There is constant judgement set upon the street smart kid. We are faced with wanting to conform into what society wants us to be. For those that see that there is nothing wrong with being street smart, they choose to be dauntless enough to try to convince society that they are in charge of their own fate. In Gerald Graff’s essay Hidden Intellectualism, he says to “give me the student anytime who writes a sharply argued, sociologically acute analysis of an issue in Source over the student who writes a lifeless expectation of Hamlet or Socrates Apology” (Graff 251). So, let’s make an imaginative scenario where we take Graff suggestion to set up a job interview with, a book smart guy battling against the street smart dude for a job working at …show more content…
Usually some would automatically favor the book worm over the street smart guy, but let’s say that in this scenario we take Graff’s advice. If we look deeper and stop being shallow, you might find that sure the street smart guy doesn’t have a degree, but it doesn’t change the fact that he had a part time job in the auto shop during high school. You don’t dig to find out, that after high school he was offered a full time job at the auto shop fixing cars. He has been for the past four years been unknowingly been building his resume which would somewhat set him on a more level playing field compared to the book worm who has only studied mechanics. Some would say then why didn’t he just go to college like the book smart guy? Maybe his outlook was a more hands on approach that he acquire from being raised in the streets. After taking that into consideration, you set them both one the same level and make them go through an interview stage. You notice that during the book smart guy’s interview, he is only giving you detailed facts he learned from textbooks like some lifeless
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
In Carol Dweck’s article titled, “Brainology” Dweck discusses the different mindsets that students have about intelligence. Some where taught that each person had a set amount of intelligence, while others were trained that intelligence is something they could develop and increase over time. in Dweck’s article she writes, “ It is a belief that intelligence can be developed that opens students to a love of learning, a belief in the power of effort and constrictive, determined reactions to setbacks” (Dweck pg. 2). Dweck is talking about a growth mind-set in which is how students perceive the growth of knowledge and that no one person is born with a certain amount of intelligence, it too can be trained and developed over time. By introducing Dweck’s ideas of a growth mind-set to students, students will enjoy learning and be less devastated by setbacks, because they know they can develop intelligence. Dweck also writes that students with a growth mind-set, “believe that intelligence is something that can be cultivated through effort and education. They
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
A college Degree used to be an extraordinary accolade but now its just another thing that we need in order to be successful, at this points its nothing more than a paperweight to some. Mike Rose states, “Intelligence is closely associated with formal education—the type of schooling a person has, how much and how long—and most people seem to move comfortably from that notion to a belief that work requiring less schooling requires less intelligence” (Mike Rose 276). In other words the author of Blue-Collar Brilliance, Mike Rose, believes that blue-collar jobs require intelligence as well. I agree that those who work blue-collar jobs need to be intelligent, a point that needs emphasizing since so many people believe that those who work blue-collar jobs aren't intelligent and that why they have them. Although I also believe that
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.
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.
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,
whether or not these are the type of people we want working at our company” (180). Through these experiences it is evident that Wall Street neglects to acknowledge the individual smartness and judge a person’s smartness based on the institution they attend. By learning the small particularities of people’s experiences it becomes clear that smallness does not play a role in deciding a person’s fate in Wall Street. The smallness is simply unacknowledged which restricts the most deserved people from a position in investment banking. When Ho dives into the roots of the recruiting process, she finds that the investment bankers choose people by judging a book by its cover. The majority of investment bankers on Wall Street are white males, with a select few minorities and women. Naturally at recruitment events for future employee prospects, they search for the people who have dashing appearances, intimate performances and a “wow” factor. Wall Street's idea of “smartness” is coming off as smart and not actually possessing intelligence. These actions create a bias system where people are not properly interviewed for a position on Wall Street that they deserve but may never have the opportunity to
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.”
His anecdotes presented in the article are appropriate in terms of his subject and claims. The author responds back to the naysayers by saying that people only look at the test scores earned in school, but not the actual talent. He says, “Our culture- in Cartesian fashion- separates the body from the mind, so that, for example we assume that the use of tool does not involve abstraction. We reinforce this notion by defining intelligence solely on grades in school and number on IQ tests. And we employ social biases pertaining to a person’s place on the occupational ladder” (279). The author says that instead of looking at people’s talent we judge them by their grades in school or their IQ score, and we also employ them based on these numbers. People learn more each time they perform a task. He talks about blue collared individuals developing multi-tasking and creativity skills as they perform the task they are asked to
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
...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.
“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
The combination of practical knowledge and explicit knowledge is the key to a successful career. Both types of knowledge have distinct advantages. 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 check or search internet to find the cure.
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.