When journalist Peter Sacks quit his job as a newspaper reporter to teach college, he wasn't expecting Harvard or Yale. But his experience was far more eye-catching than anything he could have anticipated. His new book, which grew out of his experiences at a large suburban community college, portrays mostly white, middle-class students sporting bored looks and ample attitudes, who equate achievement with simply showing up. Desperate instructors, longing to light a fire under their students, are afraid of rocking the boat in a world in which student evaluations determine tenure.
The cost of upholding academic standards in this brave new world of student entitlement and consumerism is a teacher's loss of job security. Following his riveting first person account, the author analyzes this experience in the context of recent social changes. He concludes that Generation X consists of genuine postmoderns, who want desperately to believe in something, but have come to distrust almost everything the modern world has deemed important. Traditional notions of knowledge and learning are contested terrain. Reform-minded educators, parents and policymakers need to understand the postmodern turn and the individuals it has begotten.
A must read by every educator, especially those in universities and colleges where tenure has disappeared or states having post tenure reviews (i.e., California, Florida, University of Texas system, Georgia, Harvard Business School, Texas A & M University system, University of Minnesota Law School).
ISBN 0-8126-9314-0 ($17.95) Available at bookstores or from the publisher. To order, call toll free (800) 815-2280.
Society for a Return to Academic Standards
Last Updated: 10 May 1998
