David Labaree is an emeritus professor of education at Stanford University. A prolific and influential scholar with a host of honors and accolades befitting a lengthy and influential career, Labaree remains active – with or without any teaching responsibilities. He has begun writing for the popular press (think The Atlantic) and recently made a collection of his essays available on Amazon Kindle. The Emergent Genius of Higher Education contains more than twenty essays on a range of related topics. While Labaree’s expertise is K-12, in particularly high schools, he’s a keen observer of education at all levels.
Always a researcher, Labaree draws upon a lifetime of investigation to frame the arguments in these selections. However, he is not interested in traditional scholarship, short narratives overwhelmed with notes and references. Instead, Labaree goes big picture and states – often with humor and asides – what we often miss, ignore or under appreciate. The system of higher education in the United States is not really a system, he notes, and the very messiness of it – especially in the nineteenth century as it developed – provided a host of unexpected advantages. A perspective such as this is a welcome corrective to affirmations of progress.
Labaree accurately observes that the popular appreciation of higher education as a public good was bound by time and circumstance. The years after World War II were unique. Labaree also surprisingly champions higher education’s need for opacity, especially at the research university, as a necessary power. No calls for greater transparency to build trust here.
While Labaree is an avid defender of the value of higher education, the works in this book were written mostly from a critical lens. He is not interested in advancing broad scale value propositions in this volume. It is more from an insider’s baseball perspective, giving the reader insight from inside academia. Emergent Genius is very strong on professional process. Labaree knows all too well the consequences, intended and accidental, of doctoral work. Lastly, Labaree’s analysis of a scathing critique of one of his books stands out. It is a fascinating and most engaging piece.
Labaree’s writing is strong, memorable and provocative throughout. Less a linear work and more a series of snapshots, The Emergent Genius of Higher Education is a welcome addition to one’s library.
David Potash