This book explores the many ways in which the obsession with "being
smart" distorts the life of a typical college or university, and how
this obsession leads to a higher education that shortchanges the
majority of students, and by extension, our society's need for an
educated population.
The author calls on his colleagues in higher education to return the
focus to the true mission of developing the potential of each student:
However "smart" they are when they get to college, both the student and
the college should be able to show what they learned while there.
Unfortunately, colleges and universities have embraced two very narrow
definitions of smartness: the course grade and especially the
standardized test. A large body of research shows that it will be very
difficult for colleges to fulfill their stated mission unless they
substantially broaden their conception to include student qualities such
as leadership, social responsibility, honesty, empathy, and citizenship.
Specifically, the book grapples with issues such as the following:
- Why America's 3,000-plus colleges and universities have evolved into
a hierarchical pecking order, where institutions compete with each other
to recruit "smart" students, and where a handful of elite institutions
at the top of the pecking order enroll the "smartest" students.
- Why higher education favors its smartest students to the point where
the "not so smart" students get second-class treatment.
- Why so many colleges find it difficult to make good on their
commitment to affirmative action and "equality of opportunity."
- Why college faculties tend to value being smart more than developing
students' smartness (i.e., teaching and learning).
