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Lost in the Meritocracy: The Undereducation of an Overachiever

Walter Kirn

New York: Doubleday, 2009

  • Walter Kirn: Author
Novel
From elementary school on, Walter Kirn knew how to stay at the top of his class: He clapped erasers, memorized answer keys, and parroted his teachers’ pet theories. But when he launched himself eastward to an Ivy League university, Kirn discovered that the temple of higher learning he had expected was instead just another arena for more gamesmanship, snobbery, and social climbing. In this whip-smart memoir of kissing-up, cramming, and competition, Lost in the Meritocracy reckons the costs of an educational system where the point is simply to keep accumulating points and never to look back—or within.
A New York Times Notable Book A Daily Beast Best Book of the Year A Huffington Post Best Book of the Year
PS 3561 .I746 Z46 2009
9780385521284
211
1st ed.
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