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Hidden intellectualism gerald graff answer
Summary of the hidden intellectualism
Summary on hidden intellectualism
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In his essay "Hidden Intellectualism," Gerald Graff argues that intellectualism is not something that can only be taught through proper education like school or college, but with subjects that people consider non academics as sports, cars, or popular culture. The writer considers "street smart" to those people who learn things outside of an academic environment, for example in the streets of their neighborhood or their parent’s professions like being a mechanic. The writer argues that educators should let students decide on the subject that they are more interested to learn, this would open up possibilities for the student to excel in his academic environment as well as his own interests. I personally agree with this 100 percent this would …show more content…
As far out as teaching kids things through popular culture and general interest is, it is in fact very possible. Now a prime example is when English teachers use the book of hamlet to teach the lesson of to be or not to be. Teachers could instead use a book such as Friday night lights. Graff himself stated “until I entered college, I hated books and cared only for sports.” A lot of kids fall into this category of only caring about sports while school is just a side show, why don’t teachers take this to their advantage and use books about sports fictional or not to start the path to liking books, Don’t get me wrong there is an important role of critically acclaimed stories, but the focus should be towards the student’s own interests. For example, a book …show more content…
While in high school had a friend we can just call him Marshall. He was not the best student at school but he was pretty smart in other ways, such as he could never focus enough to actually study but was one of the smartest people that I have ever met in other ways. For example he could order new car parts off the internet and install them on his car from briefly looking over a handbook. Students like this are exactly who Graff’s essay is aimed at. One thing that my friend Marshall was known for is being one of the most competitive people in the world, in a head to head foot race Marshall would refuse to let anyone best him. In the essay Graff compares the real world to something similar “for here is another thing that never dawned on me and is still kept hidden from students, with tragic results: that the real intellectual world, the one that existed in the big world beyond school, is organized very much like the world of team sports, with rival texts, rival interpretations and evaluations of texts, rival theories of why they should be read and taught and elaborate team competitions.” Now teachers have never really taught high school students this sad but all too true reality it might be helpful to teach kids this lesson. For example take kids like Marshall who would cut his own arm off before
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
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
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
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.
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.
“Students are being forced to play the game of “race to the top or get left behind”” (Etelson, 2015). The idea that success should be based on ability and talent of individuals is wrong because success should not be based on ability and talent of individuals. The pressure, the competitiveness, and the future all need to change before more kids go through an education system that is teaching them how to compete against fellow students rather than how to gain knowledge. It is time to level the playing
Most students tend to perceive teachers as boring and ordinary, and rarely look up to them because they are seen as social outcasts. Students like Graff tend to look up to sports stars, actors, and singers. They are generally easier to connect to than teachers are. People want to be cool, not to be thought of as a know-it-all. Graff talks about how he never connected with school because being smart wasn 't cool, and how he turned to things that appear to be anti-intellectual. He says, “I was already betraying an allegiance to the
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
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.
...etition makes it difficult to regard others as potential friends or collaborators; even if one is not a rival today, one could be tomorrow. The first step to achieving of being happy and healthy is recognizing the value of competition is built on myths. Just because forcing children to try to outdo one another is counterproductive doesn't mean they can't keep track of how they're doing. There's no problem with comparing their achievements to an objective standard or to how they did yesterday or last year. But if the people value their children's intellectual development, they need to realize that turning learning into a race simply doesn't work. By definition, not everyone can win a contest. If one child wins, another cannot. This means that each child comes to regard others as obstacles to his or her own success and this is why competition is not good for people.
Grundy states that "metaphors of competition gained new prominence, particularly among the members of the state's expanding middle class, which was coming to dominate public affairs" (Grundy, 12). Male college students living in North Carolina began to excel in organized athletics during this time period. " The contests on the field seemed to mirror the competitive conditions prevailing in the society at large, and the discipline, self-assertion and reasoned strategy that sports were credited with teaching meshed neatly with the qualifies required for business and political success" (Grungy, 13). People who supported athletics wholeheartedly believed it taught good values such as discipline and good character, while there were some who opposed this saying that sports were a distraction for students and thus a hindrance to their educational goals.