Excellent Sheep
The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life
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Narrated by:
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Mel Foster
About this listen
As a professor at Yale, William Deresiewicz saw something that troubled him deeply. His students, some of the nation's brightest minds, were adrift when it came to the big questions: how to think critically and creatively, and how to find a sense of purpose.
Excellent Sheep takes a sharp look at the high-pressure conveyor belt that begins with parents and counselors who demand perfect grades and culminates in the skewed applications Deresiewicz saw firsthand as a member of Yale's admissions committee. As schools shift focus from the humanities to "practical" subjects like economics and computer science, students are losing the ability to think in innovative ways. Deresiewicz explains how college should be a time for self-discovery, when students can establish their own values and measures of success, so they can forge their own path. He addresses parents, students, educators, and anyone who's interested in the direction of American society, featuring quotes from real students and graduates he has corresponded with over the years, candidly exposing where the system is broken and clearly presenting solutions.
©2014 William Deresiewicz (P)2014 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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Not for Profit
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- By: Martha C. Nussbaum
- Narrated by: Tamara Marston
- Length: 5 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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In this short and powerful book, celebrated philosopher Martha Nussbaum makes a passionate case for the importance of the liberal arts at all levels of education. Historically, the humanities have been central to education because they have been seen as essential for creating competent democratic citizens. But recently, Nussbaum argues, thinking about the aims of education has gone disturbingly awry in the United States and abroad.
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Not for Profit
- By elemarteacher on 07-21-17
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The Global Achievement Gap
- Why Even Our Best Schools Don't Teach the New Survival Skills our Children Need - and What We Can Do About it
- By: Tony Wagner
- Narrated by: Paul Costanzo
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Education expert Tony Wagner situates our school problems in the context of the global knowledge economy and analyzes the skills necessary for our young people to succeed.
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made obsolete by 'MostLikelyToSucceed'-still great
- By MichaelS on 04-01-16
By: Tony Wagner
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Springboard
- Launching Your Personal Search for Success
- By: G. Richard Shell
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Everyone knows that you are supposed to "follow your dream". But where is the road map to help you discover what that dream is? You have just found it. In Springboard, award-winning author and teacher G. Richard Shell helps you find your future. His advice: Take an honest look inside and then answer two questions: What, for me, is success? How will I achieve it? You will begin by assessing your current beliefs about success, including the hidden influences of family, media, and culture. These are where the pressures to live "someone else's life" come from.
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Great book and fascinating perspective on success
- By Austin on 01-07-15
By: G. Richard Shell
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The Smartest Kids in the World
- And How They Got That Way
- By: Amanda Ripley
- Narrated by: Kate Reading
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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How do other countries create "smarter" kids? In a handful of nations, virtually all children are learning to make complex arguments and solve problems they've never seen before. They are learning to think, in other words, and to thrive in the modern economy.What is it like to be a child in the world's new education superpowers? In a global quest to find answers for our own children, author and Time magazine journalist Amanda Ripley follows three Americans embedded in these countries for one year.
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a Wanna-be fiction writer avoids the subject
- By Niall on 11-23-13
By: Amanda Ripley
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The Nordic Theory of Everything
- In Search of a Better Life
- By: Anu Partanen
- Narrated by: Abby Craden
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Moving to America in 2008, Finnish journalist Anu Partanen quickly went from confident, successful professional to wary, self-doubting mess. She found that navigating the basics of everyday life - from buying a cell phone and filing taxes to education and childcare - was much more complicated and stressful than anything she encountered in her homeland. At first she attributed her crippling anxiety to the difficulty of adapting to a freewheeling new culture. But as she got to know Americans better, she discovered they shared her deep apprehension.
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A non-radical perspective on two societies
- By kwdayboise (Kim Day) on 06-20-17
By: Anu Partanen
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The Formula
- Unlocking the Secrets to Raising Highly Successful Children
- By: Ronald F. Ferguson, Tatsha Robertson
- Narrated by: Cynthia Farrell
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Formula: Unlocking the Secrets to Raising Highly Successful Children, Harvard economist Ronald Ferguson, named in a New York Times profile as the foremost expert on the US educational "achievement gap," along with award-winning journalist Tatsha Robertson, reveal an intriguing blueprint for helping children from all types of backgrounds become successful adults.
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would recommend
- By Marcia on 02-25-20
By: Ronald F. Ferguson, and others
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How Children Succeed
- Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character
- By: Paul Tough
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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The story we usually tell about childhood and success is the one about intelligence: success comes to those who score highest on tests, from preschool admissions to SATs. But in How Children Succeed, Paul Tough argues that the qualities that matter most have more to do with character: skills like perseverance, curiosity, conscientiousness, optimism, and self-control. How Children Succeed introduces us to a new generation of researchers and educators who, for the first time, are using the tools of science to peel back the mysteries of character.
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Article based on interviews
- By Anonymous User on 10-24-24
By: Paul Tough
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The End of Average
- How We Succeed in a World That Values Sameness
- By: Todd Rose
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 6 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Are you above average? Is your child an A student? Is your employee an introvert or an extrovert? Every day we are measured against the yardstick of averages, judged according to how close we come to it or how far we deviate from it. The assumption that metrics comparing us to an average—like GPAs, personality test results, and performance review ratings—reveal something meaningful about our potential is so ingrained in our consciousness that we don't even question it. That assumption, says Harvard's Todd Rose, is spectacularly—and scientifically—wrong.
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Good intentions, terrible execution
- By Kristofer Jarl on 05-06-19
By: Todd Rose
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The Conservative Heart
- How to Build a Fairer, Happier, and More Prosperous America
- By: Arthur C. Brooks
- Narrated by: P. J. Ochlan
- Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Conservative Heart, Arthur C. Brooks contends that after years of focusing on economic growth and traditional social values, it is time for a new kind of conservatism - one that helps the vulnerable without mortgaging our children's future. In Brooks' daring vision, this conservative movement fights poverty, promotes equal opportunity, celebrates earned success, and values spiritual enlightenment. It is an inclusive movement with a positive agenda to help people lead happier, more hopeful, and more satisfied lives.
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Outstanding recitation of conservatism!
- By GLENNO on 08-06-15
By: Arthur C. Brooks
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An inspiring battle cry for sanity in the college application process that looks beyond the rankings to successfully determine what’s truly the best school for you or your child.
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Malcolm Gladwell has long relished the opportunity to skewer the upper echelons of higher education, from the institution of U.S. News & World Report’s Best College rankings to the LSATs to the luxe Bowdoin College cafeteria. I Hate the Ivy League: Riffs and Rants on Elite Education, upends the traditional thinking around how education should work and tries to get to the bottom of why we often reward the wrong people.
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Great content but don’t bother purchasing if you have heard the podcasts
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What listeners say about Excellent Sheep
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Amazon Customer
- 03-26-22
Best In Class!
I pass this title to all I know with children
Please do the same thing for your friends and family.
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- kvrtis
- 10-17-16
read before saving for kids college education
if I told you a book was going to save you $10,000 would you read it? how about $40,000?
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2 people found this helpful
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- SeattleMom
- 02-15-23
Excellent
Fantastic reminders of how we can support our kids in the challenging system/ world we live in. Ideas challenged and myths debunked about higher education. It reassured me that there is not one right answer for anyone, and what an education really means.
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- Logan Hayes
- 07-02-21
Great book. Really made you think.
Realistically with how the world is today, this book accurately describes where we've come from and where we are going. This book has changed how I view my life. I have spent a majority of it pushing towards the same direction as my peers and after this book, I have changed how I think entirely. Worth a read.
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- dvan
- 01-21-23
Thought provoking book on huge education
I enjoyed the book, but found it to be long on prose and slow to develop. It was kind of a slow read.
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- Leslie
- 05-29-21
Very informative and insightful, not practical.
The author does a great job outlining the elitist problem both in modern academia and the political ruling class. He makes a reasonable argument for the need of the humanities in the lives of average man and why it should be requied in every liberal arts degree. But I find his solutions a little vague and impractical. Demanding that people act against their own self interest is not likely to succeed, particularly in today's culture.
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- tate brown
- 12-14-21
Enlightening. Boring narration. Worth the listen.
Good content with great use of statistics and analytics to introduce insightful data surrounding affluence, education, and socioeconomic mobility.
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- Keith Hernandez
- 07-02-19
A frank discussion of credentialism
Maybe I listened to this book at just the right time, but I found it excellent. As I try to look at educational options for my young children, this book addressed many of the issues I’ve been wrestling with. It left me hopeful for the future.
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- JSwan
- 01-19-24
Don’t be an Excellent Sheep
I really enjoyed this book. Extremely informative. It really makes you think about your entire education as a whole and makes you question the educational system as a whole.
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- Frank
- 06-29-15
Perpetual Privilege
The book is thought provoking relative to the perpetuation of privilege among those in the correct class. The conclusions however left me uninspired. It is too simple to say we have enough money to fix this problem. Our choices not only require choosing correctly where to spend but undoing the growing bubble of public workers' pension entitlements. Silence concerning this trap created by our governing elite is suspiciously absent.
Overall I liked it because it made me think.
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2 people found this helpful