say.

His talk focused more on the value of a liberal arts education, rather than his prior criticisms of the elite institutions. If you would like to know more about the talk, here is the Herald's summary of it.

While the talk itself didn't answer any burning questions I had after rereading the article, it did prompt me to think more about Deresiewicz's claims. So I set out examining some of the major ideas he presents in his (in)famous article.

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The first thing that I noticed about the article was it's title, "Don't Send Your Kid to the Ivy League." It's not "Don't go to an Ivy League." By suggesting that the parents are the audience of this article, it disempowers the student right from the beginning. Deresiewicz presents a reality in which educational excellence seems almost manufactured by the parents, rather than the student. I found this quote particularly potent.

"The more hurdles there are, the more expensive it is to catapult your kid across them. Wealthy families start buying their children’s way into elite colleges almost from the moment they are born: music lessons, sports equipment, foreign travel (“enrichment” programs, to use the all-too-perfect term)—most important, of course, private-school tuition or the costs of living in a place with top-tier public schools. The SAT is supposed to measure aptitude, but what it actually measures is parental income, which it tracks quite closely."

Indeed, the article presents numerous examples of how students are essentially herded like sheep to certain goals. Consider some of the following examples:

-"You chose the most prestigious place that let you in; up ahead were vaguely understood objectives: status, wealth—“success.” What it meant to actually get an education and why you might want one—all this was off the table. Everyone dressed as if they were ready to be interviewed at a moment’s notice."

-"Our system of elite education manufactures young people who are smart and talented and driven, yes, but also anxious, timid, and lost, with little intellectual curiosity and a stunted sense of purpose: trapped in a bubble of privilege, heading meekly in the same direction, great at what they’re doing but with no idea why they’re doing it." 

Now I'm making Deresiewicz look like a pessimist, and that's a little unfair. The majority of his book is constructive in nature (according to him). But still, these excerpts are rather powerful aren't they? But how true are they?

In the end, I think Deresiewicz is onto something. While he has received a lot of backlash from students and teachers alike, I would say that such is to be expected when such a extraordinary claim is made. To me, his ultimate claim is that our educational system is phony. And slowly, we're becoming phony too.

I think this idea is most prevalent in his view on the modern student's "social engagements." Deresiewicz feels that our experiences have become so commodified that even service has become nothing more than a resume builder. In short:

"Why is it that people feel the need to go to places like Guatemala to do their projects of rescue or documentation, instead of Milwaukee or Arkansas?"

I've asked this type of question myself pertaining to my own activities in college. And though it's tough to admit, I think any high achieving student knows the answer. In the system we have found ourselves in, it's difficult to just be authentic. We are bombarded with numerical metrics from a young age, and come to connote them with out worth. The media constantly uses phrases like the "value of an education" which always refer to monetary value or job security. Even amongst ourselves, we judge those whose resumes are not as long, or whose college is not as "prestigious." Through this all, the last thing we seem to do is really care about what we're learning.

I think this quote from the article is very telling.

"Once, a student at Pomona told me that she’d love to have a chance to think about the things she’s studying, only she doesn’t have the time. I asked her if she had ever considered not trying to get an A in every class. She looked at me as if I had made an indecent suggestion."

In the end, I agree with most of Deresiewicz's criticisms. But although they are prevalent forces in modern education, one must be careful to make any sort of blanket statement on students. As young people, we can change our perspectives and goals overnight with the right inspiration.

The loss of this ability is exactly what Deresiewicz seems to fear the most.
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In a future post, I'll share my opinion on how Brown relates to this "Ivy Syndrome."