Review of “We’re Losing Our Minds”

Katie Busby   |   

My parents were not “helicopter parents” and when I went off to college they only supplied me with basic boundaries and an expectation that I would do my best and make good choices; the rest was up to me. When I returned home for visits my father and I would talk about my classes and extracurricular activities and during one of these conversations I casually asked him what he thought
I should be learning in college. I expected his answer would include lessons from history or great works of literature, but he surprised me with a succinct yet complex response when he replied, “College is where you learn how to think.” My father was a businessman and did not use the jargon of higher education. He would not have used phrases such as “critical thinking” or “higher learning” but as a businessman, a community volunteer, and a civic leader he knew the importance of these skills and in his own way he encouraged me to use my time in college to develop them. As my father impressed the importance of learning how to think upon me, Richard Keeling and Richard Hersh impress the importance of higher learning upon the readers of their book We’re Losing Our Minds: Rethinking American Higher Education.

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