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Are you strongly religious?

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This article is simply laughable!

Like many, I am a product of poor public school education and a mediocre 4 year State College and without a doubt, loathe not having received an elite education. That said, I cannot disagree more with the author of this article. I'll point out a few obvious disadvantages that students of poor and mediocre (non elite) education befall.

1) A poor or mediocre education makes you incapable of talking to people who aren't like you.Using myself as an example, I could not hold an intelligent conversation with the head of say, Harvard Law School on the subject of law without sounding like a complete incompetent fool. Similarly, s/he may very well feel completely out of touch in trying to discuss the benefits of sporting jeans 7 sizes too large while skateboarding versus skin tight jeans stolen from little sister. In both cases, the less learned of the two would simply not be experienced enough to offer a "professional" opinion. And if you asked me which of the two subjects (law or skateboarding) I would prefer to hold mastery over, I would have to say.......uh hmm...Law. I speculate that most of you out there would also chose law over skateboarding.

In sum, elite education leads to the mastery of the most important academic subjects while poor and mediocre education can hardly claim such accomplishment.

2) I've spent close to 20 years attending some of the most diverse public school and college institutions in the USA (in Los Angeles) and in all honesty, I still find students overwhelmingly segregating themselves according race, class, and whatever other identities they carry. Mexicans with Mexicans, Filipinos with Filipinos, Russians with Russians, Persians with Persians, "White" Jews with "White" Jews, African Americans with African Americans, Armenians with Armenians, Indians with Indians, Lower Class WASPs with Lower Class WASPs, etc. I could go on and on. And this is happening in public schools with students of very diverse backgrounds. I realize that this phenomenon is not occuring nationwide but certainly in Southern California. So, while these schools are not homogeneous, students still resort to clan mentality and find a way to gravitate, by and large, to their own peeps. So much for non-elitist education trying to unite the many races and classes.

3) My poor and mediocre public education taught me to to believe that people who didn't go to an equally poor and mediocre school weren't worth talking to, regardless of their class.

4) Mediocre universities ... select for and develop one form of intelligence: average intelligence. ... social intelligence and emotional intelligence and creative ability, to name just three other forms, are not distributed preferentially among the educational mediocre.

5) At mediocre colleges and universities you also get an endless string of second chances. In fact, I've had classes where if you were to acquire the maximum extra credit points available, you could take your grade from a C+ to an A-. Now that's a lot of extra credit points. Not to mention the chance of turning in every paper or project in 2 or (less common) 4 weeks overdue.

6)A poor or mediocre education gives you the chance to be (let's be honest here)just another Joe with a degree. If Joe is lucky enough to have a moderately rich family, well then his chances of starting his own business, putting a down payment on a house, purchasing a new, reliable vehicle are dramatically increased. If mediocre Joe is fortunate enough to have some money in the family, then the probability of Joe going on to earning a PhD are also dramatically increased. Too bad that most mediocre Joes with mediocre education DO NOT have money in the family. So instead they take out university loans to pursue that PhD and end up being in dept for a long long long time while living in a cheap apartment and wishing that they had not the financial strain that prevents them from taking on writing poetry or painting.

Where there's a will there's a way, but it's not necessarily the smartest or most advantages way.

7) If you truly believe that students from elite universities like Yale or Harvard are "content to color within the lines that their education had marked out for them. And that only a small minority have seen their education as part of a larger intellectual journey," try sitting in a classroom or hall packed with mediocre students at a mediocre university...you'd come out of there having lost faith in the human race! Am I being drastic? yes, to prove a point. I have sat through many hours of lecture and laboratory classes at mediocre state universities and have disdained all but a selected handful. Why? Simply put, these institutions function more like automobile manufacturing plants than they do like places of higher learning. In these mediocre universities you're lucky to reach your senior year philosophy seminar before you're expected to ask "the big questions." I'm talking about truly revolutionary questions, not just the same old questions that Kant or Foucault asked.

Would I trade my poor and mediocre secondary and post-secondary education for an elite education that AT THE VERY LEAST guarantees that the "institution's name on a piece of paper" will get me the interviews that "Mediocre Joe" could only dream of getting? You bet your sweet self I would!

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I'm sure that to some extent the author is right on in what he's saying. But the reality is, the world is not a fair place and the gap between those who have and those who have not is widening - this will inevitably create situations in which we won't know how or will be afraid to communicate with each other. There are those with elite education who do not possess elitist attitudes and are capable of carrying on a conversation (genuinely) with anyone. Likewise, there are those with elite education who are snobs and can't or won't talk to anyone outside of their circle...I don't see this changing. What I'm going to do and I hope the author is doing, is make as much of a difference as I can in my little part of this world. And for the record, I agree with the person who said the plumber could have initiated conversation with the author. Everyone, no matter where they're from or where they're educated should feel comfortable enough to talk with anyone. And if this isn't the case, perhaps the person should search within himself/herself to find out why he/she is not. The world will always have it's classifications (black, white, male, female, low-income, middle-class, Ivy League, etc.) and all the stereotypic thinking that goes along with these categorizations, but we can't let these associations, whether true or not, (i.e., maybe one is in the low-income bracket, or did attend an Ivy League school) dictate who we are and how we think about ourselves.

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The one good idea this essay advocates is that a mind which ardently conforms to a social system will be unable to think beyond that system. He validates that idea when he explains why a professor with tenure at a university with an endowment larger than the gdp of africa is disappointed the majority of students spurn metaphysical delights and pursue building credentials in order to survive financially.

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As a general principle, it's stupid to take large risks. Perhaps good for society, generally bad for the individual.

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I attend Yale, and I think the essay fairly accurately describes the lives of about 50% of the students there.

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On Deresiewicz's point about anti-intellectualism, I think he overestimates how much university/college influences a person intellectually and underestimates the extent to which the die is cast long before higher education begins. Before finishing high school, most smart people have decided that they have little interest in learning as an intrinsically rewarding activity and little interest in anything that is not a means to GOODSTUFF (TM) (wealth, power, prestige, the 'perfect' marriage, etc.). Some truly exceptional experiences in university will change the minds of some, but they are a small minority, regardless of the university.

I do think though that in high school, among the smartest of the lot, the individuals in the subset that most strongly regards education as a purely instrumental stepping-stone to GOODSTUFF -- i.e., the anti-intellectuals -- are *much* more likely to attend (if possible) an Ivy than a strong liberal arts college or a non-Ivy that is especially strong in what they are most interested in. This is not to say that such people will be necessarily be a majority at an Ivy, but there will be a lot more of them proportionally at an Ivy than anywhere else, and they will generally be loud and conspicuous in their stepping-stone activities and attitudes (just as their less smart and equally GOODSTUFF-grubbing equivalents are at non-Ivies).

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Court, I think you are basically right. I've been at both a state school and an "elite school", and my sense is the same as yours. People who are interested in ideas themselves, a broad education, following an independent path, or taking large risks are rare at both places. I guess a naive assumption would be that "elite schools" should try and select for students such as that.

I just don't think its realistic for "elite schools" to be able to do this. Its probably next to impossible to figure out which type of student is which during admissions. Even if you had a perfect admission filter -- the schools would still have a strong incentive to ensure a significant proportion of their graduates go on to hold positions of power in money-grubbing places to keep the endowment growing.

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Glittering prizes

David Smith's blog feed is made up mainly of his del.icio.us daily links. These are a pretty fabulous digest of interesting stuff. This one caught my eye today: biases of elite education. (And I love the idea of blog called...

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I think anyone interested in this article should read it in full. Robin selects an interesting section, but the writers says a lot more.

Speaking broadly, I know (of) a few people who went on to elite educations; they were super-overachievers (also know as grade-grubbers, if one was to speak politely) who not only got perfect grades but also were president of every club, did community service, and wrote entrance essays in their spare time. 15 years or so on, my fairly limited sample of people went on to the sorts of jobs and lives you might expect: corporate / business / political money-grubbing. The path they were on from high school onwards was pretty indicative of where they would go in life. Small sample size, I emphasize.

I myself went to a small, Jesuit, liberal arts college and most of my fellow students, even those who made a pretense of going after the life of the mind, went on to corporate / business / political money-grubbing. Just on a smaller scale. My feeling is that if you could have switched these people, they would have ended up doing the same basic thing. Their relative educations were, so far as I can tell, only so much window dressing.

So, much as my anti-elitist side would love to prick the perceived smug superiority of the Ivies, I tend to think that to follow an independent path is a rare thing wherever one goes to school; and the institutions themselves don't have much to do with it one way or the other. Out of any given set of students only a very small proportion will be interested in pursuing the life of the mind. I very much doubt that your formal education has much to do with it.

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I read the essay a few weeks ago and while at first agreeing with it, I quickly came to the conclusion that the author is the victim of a pernicious bias: he believes that his is the only model of success. For instance, he criticizes his always-connected students because he believes that solitude/silence is vital to introspection and that introspection is crucial to attaining knowledge. (Is it? Is it really? How much time did Socrates spend in silence? They couldn't shut the guy up!)

Perhaps introversion was the key to his learning (perhaps because he's an introvert?) but by believing that his path is the only path, he makes a crotchety cliche of himself: those dang kids, why can't they be just like him?

I recommend you send him a free subscription to Overcoming Bias.

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Hello - I've been following this blog off and on since my brother turned it on to me a few months ago. Thank you for your questions and for grappling with a whole host of diverse issues! I recently returned from a reunion with college friends that about 20 of us put on ourselves. We went to Luther College in Decorah, Iowa - a small, liberal arts college. I was amazed at how everyone who was present was able to participate in rewarding, intellectual conversation, as well as introspective and fruitful questioning and vulnerability. We all thoroughly enjoyed our time there and, though most of us don't bring in more than $40-60K, the level of contentedness is extremely high.

I'm in agreement with most of what "thinking small" is trying to say: (the one above who wrote the following) Deresiewicz should be careful in conflating "elite education" with "elite universities," and he should try spending some time at a top-ranked liberal arts college. Intellectual passion and engagement with the big questions are alive and well in American higher-ed, if one knows where to look.

But I think that's exactly the point. Deresiewicz isn't talking about liberal arts schools. So, cheers for the essay post and y'all - check out your nearest liberal arts school!

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Bob, your comment is too long for this blog.

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Sometimes I ask myself how can the elites in politics and media believe what they seem to believe. I ca only come up with one guess that is that they did not grow up hanging around with people like the people that I hung around with. They seem to be from a different planet, then I think well maybe they were that kid who always got all A’s and never did the things that the rest of us did. Like what thoughtful intelligent person in their right mind supports the war on drugs. Almost all the males that I new when I was between 15 and 25 years old used illegal drugs do they think that all those people should do time in jail?

Let me add that our system of schooling is weird. We pay teachers to teach us and they grade us, and then even if we get bad grades they blab the grades to anyone who asks. If I paid a piano teacher for lessons and I was looking for a job I do not think the person hiring would call my piano teacher to ask how good I was. Since I paid the piano teacher he better say I am good. The teacher would not tell the employer something like “he was always behind on his learning scales”. Instead the employer would ask me to play. But if you have this creative kid who gets bad grades you blab it around. Better to not be creative and thoughtful but regurgitate what the teacher tells you.

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Praising this sort of writing just encourages people who want an audience to lie, to make up stories to fill a social desire, in my opinion.

Here I think the desire is to construct heirarchy within elites. I'd rather intra-elite heirarchy be constructed on the basis of who's doing more to reduce our existential risk, than this fluffy stuff.

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The author of the essay himself evinces that which he attempts to indict. The whole issue is that he feels like he can't talk to his plumber.

As a product of this elite educational system -- which, as he describes it, babies its students & produces those who can't really think or work hard, be able fail, or take personal responsibility -- he then proceeds to blame the educational system that produced him and not himself, thus avoiding personal responsibility.

Maybe if he just stopped being a snob? Why not try looking the plumber straight in the eye, offering him a coffee, and asking him, "Hey how about those Mets?"

While he argues that Kerry, Gore & Bush show the defects of this system, he conveniently forgets to mention Clinton, who can famously talk to anyone about anything, become your best friend in 5 minutes, and was extremely competent in matters of government.

Maybe the author should join the Peace Corps or go volunteer in Darfur to recover from his education. As George B. Shaw said when a young man asked if he should travel or go to Oxbridge, "Get an education first. You can always go to university later."

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