Drawing on academic research and anecdotal evidence, the book makes a strong pedagogical case but is short on specifics as...
From admission standards to teaching philosophy, a renowned academic calls for a paradigm shift in higher education.
What her title terms “Meritocracy,” Guinier (Lift Every Voice: Turning a Civil Rights Setback Into a New Vision of Social Justice, 1998, etc.)—the first woman of color to receive tenure at Harvard Law School—criticizes as “testocracy.” Throughout the book, she demonstrates how high SAT or LSAT scores most often reflect a tyranny of self-perpetuating privilege rather than potential, or even merit, in the broader, more democratic sense of the term. “[O]nce you’re past the first year or two of higher education, success isn’t about being the best test taker in the room any longer,” she argues. “It’s about being able to work with other people who have different strengths than you and who are also prepared to back you up when you make a mistake or when you feel vulnerable.” Collaboration rather than competition is the key to the transformation, with students encouraged to work in (even take tests in) groups and to concern themselves more with the process of arriving at the correct response than with the correctness of the response itself. She cites professors Eric Mazur (Harvard) and Uri Treisman (Univ. of Texas) as exemplars of this “culture of collaboration.” Guinier stresses that such a philosophy is more in keeping with the democratic ideal and that it will nurture potential beyond what a test score measures. She writes that we need “a classroom culture shift,” one that encourages “students to value the learning process over the final score.”
Drawing on academic research and anecdotal evidence, the book makes a strong pedagogical case but is short on specifics as to how we get from here to there.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-0807006276
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Beacon Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2014
Readers would do well to heed the dark warning that this book conveys.
The nameless resister inside the White House speaks.
“The character of one man has widened the chasms of American political division,” writes Anonymous. Indeed. The Trump years will not be remembered well—not by voters, not by history since the man in charge “couldn’t focus on governing, and he was prone to abuses of power, from ill-conceived schemes to punish his political rivals to a propensity for undermining vital American institutions.” Given all that, writes the author, and given Trump’s bizarre behavior and well-known grudges—e.g., he ordered that federal flags be raised to full staff only a day after John McCain died, an act that insiders warned him would be construed as petty—it was only patriotic to try to save the country from the man even as the resistance movement within the West Wing simultaneously tried to save Trump’s presidency. However, that they tried did not mean they succeeded: The warning of the title consists in large part of an extended observation that Trump has removed the very people most capable of guiding him to correct action, and the “reasonable professionals” are becoming ever fewer in the absence of John Kelly and others. So unwilling are those professionals to taint their reputations by serving Trump, in fact, that many critical government posts are filled by “acting” secretaries, directors, and so forth. And those insiders abetting Trump are shrinking in number even as Trump stumbles from point to point, declaring victory over the Islamic State group (“People are going to fucking die because of this,” said one top aide) and denouncing the legitimacy of the process that is now grinding toward impeachment. However, writes the author, removal from office is not the answer, not least because Trump may not leave without trying to stir up a civil war. Voting him out is the only solution, writes Anonymous; meanwhile, we’re stuck with a president whose acts, by the resisters’ reckoning, are equal parts stupid, illegal, or impossible to enact.
Readers would do well to heed the dark warning that this book conveys.Pub Date: Nov. 19, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5387-1846-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Twelve
Review Posted Online: Nov. 25, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
The author’s sincere sermon—at times analytical, at times hortatory—remains a hopeful one.
New York Times columnist Brooks (The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character and Achievement, 2011, etc.) returns with another volume that walks the thin line between self-help and cultural criticism.
Sandwiched between his introduction and conclusion are eight chapters that profile exemplars (Samuel Johnson and Michel de Montaigne are textual roommates) whose lives can, in Brooks’ view, show us the light. Given the author’s conservative bent in his column, readers may be surprised to discover that his cast includes some notable leftists, including Frances Perkins, Dorothy Day, and A. Philip Randolph. (Also included are Gens. Eisenhower and Marshall, Augustine, and George Eliot.) Throughout the book, Brooks’ pattern is fairly consistent: he sketches each individual’s life, highlighting struggles won and weaknesses overcome (or not), and extracts lessons for the rest of us. In general, he celebrates hard work, humility, self-effacement, and devotion to a true vocation. Early in his text, he adapts the “Adam I and Adam II” construction from the work of Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, Adam I being the more external, career-driven human, Adam II the one who “wants to have a serene inner character.” At times, this veers near the Devil Bugs Bunny and Angel Bugs that sit on the cartoon character’s shoulders at critical moments. Brooks liberally seasons the narrative with many allusions to history, philosophy, and literature. Viktor Frankl, Edgar Allan Poe, Paul Tillich, William and Henry James, Matthew Arnold, Virginia Woolf—these are but a few who pop up. Although Brooks goes after the selfie generation, he does so in a fairly nuanced way, noting that it was really the World War II Greatest Generation who started the ball rolling. He is careful to emphasize that no one—even those he profiles—is anywhere near flawless.
The author’s sincere sermon—at times analytical, at times hortatory—remains a hopeful one.Pub Date: April 21, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9325-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
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