This is an incredible, amusing, horrifying, yet true story, in which all
names have been changed to protect the guilty.
It tells how the author, a journalist turned college professor, came
face to face with Generation X: jaded, unachieving, highly demanding yet
lacking any respect for standards or intelligence.
To survive, the author had to give up old-fashioned educational goals in
exchange for mindless titillation and coming across as a cool and
unassuming guy. Partly as a wry experiment, Sacks decided to pursue this
approach remorselessly, treating his twenty-something students like a
kindergarten playgroup, and by so doing he became a spectacular
'success' as a 'teacher'.
"Peter Sacks's from-the-trenches account of contemporary college
teachings makes for a disturbing read. But wake-up calls always are, and
this one means to take no prisoners where the dumbing down of higher
education is concerned. It will certainly shock and probably offend, but
anyone who ignores its assessments does so at our collective peril". --
Sanford Pinsker Editor, Academic Questions
"So far the best depiction of these attitudes is in the new book,
Generation X Goes to College .... the book goes well beyond conventional
arguments about slackers, entitlement and dumbing down". -- John Leo
U.S. News & World Report
