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An academic essay on self development
An academic essay on self development
An academic essay on self development
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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.
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.
It was then that Graff shifted the focus of his essay to himself. It would have been easy to continue to speak about the injustice the educational system had created against those who...
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...hether or not street smarts or books smarts is best can not be fully answered. To have every student pleased and working without any interruption is a bit of a far fetched idea, because not everyone will be happy with changes and adjustments. We can though, work towards a system that allows both sides of the educational field to succeed, no matter how they learn. By looking over Graff’s claim, it can be conclude that how a student learns may need to be reevaluated and changed into something new that can adapt and grow with every type of student in order to enrich the standard idea of an education really is for everyone.
Works Cited
Wieder, Ben. “Thiel Fellowship Pays 24 Talented students $100,000 Not to Attend College.” The Chronicle of Higher Educaiton May 25 2011: 3. Online.
Graff, Gerland. Hidden Intellectualism. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2010. Print.
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
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
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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
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The average human would think that going to school and getting an education are the two key items needed to make it in life. Another common belief is, the higher someone goes with their education, the more successful they ought to be. Some may even question if school really makes anyone smarter or not. In order to analyze it, there needs to be recognition of ethos, which is the writer 's appeal to their own credibility, followed by pathos that appeals to the writer’s mind and emotions, and lastly, logos that is a writer’s appeal to logical reasoning. While using the three appeals, I will be analyzing “Against School” an essay written by John Taylor Gatto that gives a glimpse of what modern day schooling is like, and if it actually help kids
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,
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
College has always been a process that introduces students to academic challenges that are not present during high school. So when my professor assigned Gerald Graff's essay, "Hidden Intellectualism", I thought this was his thesis. “Missing the opportunity to tap into such street smarts and channel them into good academic work." (Graff 142) I thought that this was his thesis because it explains the main idea of the essay but I assumed its purpose because of where it’s placed. I am so used to reading an essay in high school where the thesis is located right in the first paragraph. So naturally that is where I look for it. However, with more reading I knew that the following is the thesis, not only because it discusses the main topic, but because it clearly shows what the author was making his argument about. "But [students] 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 the ones that interest us". (Graff 199) Your thesis is one of the major aspects of a good college paper because it shows exactly what the main claim of the entire paper is going to be about. Three main points to take out of a thesis is, is it your main claim or big idea that directly answers a question about the assignment of the paper. Is it written with the reader in mind with a road map they could follow along easily and lastly when you do go back through revising and reflecting does it makes your thesis clearer.
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
Within the walls of our educational system lie many adverse problems. Is there a solution to such problems? If so, what is the solution? As we take a look at two different essays by two different authors’ John Gatto and Alfie Kohn, both highlight what’s wrong within our educational system in today’s society. As John Gatto explores the concept if schools are really as necessary as they’re made out to be; Alfie Kohn analyzes the non-importance of letter grades within our schools. Although both essays are fairly different, they still pose some similarities in relation to the educational system in today’s society.
In his essay “Against School,” John Taylor Gatto illustrates his view point that the American population would be better off by managing their own education. He compares the school system to the concept of boredom; that students as well as teachers are victims of the long ago adopted Prussian educational system: “We suppress our genius only because we haven’t yet figured out how to manage a population of educated men and women. The solution, I think, is simply and glorious. Let them manage themselves.” In other words, Gatto believes that the main reason for the existence of schooling consists in that it trains our children to be obedient citizens who can’t think on their own. His point is that as a society we cut off the intelligence and creativity
Street smart students are much smarter than book smart students because of their knowledge and experiences. Author states in the article “I believe that street smarts beat out book smarts in our culture not because street smarts are nonintellectual, as we generally suppose, but because they satisfy an intellectual thirst more thoroughly than school culture, which seems pale and unreal,” which means that street smart students are smarter than book smart students because of their vast amount of information about many things and previous experiences. Author is right about his point that street smart students get more out of their mistakes and learn more from their previous experiences. According to author, street smart students always try to learn from their mistakes where book smart students rely on the books and information from the studies. Book smart students never try to experience the situation of an issue, which gives them biased information and they don’t learn much, where street smart students experience the situation of an issue and learn much more than book smarts. Book smart students are also smart because they learn a lot of information from books and readings also they know how to use that information properly to succeed in academic area, but these students learn very much less from their mistakes and previous experiences to succeed, than street smart students.
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 education system has been a controversial issue among educators. Requirements of school do not let students choose what they want to study for their future. It’s a big issue to force students to study specific curriculums, which don’t help them improve, and what they like to create. Educators choose a general system of education for all students based on general knowledge. Intelligent or genius students have to be in that system of education, which doesn’t let them improve their creativity.