In my analysis I will focus on “Hidden Intellectualism” an excerpt from “They Say/I Say.” Gerald Graff argues that schools and colleges are missing opportunities with street smart students. He feels that “…the education life is too narrowly and exclusively with subjects and texts...” (Graff 1). Graff believes that through his own experiences as a kid, caring only for sports, Graff attempts to persuade fellow professors of his beliefs of missing opportunities in such students. He talks about the real world and how everything portrayed in the media, is not what schools and colleges are looking for. Graff argues that, “Only much later did it dawn on me that the sports world was more compelling than school because it was more intellectual than, school, not less” (Graff 3). Graff feels that his street smarts past has sculpted him has made him who he is now. He eventually argues about the Marilyn Monroe example, agreeing with the other side for a little bit, saying there isn’t much difference.
Graff points out that real intellectuals
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can turn any subject no matter how light it may be, and come up with many questions for it. Any intellectual individual can elaborate on a topic no matter how straightforward it is. How do we truly determine intelligence? There are students who excel in academic courses, but struggle in those of physical capabilities. There are also students who struggle with the academic side but are successful in the physical one. How do we determine the equilibrium of both sides? The government has been trying to instill common core for learning, which has had no success. How do we determine what courses should be mandatory? Classes necessary for everyday life are what should be mandatory. Personal finance, health, cooking, anything that would be used on a daily basis. This also starts with the parents of the student. Parents have to understand what their child wishes to do, and be willing to work with their child to compromise. Every parent wants to see their kid succeed, and they will if they do something they are interested in. The old saying is, “If you do what you enjoy doing, you’ll never work a day in your life.” The trades are becoming high demand right now because they cannot find people to work in them because nobody is interested in them, or there is not a place to teach the student in. If we take a street smart kid who is interested in automotive, and provide the training necessary for the job. Graff talks as if students should .
Making courses mandatory only lowers the GPA of that student if they were to do poorly. Graff is evidence himself when he states, “Until I entered college, I hated books and cared only for sports” (1). He was like most kids today, uninterested in learning, but later became a college professor. If Graff did well, I'm sure kids in his position would succeed too. If we let students have a longer leash, hopefully they will be mature enough to pick the topics they are interested in, and later on might help them in a career with those interests. Students should be allowed to choose the classes in which will lead them to pursuing the career with them. With the help of guidance and career counselors, students would be able to find what interests them, and pursue that field. It’s up to the school to make classes mandatory, but the mandatory classes should be that of what a student would use on a daily
basis. Graff later connects both the sports and academic world when he said, “...the real intellectual world, the one that existed in the big world beyond school, is organized very much like the world of sports teams...” (3). He shows that we use sports more in our lives rather than books. We can connect so many things to sports like communication skills, and ways to control ourselves in confrontations. For the most part people enjoy sports more than regular academic curriculums. Graff brings up the fact that “Marilyn Monroe married the playwright Arthur Miller in 1965 after divorcing the retired baseball star Joe DiMaggio” (para, 8). This is a very confusing argument because he is almost saying that there is no difference between brains or jock. The stereotype says that the Jock gets the girl, but in this case the brains did. Graph did not “dig the intellectual bit.” He saw that he was in route for it, his belief being his past prepared him. He said, “I see now that I was unwittingly in training for it” (2).The things Graff did as a kid only made him become stronger intellectually. The world of sports prepared him for this greatly throughout the years learning through it, the analogies, and connections to real world sparked his interest and later on helped him become who he is now. He also said, “I was practicing being an intellectual before I knew that was what I wanted to be.” (2) Analyzing sports data, reading sports magazines shaped him into becoming an English professor, before he even knew that is what was happening. Graff brings up a lot of valuable points in street smarts eventually leading to book smarts. I wouldn’t agree with him fully because there should be a set standard of what a person should know. I do agree we cannot just focus on one aspect, it is important for socializing, and life lessons. Graff turned out okay, once a street smart kid now an English professor. It is really hard to pick a side because of how Graff turned out. Our society is so stereotypical, putting a name on people before getting to know them. That is where Graff’s arguments about schools and colleges missing out on great potential. Somehow we have to tap into these street smarts, connect them to learning, make learning more interesting to people are more willing to pursue their dreams and make something with their lives. It really is not about status, but about unlocking a person's full potential, and not have colleges miss out on someone who may be the next president, college professor, or CEO of a company. I guess we will never know unless we find a way to unlock a student's full potential, and use their street smarts to our advantage.
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.
For example, Fridman compares athletes to nerds in his quote, “Nerds are ostracized while athletes are idolized.” Fridman is explaining how kids who prefer to do academic activities compared to playing sports, later become social outcasts. He also compares other countries views of their nerds to how America views our nerds. For instance, Fridman explains to the reader how in other nations, “.... A kid who studies hard is lauded and held up an an example to other students.” While in America, athletics are held above academics on any given day. Also, Fridman uses elite professions in other countries to elite professions in America. In other countries, jobs such as being a professor in a university are one of the most rewarding jobs one can have. But in America, Fridman states, “Average professional ball players are much more respected and better paid than faculty members of the best universities.” Overall, Fridman is saying that anti-intellectualism in America is a problem and it needs to
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.
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.
“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
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.
In a world where high school dropout stories are prevalent, the public is beginning to shun intellectualism on a greater degree than ever before. Although top-performing athletes in high school get showered with recognition by their peers, students who equally flourish in the field of academics rarely get acknowledged as much as their athletic counterparts. In his essay, “Anti-Intellectualism: Why We Hate the Smart Kids,” Grant Penrod proves this assertion.
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.
For an institution that promotes self discovery and educational freedom, mandatory courses seem to be dogmatically needless.
The article Anti-intellectualism: Why We Hate the Smart Kids, written by Arizona State University student Grant Penrod, describes the culture of negatively viewing intellectuals in the United States. The author writes that intellectual achievements are often valued less than athletics. Anti-intellectualism is shown to be very common in our society. Penrod gives examples of aggression against intellectuals and stresses that it is a prominent problem. He also describes how smart kids are viewed as anti-social; this stereotype leads to them being excluded by their peers. Penrod believes that anti-intellectual feelings may come from the media’s presentation of public figures who do not say that academics have contributed to their success, or that the wealth and fame of uneducated celebrities causes the general public to question whether intellectualism is of any importance. Overall, Penrod
Schools currently have a required curriculum, that limits a student's personal choice, by forcing him or her to take classes that are not suited to their aspirations. Typically, the standard material for most schools consists of mainly the "core" classes, like English, math, and science. Yes, it is essential to know and understand these classes to a standard level, however, these so-called "standards" have become more pressing by the year. In order to grad...
Stereotypically student athletes are portrayed as popular but unintelligent and unmotivated to excel in academics, seeking only the glory that comes from excelling on the football, baseball or other sports field. This portrayal has led to the term “dumb jock,” which is how student athletes are often portrayed in Hollywood and by media. For example, Danny Zuko in the movie “Grease” was cute, adored by girls and idolized by boys, but stupid, highlighted by the scene where the school coach unsuccessfully tries to teach Danny how to play various sports. Similarly, the television show “Friday Night Lights” portrayed high school football players as the envy of all whose glory days ended as soon as high school was over. It is also not uncommon to hear rumors of colleges, where successful sports programs translate into money, overlooking cheating by star athletes or going so far as undertaking efforts to assist a star athlete in achieving a particular grade level just so the athlete may remain eligible to participate in sports. However, students all over the country often defy the stereotypical depiction of the “dumb jock” or athlete who has to have behind-the-scene hel...
There has been a number of debates as to whether college students should be given the opportunity to choose their courses. Like any contentious subject, while others are of the opinion that, courses should be chosen for college students, others believe that, students should be given complete freedom to choose the courses they would love to study. When students join college, they are forced to study for subjects they do not want to. Many students complain that they are not allowed to choose subjects they are interested in; rather, they are forced to take compulsory subjects. In addition, students complain that, they are forced to spend their entire years in college doing things they really do not need. This is very wrong because, college students should have more freedom to choose their own courses for several reasons. To start with, students are always interested in studying different subjects, and they love courses they choose to study. Moreover, if students are allowed to study the courses they choose, it will be easy for them to concentrate and work hard so as to excel in this subjects.
In our current setup of schools, we are forced to take certain classes that are provided. I personally believe that we should be able to choose which classes to complete once we hit high school. For the first year of high school it should be mandatory that we learn about our country along with classes that will benefit our career choices. So if I wanted to become a lawyer, I should be able to take classes that go along with my career.
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