She had entered teaching expecting students who, with the right question or book recommendation, would demonstrate some untapped well of deep, original thinking. Instead, she’d found that teenagers who had never read a full book were unlikely to share original thoughts. They were much more likely to parrot clichés from social-media celebrities or believe made-up news, or say things like It doesn’t really matter whether you vote—or require bribes to come to tutoring sessions, where they stuttered through passages about Helen Keller.
