It is evident that Gerald Graff’s article is bias because he avoids talking about acquiring academic intelligence through academic learning rather than non-academic ways. For instance, Graff shows bias when he generalizes our way of seeing educated life and academics. He said that, “We associate the educated life, the life of the mind, too narrowly and exclusively with subjects and texts that we consider inherently weighty and academic. We assume that it’s possible to wax intellectual about Plato, Shakespeare, the French Revolution, and nuclear fission, but not about cars, dating fashion, sports, TV, or video games.” (Graff 264-5). Graff clearly thinks that everyone associates educated life with academics, when in reality this is not true. He believes that …show more content…
He demotes academic learning when he implies that Plato, Shakespeare, the French Revolution, and nuclear fission are not effective academic topics as we all thought. He does this when he compares academic topics with non-academic topics. Graff sets the article’s tone in the beginning by writing about our views towards non-intellectuals. Additionally, Graff continues to talk about the subjects and topics that create intellectuals. To illustrate this Graff mentions, “But they would be more prone to take on intellectual identities if we encouraged them to do so at first on subjects that interest them rather than ones that interest us” (265). As has been noted previously, this also proves that Graff is in favor of non-academic learning by stating how we should be teaching at schools so that children become intelligent. Graff is trying to convince readers that society must change their teaching skills because children will only learn things that they like. He automatically rejects the idea of continuing teaching academic skills and does not provide a positive view towards
A famous quote by Martin Luther King states “The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education.” The two articles “Hidden Intellectualism” and “Blue Collar Brilliance” both emphasis the author's opinion on the qualifications and measurements of someone's intelligence. “Hidden Intellectualism” focuses on students or younger people who have trouble with academic work because, they are not interested in the topic. Today, in schools students are taught academic skills that are not very interesting, the author mentions this is why children are not motivated in schools. The main viewpoint of this article is that schools need to encourage students
Gerald Graff expresses his concern in “Hidden Intellectualism” about how the education system does not accurately measure true intelligence. If the education system used each individual’s interests, Graff argues, the individual would be much more intrigued in the subject matter; therefore, increasing his or her knowledge. Throughout the article, Graff also draws on his love of sports to support his argument, saying that it includes elements of grammar, methodologies, and debate. He believes this proves that interests can replace traditional teaching. Graff contends one’s interest will create a community with others throughout the nation who share the same interests. While it is important to pursue your interests, there
Author and Harvard graduate, Leonid Fridman, in an excerpt of his article, America Needs Its Nerds, points out America’s anti-intellectualism. Fridman’s purpose is to inform the reader of the contempt held for the intellectually curious and call for a change in the country’s attitude. He adopts a condemning tone to make the reader aware of the issue and encourage them to change their mindset.
According to “Hidden Intellectualism”, Gerald Graff says that “ Everyone knows some young person who is impressively “street smart” but does poor in school” ( Gerald Graff 244). He explains that to many people believe that one who is so intelligent in life cannot do well in academic work, and he or she needs spend extra time on his or her school works than things in sports. However, Graff used his own anti-intellectual experience to verify his opinion that street smarts are simply as important as school smarts, and he recommends school should take all these street smarts and apply them into good academic environment. Graff also believes we should allow students read literature or any things they first feel interested, for example “George Orwell, which is a writing on the cultural meanings of penny postcards is infinitely more
Co-author of “They Say/I Say” handbook, Gerald Graff, analyzes in his essay “Hidden Intellectualism” that “street smarts” can be used for more efficient learning and can be a valuable tool to train students to “get hooked on reading and writing” (Graff 204). Graff’s purpose is to portray to his audience that knowing more about cars, TV, fashion, and etc. than “academic work” is not the detriment to the learning process that colleges and schools can see it to be (198). This knowledge can be an important teaching assistant and can facilitate the grasping of new concepts and help to prepare students to expand their interests and write with better quality in the future. Graff clarifies his reasoning by indicating, “Give me the student anytime who writes a sharply argued, sociologically acute analysis of an issue in Source over the student who writes a life-less explication of Hamlet or Socrates’ Apology” (205). Graff adopts a jovial tone to lure in his readers and describe how this overlooked intelligence can spark a passion in students to become interested in formal and academic topics. He uses ethos, pathos, and logos to establish his credibility, appeal emotionally to his readers, and appeal to logic by makes claims, providing evidence, and backing his statements up with reasoning.
The journey begins at the heart of the matter, with a street smart kid failing in school. This is done to establish some common ground with his intended audience, educators. Since Graff is an educator himself, an English professor at the University of Illinois in Chicago, he understands the frustrations of having a student “who is so intelligent about so many things in life [and yet] seems unable to apply that intelligence to academic work” (380). Furthermore, Graff blames schools for not utilizing street smarts as a tool to help improve academics; mainly due to an assumption that some subjects are more inherently intellectual than others. Graff then logically points out a lack of connection “between any text or subject and the educational depth and weight of the discussion it can generate” (381). He exemplifies this point by suggesting that any real intellectual could provoke thoughtful questions from any subject, while a buffoon can render the most robust subjects bland. Thus, he is effectively using logic and emotion to imply that educators should be able to approach any subject critically, even non-traditional subjects, lest they risk being labeled a buffoon.
Fridman employs a values based premise that states that America’s insignificance towards education creates degrading phrases for the intellectual through “There is something wrong with the system of values in a society that only has derogatory terms like nerd and geek for the intellectually curious and academically serious” (P.1). He expresses that American society’s values, which degrades education, results in demeaning terms to address intelligence which is wrong since intellectuals don’t deserve to be classified negatively for their efforts in studying. He expresses that educated people being offensively labeled due to American society’s values of minoring education is wrong, in order for readers of the New York Times to appreciate intellectuals since their success in studying is not worth being degraded due to it being in the field of education. Next, he utilizes a sociological base premise that conveys America's culture of supporting non education through “For America’s sake, the anti-intellectual values that pervade our society must be fought” (P.6.). This indicates the culture of America is wrong since promoting uneducated citizens regards America as a incompetent country that has unqualified leadership due to unscholarly decisions. Fridman states that American culture advocating unintelligence is wrong in order for readers of the New York Times to appreciate the intellectuals since they
Gladwell and Graff, both agrees that education defines intellectualism. Both authors believe there are two types of educated people: street
Graff also gives his childhood experience as an example of himself successfully becoming more intellectual due to his passion with sports. Thence, Graff suggests schools to encourage students to exercise their personal interests in an intellectual serious way, and by doing that, it will help students to apply their unique intelligence into academic effort.
Through our class discussions of education we came across this quote by Joseph Sobran, an American journalist and writer who spent a great amount of his career working for the National Review Magazine, "In 100 years we have gone from teaching Latin and Greek in high school to teaching Remedial English in college." When asked to critically think about the meaning of this quote I concluded that our educational standards have been lowered over the years and that students in America are not as intelligent as they once were in previous years. These two thoughts brought me to the questions, what does it mean to be educated or intelligent and who gets to decide. When reflecting emotionally on how this quote made me feel I realized it made me feel
The ability for all children from varying walks of life to receive a well-rounded education in America has become nothing more than a myth. In excerpt “The Essentials of a Good Education”, Diane Ravitch argues the government’s fanatical obsession with data based on test scores has ruined the education system across the country (107). In their eyes, students have faded from their eyes as individual hopefully, creative and full of spirit, and have become statistics on a data sheet, percentages on a pie chart, and numbers calculated to show the intelligence they have from filling out bubbles in a booklet. In order for schools to be able to provide a liberal education, they need the proper funding, which comes from the testing.
Graff begins by talking about the educational system, and why it flawed in many ways, but in particular, one: Todays schools overlook the intellectual potential of street smart students, and how shaping lessons to work more readily with how people actually learn, we could develop into something capable of competing with the world. In schools, students are forced to recite and remember dull and subject heavy works in order to prepare them for the future, and for higher education. “We associate the educated life, the life of the mind, too narrowly and exclusively with subjects and texts that we consider inherently weighty and academic. We assume that it’s possible to wax intellectual about Plato, Shakespeare, the French Revolution, and nuclear fission, but not about cars, dating, fashion, sports, TV, or video games.” (Graff, 198-199) In everyday life, students are able to learn and teach themselves something new everyday. It is those students, the “young person who is impressively “street smart” but does poorly in school” (Graff, 198), that we are sweeping away from education and forcing to seek life in places that are generally less successful than those who attend a college or university.
When Gerald Graff was younger he and his friends would have various debates about sports including what team had the best pitcher in baseball. Graff pointed out that while having these arguments with his friends, they would have evidence to support their thoughts whether it be using statistics to find batting averages or using their argumentative abilities in general to support their opinion. This proves that even people who do not do the best in school are capable of brilliant things, the school system just needs to encourage students to use their hobbies to enhance their academics. Instead of dividing the different forms of intelligence, book and street smarts could merge and grow into a more detailed educational system that can help not just with academics, but with life itself. While it is good to know proper grammar, knowing about dating, sports, or cars can actually get people farther than anticipated in life. Graff thought that in the school system, street smarts is perceived as less than compared to “book smarts” which are encouraged in school. If the two forms of intelligence were to merge instead of separate, the educational system can transform into something
...of education other than school; a great depiction in agreement with Graff’s claim that students are being limited by not considering their interests when creating curricula (Graff 197).
“Changing Educational Paradigms” is a video where Sir Ken Robinson explains why he believes the current educational system has to change in order to stop the rise of American students being treated for ADHD. Robinson reveals that schools haven’t changed since the 18th century where the enlightenment and the industrial revolution had a lot to do with how American schools were designed to work. American schools are still organized based on the production line mentality, and intelligence was based off deductive reasoning and knowledge of the classics, all of this is deep in the academic gene pool. Robinson states that while they are trying to change the educational system they are doing so by doing what they did in the past. Which is something