Generation X Goes to College
An Eye-Opening Account of Teaching in Postmodern America

Peter Sacks

This is the incredible, amusing, horrifying, yet true story, of 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.

These scholars wore bored looks, ample attitudes, and reversed baseball caps. They expected to earn top grades by just showing up in class, which they often interrupted with their portable TVs, cellular phones, or personal pagers. In order to keep his job, 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 twentysomething 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 teaching makes for a disturbing read. It will certainly shock and probably offend, but anyone who ignores its assessments does so at our collective peril."
—Sanford Pinsker
Editor, Academic Questions

"Peter Sacks deserves the thanks of professors, school teachers, and our whole society for seeking to have us acknowledge what we have jointly, though unintentionally, wrought."
—Henry Bauer
The American Scholar

"A devastating portrait of bored and unmotivated students unwilling to read or study but feeling entitled to high grades . . . The book goes well beyond conventional arguments about slackers, entitlement and dumbing down."
—John Leo
U.S. News & World Report