A woman walks into a psychiatry office and has the option of speaking to an M.D. who graduated from Harvard, or a man with many real life experiences and wisdom. The woman puzzled, recognizes the fact that a degree from Harvard is highly reputable, but doesn’t disregard the man with wisdom. Although everything they know was learned very differently from each other, both are equally qualified to give counseling. One man pursued his knowledge from a textbook, the other gained intellect from experience. The woman must ask herself which she thinks is more influential to her life. Success is achieved through blending both sets of knowledge, and having a mix creates a well rounded person. “Street knowledge” encompasses intellect through experiences …show more content…
The same attribute is relevant in the business world. History on the streets proves beneficial when choosing people for a company, giving people the key essentials to sense who to trust and who not to. Negotiation skills are solely learned by experience. Prior negotiation skills help create comfortable conversations with clients and open the doors to financial success. Moving to different cities, finding new friends, or even going to prison, can help someone from the streets learn adjustment. Life is forever changing, and a textbook can’t teach someone how to adjust to a new scenario. Experiencing change aids someone in a faster adjustment process, letting them move forward in life instead of staying stagnant in fear. (Orozco) People from the streets tend to have better determination and drive because they have experienced struggle. Frederick Douglass once said “Without struggle there is no success,” and those who have not faced failure often do not have the drive to keep pressing forward in tough circumstances. Success, in most aspects of life, doesn’t exclusively depend on making good grades. In fact, some of the most successful and wealthiest people in the …show more content…
Both forms of knowledge are fundamentally important in forming someone's train of intellect, and are useful for anyone in the business world or just in everyday life. Book knowledge has an edge over street in the economic business world, and street knowledge has an edge over book in the outside world. Street knowledge incorporates struggle, which teaches a lesson no one can learn from a book. Struggle, one single word that encompasses the qualities of growth, progress, and determination. The unwilling strive to never give up in hardship demonstrates useful in every form of work, especially entrepreneurship. People who have never struggled lack experience in real world situations, and obtain only half the character qualities as someone who has struggled and prevailed. Prevailing is just as important as struggling. Without getting through the painful moments in life, someone is stuck in a terrible state for perpetuity, and overlook the important lesson of “life goes on”. Many people who are solely book smart lack wisdom to give others, because they only know what they have read in a book. Yes, textbooks can teach someone plenty about the outside world, but if they have not lived, then they will never truly know. Although struggle and experience are very important, book knowledge has the slight edge in the career category. A careerbuilder
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.
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
There are two types of people in this world. There are people like students who work diligently to achieve the highest grade possible, athletes who put in hours and hours of practice so they can make the starting team, young adults who climb the ladder to get to the top of their company, and many others doing whatever it takes to make their dreams and goals become a reality. There are also people in this world who do the bare minimum in order to graduate with a passing grade or to make a paycheck that is possible to live on. They are doing only “just enough” to make it another day. What is the difference between the two? Standardized tests, natural talent, and IQ rankings have been used in the past to determine how successful a person will be, but a new trait has come into play that ultimately determines how much a person achieves during their lifetime. Grit is the most important trait a person
Growing up in a more privileged environment things may come easier to one. But one should not be surprised of those that are in a less fortunate situation that are not able to reach certain heights, compared to someone from a more privileged back ground. Even if one is not in the best environment, they are able to make a choice to keep fighting for a better life. In the podcast “Three Miles” that is exactly the attitude described from a girl name Raquel, on the other hand Melanie froze her life doing what she thought she deserved. Though Raquel and Melanie had similar backgrounds in that they were raised in the same poor neighborhood and attended the same indigent high school, in the end Raquel was able to succeed in her life after getting denied a Posse scholarship, whereas Melanie worked in a supermarket for ten years, feeling that was as good as it was going to get.
Another point Gladwell brings forth is the notion of one’s upbringing, race, and ethnicity can be a factor behind their success. And lastly, pursuing meaningful work will cause one to continue working with their skill and not give up. Legacy is a collection of examples that support the idea: values are passed down from generation to generation, which may cause a certain group of people to be more persistent in a skill, or occupation. Although the author, Malcolm Gladwell did not major in sociology or psychology in college, his credibility for Outliers comes from his background in journalism.
However, living in a low-income area in Chicago, I experienced firsthand what motivates poor individuals trying to make ends meet. What motivated a student to do well in school was imagining a future where they did not have to choose between buying milk and buying bread. They were motivated by the prospective of having a decent paying job that moved them out of poverty and away from danger. They talked about the wealthy neighborhoods and how one day if they worked hard in school they can live amongst them. Students and parents from neighborhoods in Chicago and Los Angeles focus on making a living rather than making a difference in the
Comparatively, obtaining and grasping onto having a growth mind-set could then help one into succeeding, regardless of where one grew up or where one was raised. Keeping this mind-set in tact could help one forget about any circumstances that they may have grown up in, regardless of socio economical status, and to become more motivated. Keeping a growth mind-set could lead one to success, not because of their wealth status, but because of their actions and the circumstances that led them to that point.
“You may soon find yourself with nothing to talk to your folks or friends about”. (p.532) In other words, education changes those with lower class backgrounds into different people, and when you begin to succeed, those relationships that were once fulfilling with people from your childhood and the old neighborhood are not the same, there is not a connection as you no longer have things in common to maintain the relationship and you may find it difficult to keep in
To begin, Dr. King enhances the social perspective of low wage, unexceptional jobs with juxtaposition, appealing to students who have no other options in their life. These students are stuck because of scholastic achievement or financial situations, and by comparing a undesired job -- street sweeping-- with famously accomplished artists, it is very encouraging. In the text, he states," sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures...like Beethoven composed music...like Leontyne Prince sings..." What matters is not the mediocrity of one's career path, but the attitude and approach one has towards it. The students should not be discouraged they will end up a street cleaner, but worry how they will do said street cleaning to the best of their ability, and this is the emotional effect Dr. King has on his student audience.
Every person has their own definition of what street smarts means to them. To me, however, having “street smarts” means having the common sense to recognize what to do whenever faced with a problem. Street smarts come from our life experiences. Not only do street smarts come from what we encounter every day, but they also occur through the principles, morals and wisdom passed from generation to generation by our parents, teachers and role models. Street smarts allow a person to meet and overcome a variety of obstacles in the world. Quite the opposite, "book smarts" have virtually a wide-ranging definition. Being book smart suggests an individual is well-informed when it comes to understanding calculations, numbers, academics, etc. Typically, book smart people do well on tests, understand subjects very well, and almost always have their noses stuck inside of a book. I think every person ought to have a fair amount of each quality, if they want to succeed in the world today. In his essay titled “The Purpose of Education”, Martin Luther King sum up my arg...
A controversial debate has been at hand for several years. Many view education as learning from your outside surroundings and gaining information through first-hand contact. Knowing information is one aspect, but the ability to apply the knowledge is another. In "How To Get a Real Education," Scott Adams argues that students should choose courses that are practical to daily life and therefore should not have to sit through the monotonous classes taught today. According to Adams, if someone is not "book smart," they should not have to sit through the same courses as those heading for that 4.0 GPA; it is a waste of time. While having "street smarts" is a crucial component to surviving in society, the same can be said of "book smarts." His outline
First we must look at backgrounds. A students’ environment can tell about how they are going to act in school, during an activity, and how they are going to work with the people surrounding them. According to Tinto, “The overall differences in persistence rates between African American students and non-minorities were primarily due to differences in their academic preparedness rather than differences in their socioeconomic backgrounds” (Tinto 1993; Baker, Robnett, and Torres 2012). These studi...
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.
They have both used their experiences in life to achieve their goals. For example, if a street smart mart person had a severe cough they would ask friends, family about how they could make the cough better. Book smart person would check or search internet to find the cure. They are both determine to get what they want by using the skills they know. They will both work hard to get the job they want. They are both resourceful. They will use their r...
In the contemporary era, if you don’t have any desire or need for information, there will be no good future for you. Life is very much pre-determined. Books not only increase your intellect but also influence your reading and writing skills. Books can be read again and again as they are the most credible and precious media of mass communication.