Students are people, first and foremost. When we treat them as products or resources for the job market, we deprive both them and the world of the creativity and depth necessary to develop holistic leaders. In this second episode of three, Russ continues his conversation with William Deresiewicz about rethinking and redefining education and the importance of seeing students as human beings.

Deresiewicz has published more than 280 essays and reviews, won the Hiett Prize in the Humanities, the National Book Critics Circle’s Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing, as well as a Sydney Award. He is a three-time National Magazine Award nominee, and his work has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Harper’s, The American Scholar, and many other publications. These works have been translated into 18 languages and anthologized in more than 30 college and scholastic readers.

Resources

Position, Purpose, and the Midlife Crisis 

This Side of Paradise 

Dostoevsky

Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life

“Achievement machines,” from “Stressed for Success?” by David Brooks

Peter Drucker