The Death of Learning: How American Education Has Failed Our Students and What to Do about It

by John Agresto

The liberal arts are dying. They are dying because most Americans don’t see the point of them. Americans don’t understand why anyone would study literature or history or the classics—or, more contemporarily, feminist criticism, whiteness studies, or the literature of postcolonial states—when they can get an engineering or business degree. 

Even more concerning is when they read how “Western civilization” has become a termof reproach at so many supposedly thoughtful institutions; or how fanatical political correctness works hard to silence alternative viewpoints; or, more generally, how liberal studies have become scattered, narrow, and small. In this atmosphere, it’s hard to convince parents or their progeny that a liberal education is all that wonderful or that it’s even worthy of respect. 

Over sixty years ago, we were introduced to the idea of “the two cultures” in higher education— that is, the growing rift in the academy between the humanities and the sciences, a rift wherein neither side understood the other, spoke to the other, or cared for the other. But this divide in the academy, real as it may be, is nothing compared to another great divide—the rift today between our common American culture and the culture of the academy itself. 

So, how can we rebuild the notion that a liberal education is truly of value, both to our students and to the nation? Our highest hopes may be not to “restore” the liberal arts to what they looked like fifty or a hundred years ago but to ask ourselves what a true contemporary American liberal education at its best might look like. 

Remedying this situation will involve knowing clearly where we wish to go and then understanding how we might get there. For those objectives, this book is meant to be the beginning. 

Genres: Education, Nonfiction

236 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 9, 2022

Reviews

[Savannah Lea Morello · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic book! Agresto answered so many of my questions on the topic—including a robust and compelling definition of the liberal arts and defense of their necessity for the educated man. His perspective is keen and free of platitudes or empty words.

On a personal level, I am thankful to Agresto for explaining why I was disappointed with being an English major (and why I’m happily situated now as a liberal arts major). He’s helped me articulate what I want from an education.

I will say, he dwells on nuance, so a reader not already very invested in the subject might find the book dense. But I very much enjoyed it!

[Lily · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'd like to formally apologize to John Agresto for what I'm about to write. I had to read this book for a class, and this is practically the opposite of any book I'd normally pick up – an essay-type book, with less of a focus on evidence and more on outlining an argument. I'm sure that in a different world, where I was not a journalist who needed evidence for everything and where I picked this up at the library on a whim, I'd be feeling a lot differently. Not only that, but I've had none of the experiences that Agresto describes. In my history classes, my professors have presented us with a variety of primary sources and secondary sources, allowing us to come to our own conclusions, not only that, they were sure to open classes for discussion. They balanced their passion for the subject with making sure that students had ample opportunity to come to their own conclusions.
Now that my conscious is a bit more alleviated, let me get to the rant.
First off, I tried taking wisdom from this like he argues we should be doing with all books. I thought some of his points about taking wisdom, reading authors for the sake of reading were interesting and valuable. His points about broadening liberal arts, about it being to answer questions we have deep in our souls, that was inspiring. I also appreciate how he talks about Lincoln, a liberal man who did not go to school, as an inspiring figure – it's nice to see acknowledgement from a professor that learning can occur outside the classroom. But so often, the book got unnecessarily hateful, snarky, or close-minded regarding anything new.
I hated this book in the way that I hated "The Prince." Agresto's tone is smarmier than Machiavelli's, he goes on a million tangents, he adds in notes about higher education problems without defining them or telling us why they're bad (my class had misunderstandings about what he meant by safe space and speech codes), he gives no benefit of the doubt to professors teaching the "diverse" courses he despises – automatically assuming that they are teaching to indoctrinate rather than providing any course listings or syllabi. He encourages students to follow their dreams, but provides no solutions to the major problem he brings up – the economy necessitating that we pursue something stable and money-making – besides following your passions and not focusing on money, a great sentiment in any other world. For all that he talks about avoiding narrowing our horizons in the class, his book ends up being ridiculously narrow, with his proposed ideas taking place in some sort of fantasy where students don't need jobs after graduating, or don't go to college to specialize in jobs. It would have been great for him to address more higher education history, broader problems in why liberal arts degrees don't get jobs, or more history on why this core curriculum is gone.
While I think that his ideas about a core curriculum before graduating are great in theory, he buries this lede so far into the book rather than clearly articulating it higher up – because yes, right now we have an incredibly limited time in college to learn basically the breadth of the great canon of the world, it makes sense that people would turn to specialized courses that are easier to teach quickly. His organization another problem – he spends so much time harping on current problems and things he dislikes about higher education (if I had to read "hey hey ho ho" one more time I was planning to throw my book across the room) that he buries the ledes about his solutions or ideas. He has not one or two but SIX appendices as well as letters to high school principals, teachers, and seniors. His organization within chapters is so frustrating – he needed a better editor to help him clearly articulate his thoughts. So much of class was spent trying to figure out what Agresto meant by X, or ignoring parts of the book where Agresto goes on rants on things without explaining what those things are, where Agesto doesn't give background.
I also think he doesn't give any credence to the other side. This is probably the journalist in me, but it frustrated me how much he kept analyzing "hey hey ho ho" rather than going over the points of the movement, giving history on it, or including any primary sources besides the chant (oh wait, he gives the resolution... in the appendices). While he makes the minor point of saying what he thinks the other side would argue, I think it would have been of more value to actually find somebody from the other side, or include outlines of classes rather than just course intros, or testimonies from students that suffered through indoctrinating classes.
I also think that he's incredibly narrow in what he considers "our" heritage. He lashes out at queer, Black, disability history without acknowledging that their heritage is our heritage too, that we should fold it into the larger Western Civilization courses because those classics, great thinkers like Jefferson, developed the histories of these communities. While the foundational books are absolutely important, we should be reading books from OUR heritage too, foundational disability rights texts, foundational queer texts, foundational Black texts, because students will be going into OUR world, and should have a complete background. In an ideal world too, they'd read more than the foundational texts, they'd read the ordinary texts, the texts of the ordinary, local authors, and learn more of their local heritage, but that's for another day.
The way he treats students is also frustrating – as helpless, as powerless to indoctrination, as unwilling to learn outside of the classroom. I think he underestimates the average student, as most that I've met over the years do most of the great canon reading and analyzing prior to college, or on their own, and are not bored by going into their histories post-reading. That's another thing – there is so much value not only in reading a book, but learning about the author, trying to understand them in their own time, and you can absolutely do both, and we shouldn't just be trying to appeal to this easily bored student that Agresto pictures.
And let me conclude by saying that I am not a college president, I am just a student. But I know enough to know that Agresto's work will quickly be dated (it already is when you get to the pronoun parts), mostly because of his tangents and mini-rants, his lack of background on any modern terms, and its narrowness. Now off I go to my narrowly-focused diversified class to be indoctrinated...

[M · Rating 3 out of 5]

Worthwhile reading if the topic is of interest. A classic liberal arts education depends on the ability to self-educate, which depends on the ability to read. One major flaw is that Agresto does not grapple at all with the problem that two thirds of American children are not proficient readers, and that forty percent are basically non readers. Or that even "elite" students today do not read, and may not be able to read and understand, the kind of books that make up the classic liberal arts curriculum. He does not mention the problems caused by the intrusion of technology in education, which worsen the problems of technology more broadly in our lives. But he does have interesting things to say about the critical theory approach to studying literature and history these days, how appointing ourselves as having reached a peak means we can pick everything apart and that it is considered, wrongly, naive to expect to learn from literature instead of about it.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this book is brilliant. It mostly shows the importance of a liberal arts education, which I agree that over time has been downplayed as not important as more specialized education or technical skills. I see not just a trend, but a plague of people who don't know how to think critically. People driven entirely by emotions and rarely by mind. People who fail to recognize the difference between fact, theory, and opinion. Education these days is less about educating and more about programming the mind to believe what the educational board believes is important. Students are taught to memorize but not to question. It's a frightening state of existence.

If nothing else, this book inspired me to continue my own education. I do not believe that I need 3 college degrees from Ivy League universities to pull this off. I was blessed in having teachers that pushed me to think, to question, to draw conclusions, and to have an open mind. But I still have so much to learn. I also have 2 library cards. Feeding that hunger to learn, read from original sources, and explore is dying.

[Mark Caleb Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting book, especially for our time and place. It seems fantastical to argue the merits of liberal education (for the individual and society) in our world, but it must be done, and Agresto jumps into the debate with both feet. Perhaps not as revealing or deep as Newman, and more of a plea for recognition than Bloom's condemnation in the Closing of the American Mind. If it sparks anything, it will have been worth it, but it is hard to imagine a meaningful chunk of academia pursuing a broader, more integrated, backward looking, but forward-thinking education. We would all be better if it did.

Some small, somewhat related, thoughts:
1) Most professors have no interest in teaching the way it is necessary to educate in this manner. To teach in order to provoke thinking is exhausting, both in preparation and execution.
2) Most professors have nowhere near the requisite training to carry off teaching in this manner, even if they tried. Research requirements cut against this approach since most scholarship is narrow and novel, as opposed to broad and traditional.
3) Most universities have no desire to go this direction because the liberal arts are unpredictable, do not necessarily manufacture high income students, and do not require shiny, technologically-driven facilities.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book makes you think. If you are liberal, a woman, or a person of color it will make you angry. I studied Shakespeare in high school. I was second in my class in high school history. I was first in my mathematic course my senior year of high school. I studied Biology, Anthropogeny, and Psychology in college along with Mathematic.

Western Civilization reward old white men by making people think they were the only ones who had great ideals or ideas. Women and people of color were excluded for the halls of learning. Of course women and people of color are angry for being left out of the great halls of education. We learned from those old white men to demand liberty, freedom, and equality. To all the old white men who see the death of liberal arts, I can only say you reap what you sow.

Liberal arts are not dead they have only changed to reflex the true diversity of our Western Civilization. Old white men along did not build or influence our civilization. To have a true liberal arts education students need to be exposed to a diverse group of great writers.

[Summer Bohannon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I appreciate that Agresto is willing to critique liberal arts education from the inside. Instead of assuming a pompous superiority, he laments that the liberal arts (which he firmly supports) have isolated themselves and attempted to claim a monopoly on all deep thinking. However, while he offers some thoughts on how to bridge academic gaps, they are mostly just thoughts and lack concrete steps.

Nonetheless, for someone in a liberal arts discipline, it is a helpful, easy read to start one thinking about how to address real problems within the liberal arts without conceding that a liberal arts degree is pointless.

[Sagar Jethani · Rating 1 out of 5]

With so much filler and so many pages devoted to swatting down red herring arguments, the author unwittingly undermines his own case in defense of a liberal education. This could have been a single New Yorker essay instead of an entire book.

[Patrick O'Brien · Rating 5 out of 5]

With two liberal arts degrees that im not sure i understood why I need a philosophy degree, ive found the critical thinking skills developed have served me well over last 40 years.

Everyone in education should read this!

[Leroy · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I’ve ever read. As an American history teacher I’ve seen a growing apathy among students and adults regarding learning and this book was so refreshing.