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Gerald Graff’s article criticizes the way schools associate “book smarts” with intellectualism and “street smarts” with anti-intellectualism, offers his own life experiences to counteract this view, and argues how “street smarts” can coincide with intellectualism.
Gerald Graff’s article, “Hidden Intellectualism,” strongly asserts that people make false assumptions about what it means to be intelligent. He believes we claim intelligence with inherently dry or narrow topics such as Plato, and nuclear fission while subjects such as cars, sports, and fashion are put aside as simple-minded matters. He goes on to refute this argument by saying there has never been any direct connection between a certain topic and the corresponding discussion or insight it may bring. Therefore, if students are first given
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Graff then continues to illustrate his neighborhood as a middle class, melting pot, entrenched within class boundaries. Describing his constant fight for acceptance from the “hoods” versus his need to prove his intellect, Graff’s emotional struggle provides insight into why he supported “anti-intellectualism.” He later learned that he took part in intellectualism unconsciously during his youth. For example, the sports, and movies Graff’s discussed and debated with his friends, seemingly unintelligent on the surface, unknowingly provided him with the roots to intellectual life and helped him become the writer he is today. Graff concluded that his preference for sports over other topics just provided him a different avenue that still led him to become an intellectual. Graff’s discovery of himself, led him to affirm that sports were actually more intellectual than
In the essay ”Hidden Intellectualism” by Gerald Graff, he discusses different types of intellect, more specifically the ways they can apply to us in our lives. He discusses the different types of “smarts” referred to in his paper as street smarts, and school smarts. Graff hints upon the missed opportunities by colleges to embrace the form of intellect called “street smarts” because of a preconceived idea that there is no way to use this form of knowledge in an academic setting. To quote Graff directly “Colleges might be at fault for missing the opportunity to tap into such street smarts”. We then learn some of Graffs personal experiences pertaining to this very thing. He shares a story about himself which reviews his underlying love for sports and complete diskliking for books or any form of intellectualism, until he became college aged. He shares that he now believes, his love of sports over over school work was not because he hated intellectualism but perhaps it was intellectualism in another form. He shares his
School is a frightening place. It is broken down into multiple social ranks, and many children find themselves at the bottom. With children trying to work their way to the top of the food chain, the actual learning portion is either set aside or forgotten altogether. In Grant Penrod’s essay, Anti-Intellectualism: Why We Hate the Smart Kids, he explains how modern children are growing to dislike intellectual children. The varying social ranks teach children to ignore low grades and try to be popular in school. Anti-Intellectualism is a trend which is becoming increasingly popular throughout the world. People who only strive to be popular tend to tease intellectuals, but this is not half of the story. If the only goal children have in school
Graff, G. "Hidden Intellectualism." Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture 1.1 (2001): 786-90. Print.
In “Hidden Intellectualism,” Gerald Graff pens an impressive argument wrought from personal experience, wisdom and heart. In his essay, Graff argues that street smarts have intellectual potential. A simple gem of wisdom, yet one that remains hidden beneath a sea of academic tradition. However, Graff navigates the reader through this ponderous sea with near perfection.
A philosopher once said ”A child educated only at school is an uneducated child”. As we are living in a world where everyone knows the importance of schools and the meaningful of being educated, then why does he believe that a child is illiterate when he only studies at school? Are schools actually limit on areas of study and overlook the essential of real life experience? In the article “Hidden Intellectualism”, Gerald Graff claims that schools and colleges are might at fault due to their omission of the “street smarts”-knowledge necessary to deal with reality-, and their failure to invest them into academic work. By stating the fundamental of intellectualism and the influence of personal interests, he informs readers that those street smarts,
Traditional theories of intelligence do not account for the ambiguity of classes such as philosophy or for the wide range of interests a child can have. For example, contemporary theories such as Sternberg’s Theory of Intelligence and Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences both account for more than the general intelligence accounted for in traditional intelligence theories. According to Robert Sternberg’s Successful (Triarchic) Theory of Intelligence, are Hector’s difficulties in philosophy indicative of future difficulties in the business world? According to Sternberg’s Theory of Intelligence, Hector’s difficulty in philosophy will not negatively affect his future. Sternberg would instead focus on elements of successful intelligence like Hector’s involvement and contribution as an individual, as opposed to relying on intelligence measured by tests.
America Needs Its Nerds by Leonid Fridman is a brief news article criticising the anti-intellectualism in modern American society. In Fridman’s article, he calls for the end of the exclusion and demoralization of children who are more inclined to study and read books. The article is written to persuade readers to alter American society by welcoming and accepting the “intellectually curious” and “academically serious” into the same popularity as athletes, partygoers, and other well- liked peers. Fridman effectively conveys his argument through rhetorical devices, including pathos and ethos.
Is it better to be book smart or street smart? Is it better to be happy and stable or unhappy and ‘rich’? Blue-collar jobs require you to learn skills that college cannot teach you; Rose points this out in his essay, stating: “It was like schooling, where you’re constantly learning” (277). In the essay “Blue Collar Brilliance” written by Mike Rose, he talks about how his mother worked as a waitress and how his uncle Joe dropped out of high school, eventually got a job working on the assembly line for General Motors and was then moved up to supervisor of the paint and body section. Rose suggests that intelligence is not represented by the amount of schooling someone has or the type of job they work. In this essay I will be explaining why Rose
In “Hidden Intellectualism”, author and professor Gerald Graff describes his idea of what book smarts and streets smarts actually are. He details how new ideas can help to teach and build our educational system into something great and that perhaps street smarts students could be the factor that traditional education is missing that could make it great.
“Hidden Intellectualism” written by Gerald Graff, is a compelling essay that presents the contradicting sides of “book smarts” and “street smarts” and how these terms tied in to Graff’s life growing up. Graff felt like the school was at fault that the children with more “street smarts” were marked with the reputation of being inadequate in the classroom. Instead of promoting the knowledge of dating, cars, or social cues, the educational system deemed them unnecessary. Gerald Graff thought that “street smarts” could help people with academics. In his essay, Graff confessed that despite his success as an “intellect” now, he was the exact opposite until college. Where he grew up in Chicago, Illinois, intelligence was looked down upon around peers
In “Hidden Intellectualism” by Gerald Graff, the author speaks about how schools should use students’ interests to develop their rhetorical and analytical skills. He spends a majority of his essay on telling his own experience of being sport loving and relating it to his anti-intellectual youth. He explains that through his love for sports, he developed rhetoric and began to analyze like an intellectual. Once he finishes his own story, he calls the schools to action advising them to not only allow students to use their interest as writing topics, but instead to teach the students on how to implement those compelling interests and present them in a scholarly way. In perspective, Graff’s argument becomes weak with his poor use of ethos, in which he solely focuses on his own anecdote but, through the same means he is able to build his pathos and in the last few paragraphs, with his use of logic he prevents his argument from becoming dismissible.
Why street smart students are considered anti intellectual in academic area? In the article “Hidden Intellectualism” by Gerald Graff, he accounts the idea that street smart students are way more smarted than book smarts. He explains that street smart student will be able to solve an issue much faster than book smart because of his/her previous experience. According to author, the problems with considering street smarts as anti intellectual are they are actually much smarter that book smart students, they don’t equal opportunity , and schools along with colleges never challenge their mind get them to succeed in academic work.
Graff, Gerald. “Hidden Intellectualism.” They Say, I Say. 2nd ed. Ed. Gerald Graff and Kathy
In today’s society, people require better education to get high paying jobs. Therefore, parents always force their child to have good education even though their child is not interested in that particular career. Before, parent force them they should find out that is their child a street smart or a book smart? After that they can encourage them to pursue their career in that direction. In the essay “Hidden Intellectualism” by Gerald Graff argues that street smarts can be considered as same as book smarts. Similarly, Graff’s idea relates to the TV show called Suits, it’s a show about how lawyer have to deal with their client. They both work for one firm; this firm only allows Harvard graduates students to work there. There are two main characters in this show called Mike Ross and Harvey Specter. They both have different education Mike is a college dropout and Harvey graduated from Harvard Law School. But, Mike has a photographic memory which allows him to remember anything he read or see for long time. Harvey finds out that Mike consume knowledge that Harvard student do not have. So, he hire Mike as his firm as an associate but without letting anyone know that he does not have Harvard law school degree. Even though Graff has written an essay and suits is a TV show about lawyer, they are actually in agreement about the important idea that street smart are same as book smart. Therefore, Gerald Graff’s ideas about how people can be educated without formal education, show their intelligence in different way, and how street smart influences on book smart. These can be used to understand the TV show called Suits.
Gerald Graff’s Hidden Intellectualism points out flaws between what he calls “street smarts,” and school learning, or book smarts. It is implied in the article that street smarts are things that are not taught in school, or not promoted on campus. According to the author, you cannot make it in life with only one or the other. In his mind, street smarts have a non-intellectual connotation and book smarts do not have this stigma. Graff holds the opinion that to get students more interested in intellectual discussions, schools and colleges should include extracurricular interests to hold student’s attention. He believes by assigning readings that interest a student, such as a magazine like Sports