WHY TEACH? is a heartfelt and provocative book that will interest anyone who wonders what happened to the idea that college should be a life-altering, mind-expanding experience. With wry humor and hard-won wisdom, Mark Edmundson offers an inspiring vision of the liberal arts as a vehicle for personal transformation.” —Tom Perotta, author of LITTLE CHILDREN and THE LEFTOVERS
“In prose so fresh and personal it leaps off the page, Mark Edmundson launches a stinging critique of higher education today. Everywhere he sees teachers flattering students, confirming their prejudices, and training them for the success game rather than opening their minds to new ways of looking at the world. His teaching ideal, developed here in exemplary detail, is at once utopian and absolutely essential. This book deserves to be widely read.” —Morris Dickstein, author of GATES OF EDEN and DANCING IN THE DARK
“Mark Edmundson obviously missed the intellectual timidity gene that's so helpful for an academic career. He has the audacity to argue in this book that universities should not be business and consumer training facilities, internet hookup sports, and workout centers, but places where students grapple with 'perspective-altering intellectual challenges."” —Gerald Graff, Professor of English and Education, University of Illinois at Chicago, former President, Modern Language Association
“Edmundson's accessible prose will motivate both students and teachers. Highly recommended for all involved in higher education; an enjoyable and inspiring read.” —Library Journal
“A heartfelt, beautifully written, profound, and often hilarious appeal to rage against the machinery of modern education.” —Booklist (starred review)
“If I meet any students heading to the University of Virginia, I will tell them to seek out Mark Edmundson...Mr. Edmundson reminds us of the power strong teachers have to make students rethink who they are and whom they might become.” —Michael S. Roth, New York Times
Edmundson (English/Univ. of Virginia; The Fine Wisdom and Perfect Teachings of the Kings of Rock and Roll, 2010, etc.) dispels any ambiguity about his position on his subject with the subtitle--"In Defense of a Real Education"--of this deeply felt collection of explorations and reflections on an education in the liberal arts. The author examines the slow transformation of universities and colleges from being driven by intellectual and cultural betterment to institutions modeled on business, with a complex, and not always successful, emphasis on attracting students and making a profit. Success, Edmundson writes, isn't as clear-cut as the bottom line or the percentage increase in applications or even in the rigor of the education being offered. Our culture rewards the system in which the professors tend to their academic business, the students check off the various boxes, and the school support staff build newer, better amenities to ensure that the students feel they are getting the best of the best. Edmundson argues that students have an immeasurably priceless opportunity to take the beliefs that have been instilled in them throughout childhood and put them under a microscope. They have the chance to ensure that they aren't going to simply fit in, as a square peg, to the first matching hole that comes along. "Education is about finding out what form of work for you is close to being play," writes the author--not that it should be simple and without challenge but that doing what you love (and discovering what that might be) is more important than "advancing in the direction of someone else's dreams" and pursuing education as a means to buying your way into what you're acculturated to think equals happiness and success. Edmundson may have strong words about culture, education and the common reader's quest to be entertained above all else, but he provides a bracing tonic against the decline of higher education.
