Issues In The American Education System
In American education there are many issues amongst it due to the teachers and the way that they teach with how much effort that they put into it, the school’s environment, then also the motivation that students have when it comes to their schoolwork. According to the article “U.S. students’ academic achievement still lags that of their peers in many other countries”, by Drew Desilver, he states how America has the 24th ranking out of forty countries, with Singapore ranking in first. Some schools in America have uncomfortable school environments that make it difficult for students to concentrate and learn well in school. According to Jonathan Kozol’s article about Fremont
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As the author Gerald Graff stated in his essay “Hidden Intellectualism”, he claims he was ‘desperate for the approval of the hoods, whom I encountered daily on the playing field and in the neighbourhood.’(246) The author explains from his own experience how he the way he grew up influenced him and his views on education. In comparison to schools in other countries, such as, Finland, the environment the schools are located in all student are given the same opportunities regardless of family background, geographic location, or income, as stated by Partanen. Where as Gerald Graff claimed that students did not get to choose the classes that they wanted because they were …show more content…
This situation can also have an impact on the students because the more students there are the more that students are going to want to interact with each other and the more disruptions that are going to be going on, as the article claimed. Distracting the students from their learning. As the article claims, it also has an affect on the amount of materials to use. In many schools where there are teachers who don’t show up for school a lot, causing students to lose out on lessons that they need to learn to do better not only on their schoolwork but, to also further their education in that subject. From this, it causes a lot of issues in the American Education. As in “Fremont High School”, Kozol has stated before that there are frequent substitutes at the school and how there was a substitute for the substitute.
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
If someone asked you which was more important, street smarts or book smarts, what would be your answer? Gerald Graff, the author of an essay called Hidden Intellectualism, contemplates on what he thinks because there are pros and cons to being street smart and being book smart.
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
In the article “Against School”, John Taylor Gatto urges Americans to see the school system as it really is: testing facilities for young minds, with teachers who are pounding into student 's brains what society wants. Gatto first explains that he taught for 30 years at the best and worst schools in Manhattan. He claims to have firsthand experience of the boredom that students and teachers struggle with. Gatto believes that schooling is not necessary, and there are many successful people that were self-educated. He then explains the history and importance of mandatory schooling.
According to Kenneth Burke’s Dramatic Pentad, there are five elements to interpret within a story: Act, Agent, Scene, Agency, and Purpose (Burke, 1969). The Act is what, the Agent is who, the Scene is where, the Agency is how and the Purpose is why. After finding the five elements you then find a pentadic ratio. A pentadic ratio tells you which elements are important for you to understand within the story (Burke, 1969). In the song “Fumble” by songwriter/ singer, Trey Songz I will explain what Kenneth Burke’s Dramatic Pentad is using the five elements and which pentadic ratio is important. The song lyrics are about Trey Songz not trying hard enough to make his relationship work with his girlfriend. In the song, he is now apologizing for breaking her heart the best way he can.
Intellectuality needs to be redefined; what does the word intellectual mean? Typically one would describe someone as either “street-smart” or “book-smart,” in other words someone who knows how to live in the real world versus someone who has knowledge about academics. But is one more “intellectual” than the other? In the article “Hidden Intellectualism,” Gerald Graff addresses this issue and brings to the audience’s—the audience being experts about the subject along with himself—attention that schools are missing the opportunity to fuse together street-smarts and book-smarts to increase overall academic performance. Graff definitively presents his opinion on this topic by manipulating ethos, pathos, and logos. Through ethos his credibility
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,
Gerald Graff the author of Hidden Intellectualism points out that the poor should have a better education. He too thinks that street smart people are able to complete jobs that the educated cannot. But he goes a step further in saying if we were able to provide a form of education that worked around the environment of the working class It would make an ideal educational benefit that would end in the result of educated people regardless of their economic situation. Furthermore, it would provide them with better pay since they are educated. Graff talks about what is taught in schools are outdated that no one wants to read about Shakespeare anymore, the students feel like a fish out of water when all the material is based on old traditions and
Jean Anyon’s “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work” claims that students from different social classes are treated differently in schools. Anyon’s article is about a study she conducted to show how fifth graders from the working, middle, and upper class are taught differently. In Anyon’s article, she provides information to support the claim that children from different social classes are not given the same opportunities in education. It is clear that students with different socio-economic statuses are treated differently in academic settings. The curriculum in most schools is based on the social class that the students belong to. The work is laid out based on academic professionals’ assumptions of students’ knowledge. Teachers and educational professionals assume a student’s knowledge based on their socio-economic status.
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
We live in a society where we are surrounded by people telling us that school/education and being educated is the only way to succeed. However, the school system is not up to the standards we want it to uphold. There are three issues we discuss the most which are the government, the student, and the teacher. In John Taylor Gatto 's essay “Against School”, we see the inside perspective of the educational system from the view of a teacher. In “I Just Wanna Be Average”, an essay written by Mike Rose, we hear a student 's experience of being in a vocational class in the lower level class in the educational system when he was supposed to be in the higher class.
Social class should not be used to define a person. Every person has the ability to overcome the roadblocks that society has placed in their path, so long as they have the determination and motivation. In Gerald Graff’s article, “Hidden Intellectualism” , he explains how social class is irrelevant when it comes to education, despite what society will lead you to believe. He displays how everyone is intelligent in his or her own way.Lynda Barry during her article, “ The Sanctuary of School” spoke about the importance of education to her and many other students like her.Another writer, Mike Rose shows how despite the thoughts that society puts in our heads we can still be successful in his article “Blue Collar Brilliance”.Regardless of social
Street smarts are intellectual resources that are ignored by schools. It is the most informal version of intellect, generally relating to hobbies that seem anti-intellectual. Gerald Graff’s journal article Hidden Intellectualism shows that everyone is an intellectual whether they are aware of it or not. Using mainly ethos, he describes how sports can be a form of intellectualism because of the use of logic. He says it beautifully here, “I see now that sports provided me with something comparable to the saturation of life by argument… that my preference for sports over schoolwork was not anti-intellectualism so much as intellectualism by other means.”
The Quality of a child’s education often either limits or opens up a world of opportunities. Those who study the purpose of public education and the way it is distributed throughout society can often identify clear correlations between social class and the type of education a student receives. It is generally known by society that wealthy families obtain the best opportunities money can buy. Education is a tool of intellectual and economical empowerment and since the quality of education is strongly influenced by social class, a smaller portion of the American population obtains the opportunities acquired from a top notch education. Many people believe that educational inequalities are perpetuated from the interests of specific classes, but some researchers like John Gatto believe that there are even stronger social forces in play. In the essay “Against Schools” the author John Gatto presents three arguments: (1) that are educational system is flawed, (2) that the American educational system is purposely designed to create a massive working class that is easy to manipulate, and (3) alternative teaching methods should be applied to teach children to think for themselves. In this essay I will be summarizing and relating each of these arguments to other educational essays. Also, I will be discussing the strengths and weaknesses of the author’s argument.