Our society has always had an obsession with labels whether in the form of fashion, our description of personal relationships, or the way we see ourselves as individuals. Labels never escape us. Therefore, if we are going to be labeled by our peers, is it better to be labeled "book smart" or "street smart"? What about in the world of academics? Should students be supported by schools and teachers to allow street smarts to be used in an academic environment? While some schools are likely to be against allowing students to use what they know to read, write, and think critically, many students and teachers, myself included, judge these techniques of teaching to be helpful to students.
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...
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...o do what their told to get a passing grade before they can move on to the next class. Some might think this to be unfair, but sometimes life isn’t always fair. I’ve always been told that to get to the fun stuff, I’d have to suffer through the things I might not enjoy as much. As students, we are expected to read and write about topics we may not find to be the most entertaining. But, we should know that having to do so is not meant to hinder us in any way. It’s all meant to help us grow as individuals and to support and prepare us for a stable and successful future.
Works Cited
Graff, Gerald, and Cathy Birkenstein. They Say I Say The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing. New York & London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2010. Print.
King Jr., Martin Luther. "The Purpose of Education." The Seattle Times Accessed on September 16, 2011 .
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 “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.
Ungar, Sanford J. “The New Liberal Arts.” They Say/I Say: The Moves That Matter In Academic Writing. Ed. Gerald Graff. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2012. 190-197. Print.
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
Graff, Gerald, Cathy Birkenstein, and Russel K. Durst. "They Say/I Say": The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing: With Readings. Vol. 2e. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2012. Print.
It would be foolish to claim that I have never overanalysed and disregarded conveying ideas and theories properly, in the interest of impressing my reader. Nevertheless, this aspiration indicates there is more to academic writing than simply passing information.
Herbert, Bob. “Hiding From Reality.” They Say I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing. Graff, Gerald. Birkenstein, Cathy. New York. London: 2012. 566.
Matter in Academic Writing with Readings. 2nd ed. Ed. Gerald Graff, Cathy Birkenstein, and Russel Durst. New York: Norton 2012. 211-214. Print.
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.
Intellectuality needs to be redefined; what does the word intellectual mean? Typically one would describe someone as either “street-smart” or “book-smart,” in other words someone who knows how to live in the real world versus someone who has knowledge about academics. But is one more “intellectual” than the other? In the article “Hidden Intellectualism,” Gerald Graff addresses this issue and brings to the audience’s—the audience being experts about the subject along with himself—attention that schools are missing the opportunity to fuse together street-smarts and book-smarts to increase overall academic performance. Graff definitively presents his opinion on this topic by manipulating ethos, pathos, and logos. Through ethos his credibility
Graff, Gerald. “Hidden Intellectualism”. They Say/I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing. Comp. Graff, Gerald, Cathy Birkenstein, and Russell Durst. New York W.W. Norton & Company, 2006.
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
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.
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.
For centuries, people have been measured by how smart they are based on tests. From preschool to college graduation, students have their success measured through standardized tests; Tests that are meant to measure their intelligence. This may imply that our society values IQ over work ethic, but with enough determination a less intelligent student could still potentially be just as successful in life if not in school. There are many advantages to both having a higher IQ and being a hard worker, but with hard work and dedication a person can be just as successful as an intelligent person, whereas an intelligent person will often get nowhere without some degree of hard work.