Hidden Intellectualism Versus Repressed Literacy 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 …show more content…
The author implies that students get bored with texts they do not find interesting. This line of thinking is wrong because not all students feel this way about school. Also, students go to school to learn good habits and to learn the format in which to read and write, just because Graff found it boring, doesn’t mean you or I would. I personally love reading classics from another era, as it challenges your mind in ways someone may not have considered. Graff also references personal trauma such as... “What are you lookin’ at, smart ass?”as a leather-jacketed youth once said as he relieved me of my pocket change along with my self-respect (Graff 266). You shouldn’t have to act dumb to fit in with “hoods” as he put it. Just because his experiences with being physically bullied for being smart changed his outlook on what he considers book learning and street smart, doesn’t mean others had the same …show more content…
At least when he referenced Sports Illustrated he had personal experiences to tie back into the writing. His choices of examples feel very out of place because he only mentions them once, leaving the reader slightly confused as to the meaning of choosing those literary works. Graff puts too much emphasis on sports as a substitute for actual school learning and doesn’t give good reasons as to why this is the case. The author spends a long time trying to explain why he stunted himself to fit in with schoolkids near him, but doesn’t spend long linking this to the other topics in his article. Graff tries to pawn off talking about sports as being the same as a deep discussion about Socrates’ or Shakespeare’s writings. Equating those two things together might work for him, but not everyone believes this, so Graff comes off as heavily in favor of “street smarts” types of activities. Not only that, but he doesn’t refute any counterarguments the reader might have, which leaves Graff’s article weaker than it could have
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
There can be no question that sport and athletes seem to be considered less than worthy subjects for writers of serious fiction, an odd fact considering how deeply ingrained in North American culture sport is, and how obviously and passionately North Americans care about it as participants and spectators. In this society of diverse peoples of greatly varying interests, tastes, and beliefs, no experience is as universal as playing or watching sports, and so it is simply perplexing how little adult fiction is written on the subject, not to mention how lightly regarded that little which is written seems to be. It should all be quite to the contrary; that our fascination and familiarity with sport makes it a most advantageous subject for the skilled writer of fiction is amply demonstrated by Mark Harris.
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.
This issue of having real world smarts as well as book smarts is especially relevant to the modern day higher education student. With all the pressure surrounding schoolwork, it is easy to get caught up in academics and lose sight of the world around you. Achieving a balance between school work and real world education is key to success in this world. College students these days must try to find their own personal "Manley Pointer", in order to remind themselves of the balance necessary in life.
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,
To be intelligent means to be able to apply what we learned in school and use what we learned in our everyday life to achieve a goals that is sit or one that we are accomplishing without knowing. Many people think that a person is intelligent because they went to a university, got a degree, and have a good paying job, so they must be smart and know everything however thats not always true. If we would ask a teacher or professor the chances of them knowing how to fix a car are slim. So why do we think teachers are so intelligent? We think teachers are intelligent because they know everything about their subjects, know how to teach it and know how to apply their knowledge to their everyday lives.
Amanda Ripley argues in The Atlantic in her article “The Case Against High School Sports”, that the United States place too much attention on sports rather than academics. Ripley argues that sports programs at schools should be reduced, maybe even cut out completely. She states that there are a lot of countries that outperform America on international tests, and it is because they put more of their emphasis on academics, where the United States puts more of an emphasis on athletics. Ripley says that high school sports negatively affects academics. (1). I disagree with Ripley on this topic; I think that sports are important for young kids because it teaches them very valuable life lessons and it keeps them out of trouble.
After first reading the essay “Sports Should be Child’s Play,” I believe David Epstein made a valid point when discussing the issue of children participating in competitive sports at a too young of an age. He effectively delivered his argument by giving an appropriate amount of evidence without crowding the piece and losing the reader. There were certain sections of the essay that would have been difficult to understand without context, however Epstein was able to guide the reader and explain the evidence and situation when necessary. The title of the essay drew me in because “child's play” coincides with something that can be easily accomplished and is enjoyable. However sports, at the higher level, are challenging and are required to be taken seriously. If children are playing at competitive level too early in their life, it can cause a loss of enjoyment and be detrimental to their physical and mental health.
It receives much more attention than academics. Football players are often treated like celebrities, yielding confidence, and at the same time creating pressure. High school sports are approached with clashing opinions. Some of these opinions are positive, and supportive of athletics. “Athleticism, among many activities, offers teens a physical outlet to express their troubles, anger, emotions, and other feelings” (Chen 1).
Epstein really thought through his evidence and his work reflects off in the editorial as it is very convincing. But to make it exceptional, Epstein can include the advantages of sport specialization to show the readers both sides of the argument. When an author presents both sides of an argument and presents their side, it will more over reflect author's maturity and increase the article's reliability. Especially when talking to a wide range of audience that can disagree with your standing, it is more advantageous to ease into the argument by recognizing both sides of the argument. Adding on, he can also use personal accounts of kids who either hyperspecialized and caused detrimental effects or how kids who diversified and had much success in their lives. These stories and counterarguments make Epstein's claim that sport specialization leads to many health injuries and no real benefit in skills or technique more connected and
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.
Everyone has an opinion concerning what type of education is most useful. We all know that a college education is important in the competitive world we live in today. For instance, if you want a career in engineering, medicine, chemistry or law, a bachelor's degree or higher is mandatory. We often see people who have made it really big, and yet have little or no formal education. My opinion is, in order to get and keep a good paying job, you need both “street smarts” and “book smarts.” The combination of practical knowledge and explicit knowledge is the key to a successful career. Both types of knowledge have distinct advantages.
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.
Educating street smart people in a way could affect book smart people who are trying to get into college or trying to get a job once they graduate college. These claims might be true but I believe every student should have an opportunity to get educated. It is just not fair for students to not achieve a college degree because they simply have a different way of learning that is not taught by their school. It is not the student’s fault the education system does not provide them the change the students need. Instead, we should focus to see every student succeed not mattering what it takes a certain student to their success. We need to learn how to accept. We need to accept the fact that there are students who need that extra push that extra attention of changing a lecture. In other words, I agree with Graff that just because a student is identified as a street smart it does not mean they not smart it just means that they cannot learn from academic readings. I believe on Graff’s suggestion that if teachers teach street smart students from topics they understand then they might become academically intelligent just like the book smart