Mom Behind the Curtain

every mom wants to be an all-powerful wizard

The Worth of Being the Best – Excellent Sheep Part Part 5/5

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Excellent Sheep- Deresiewicz said one thing driving [all the pressure in education] is the "insatiable need to be ‘the best.’”What is the worth of being the best?In Excellent Sheep, the Miseducation of the American Elite & The Way to a Meaningful Life, Deresiewicz said there is one thing driving all the pressure in education, what he refers to as “…the insatiable need to be ‘the best.’” The idea that you don’t need to be the best also came up in World Class Learners: Educating Creative and Entrepreneurial Students by Yong Zhao, that the world no longer needs the United States to “be the best” but to be “part of the world.”

What is the worth of being the best?

This is a tricky concept for me. In many cases, the drive to be the best is what drives excellence. This can be how you achieve excellence….

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AP Failure and the College Admissions Arms Race – Excellent Sheep Part Part 4/5

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Excellent Sheep - When you read about success, "the ability to fail" comes up time and time again. Kids need to learn how to fail. Can AP failure teach kids how to fail?

In an earlier post, I talked about how in Excellent Sheep, the Miseducation of the American Elite & The Way to a Meaningful Life, William Deresiewicz says “The purpose of life [has become] the accumulation of gold stars.” (Excellent Sheep, page 16) How does he relate that to education? How does it relate to high school? Can AP failure teach kids how to fail?…

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The College Admissions Arms Race – Excellent Sheep Part 3/5

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Excellent Sheep - Deresiewicz points out ways the Ivies historically controlled their college admissions to control the kind of student who was admitted.In my last post, I talked in Excellent Sheep, the Miseducation of the American Elite & The Way to a Meaningful Life, William Deresiewicz says “The purpose of life [has become] the accumulation of gold stars.” (Excellent Sheep, page 16) How does he relate that to education? How does it relate to college admissions?…

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The Accumulation of Gold Stars for Success – Excellent Sheep Part 2/5

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Excellent Sheep - William Deresiewicz says Ivy League schools perpetuate the idea that “The purpose of life becomes the accumulation of gold stars.”In my previous post, I talked about how William Deresiewicz starts out Excellent Sheep, the Miseducation of the American Elite & The Way to a Meaningful Life, with the assertion that mental health problems are on the rise among college students. Deresiewicz thinks the problem lies with education, especially elite universities.

Excellent Sheep talks a lot about how the desperate race to collect accolades for acceptance to an elite college affects students.

How it doesn’t stop after high school.

It continues on through college with the accumulation of multiple majors.

“The purpose of life becomes the accumulation of gold stars.” (Excellent Sheep, page 16)

As evidence…

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Excellent Sheep review and discussion – Excellent Sheep Part 1/5

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Excellent Sheep examines why it appears students are effortlessly over-achieving, when actually we have “an epidemic of depression among younger people.”You’ve read about them. Those super-start students who’re valedictorian, took 7 AP classes and tested out of 3 more AP credits, played in the school marching band, got accepted to Harvard, and started up their own non-profit on the side. All while making it look easy. But was it easy? William Deresiewicz starts out Excellent Sheep, the Miseducation of the American Elite & The Way to a Meaningful Life, by pointing out that the easy super-star student is a myth.

He goes into all sorts of statistics to show that while it appears students are effortlessly over-achieving, when you look at the numbers, what we have — according to one college President — is “an epidemic of depression among younger people.”

Of course, it’s just numbers, and just because it’s written in a book, doesn’t mean it’s true. But when what I’m reading matches my own experiences, I start to take notice….

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Why my son won’t attend a liberal arts college, engineering – how to choose a college Part 5/5

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Liberal arts college engineering degree options: 3-2 engineering programs, how they work, and computer science degrees at liberal arts colleges.If you’ve read my previous posts about a liberal arts education at a small liberal arts college, starting with Consider a Liberal Arts College, you probably didn’t expect the title of this post. But sometimes you consider an idea and then find it to not be the best fit. In my last post I covered some reservations I had about a liberal arts degree. But our biggest issue was that we were looking for a college with a computer science degree, a liberal arts college engineering degree. And yes, that turns out to be a contradiction.

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A liberal arts education, is it really the best? – how to choose a college part 4/5

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The benefits and the limitations of a liberal arts education at a small liberal arts college. Can you get a job with a liberal arts degree?I started down the path of considering a liberal arts education at a liberal arts college for our son, because I was questioning the value of chasing the grades of top 10%, and was worried about my kids’ chances of getting into a “competitive” (read “good” or “well-ranked”) college if they didn’t join that race. (This turned out not to be true. You can get into a good college without a high class ranking.) One alternative is to attend a small liberal arts college instead of a large research university….

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College Rankings, the truth about what they really mean – how to choose a college part 3/5

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The truth about college rankings -  Looking at college rankings? College rankings aren't based on what you might think. They're based more on incoming freshmen than outgoing graduates.It might seem like the easiest way to figure out which colleges and universities are good, or the best, is to just look at the college rankings.

The short answer is that is not a good idea.

In fact, it’s a TERRIBLE idea.

If you want to know why, read on….

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Difference between college and university – how to choose a college part 2/5

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what is the difference between college and university degrees? Between liberal arts colleges and research universities? What does it mean for students?Because I was worried about the chances of getting into college if you don’t chase the top 10% (a misconception that turned out not to be true) and I liked the idea of getting your undergraduate degree at a school that emphasized teaching undergraduates over graduate research, I found the idea of a liberal arts college appealing. So, what is the difference between college and university degrees? What are the differences between liberal arts colleges and research universities?…

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Steve Jobs vs Becoming Steve Jobs biographies – my own observations, Part 7/7

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Steve Jobs biographies - my own observationsBoth of the Steve Jobs biographies I read, Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson and Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli, were written by people who knew Steve Jobs personally. But there are a couple of small points that I think they overlooked….

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