DIY U Book Review by ChristineMM

Title: DIY U


Author: Anna Kamenetz


Publication: Chelsea Green Publishing, April 2010

 My Star Rating: 2 Stars out of 5 = I Don’t Like It

Summary Statement: Author's Ideals Clash with American Society’s Real Life Expectations in this Snarky Attitude Book

I have procrastinated about writing this review for too long. I don’t enjoy writing negative reviews hence my avoidance of writing this. This review was at risk of being thousands of words long as I sought to justify my opinions with quotes from the book. I have decided to put aside my rambling writing ways and just get down to brass tacks.

My first issue with Kamenetz’s book is she has an idea of what she’s like to see happen (increased use of community college and online schools) but the real world is not in alignment with her. Thus if a student follows this advice they may get the shaft when they try to seek employment as they will not have done what mainstream America feels is right or best. 

Ask me how I know this: I am a non-traditional college graduate and faced challenges in my career despite a strong track record with my job experience (proven with stellar performance evaluations and recommendations by managers) but I didn’t have a degree from the “right places” and was told so to my face.  Instead, they hired inexperienced workers from outside who had the degree from the “right places”, and other times, promoted up existing employees with the right degrees. They may say that X kind of degree is a job prerequisite but what it will never say in writing is that not all college degrees are equal.

My second major issue with the book is the author’s snarky attitude which I feel was more in alignment with a young person’s personal blog posts rather than being the more professional type writing I am accustomed to reading in nonfiction trade paperback books. Kamenetz was outright rude and insulting sometimes, the accusation that Republican politicians are racist I found to be outrageous (due to the way some voted on a budgetary item). Her personal bias is apparent; she is not a neutral journalist at all! Later she slams Democrats, so at least the book was not completely skewed toward the left. Her style reads as the mud-slinging type to me which I find a turn off.

There are tons of references to statistics so we can see the author is not making this stuff up off the top of her head but she has a definite opinion she is trying to talk the reader into converting over to. The margins of my book are filled with notes and I wonder about the omissions. If she says that opinion about that statistic why is she not asking that question also, and so forth.

My biggest issue with the book is that I felt the author was trying to simplify something that is actually very complex. There is no easy solution to the problems outlined in the book.  I honestly would like to see what she has to say about trying to reform the public education system in this country. There is another complex problem that has failed numerous reform efforts.

For the record I embrace alternative education as I am most concerned with actual learning not just seeking ranks or degrees as end goals. Proof of this is I’m in the minority in America, I homeschool my kids. Depending on the statistic, my kids are either 1-3% of the children in the USA (and there are 75.6 million kids per the childstats.gov website, so we’re really, really in the minority). Despite living in towns with supposedly “great” public school systems and also being able to (most years) afford a private school tuition I rejected both options to homeschool my kids so they get what I think is a quality education. With that said there comes a point where my kid’s alternative education stops and doing what mainstream America embraces is necessary, so my kids will hopefully attend a decent four year university as a traditional college student when their homeschool high school is finished. The cost of being alternative with one’s college education is too risky. It didn’t pay off for me with my alternative college education so I worry about doing the same with my kids, just so my husband and I and our kids can save some tuition costs.

I ordered this book thinking it would be right in alignment with my alternative education views but I didn’t like the book at all.

Disclosure: I received a review copy of this book from the Amazon Vine program. I was not paid to write this review. For my blog's full disclosure statement see the link near the top of my blog's sidebar.