Anti-Intellectualism : Why We Hate The Smart Kids By Grant Penrod Summary

In his essay titled “Hidden Intellectualism”, Gerald Graff questions the traditional academic approach that correlates the school curriculum of colleges and high schools with intelligence. He believes that schools may not be promoting the full potential of students because they rely too much on the academic skills rather than the topics themselves. This means that schools often focus on the analysis and interpretation of academic papers rather than considering expanding the curriculum to have more topics that interest students. As a result, many students cannot express their true potential because they cannot get engaged in these school enforced topics. Schools underestimate their “hidden intelligence” because they do not try to promote their

Most people, when asked, say that a person is intelligent if they have “book smarts.” People that are book smart can write and converse about subjects taught in school. On the other hand, people with “street smarts” aren’t seen as intellectuals because the subjects they are knowledgeable about are not traditional. In his essay called “Hidden Intellectualism,” Gerald Graff insists that schools and colleges are missing an opportunity to translate street smarts into academic work.

Gerald Graff is a professor of English and education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Graff, in his essay, emphasizes the importance for instructors to teach and increase enjoyable courses that students shall truly understand. Graff assures that all kids have hidden intellectualism trying to emerge from within, and as a teacher he feels partly accountable to help those kids develop their competencies in educational work. The essence of Graff’s argument is for students to know that intellectualism lurks within them all, and they need to implement their potential at school. Furthermore, he enriches the essay based totally on his own life experiences, along with his hidden intellectualism, while he attended school during the anti-intellectualism

Being a smart kid is an honor to most, but as a child, Mark Bowden believed otherwise. In “The Dumb Kids’ Class” he tells his unique experience in Catholic school, where he was in the dumb kids’ class and then switched into the smart class, and discovers the true differences between them.

What is the first thing people think of when they hear the “smart” kid talks about his accomplishments? Those smart kids get called a nerd and automatically have to deal negative things all because society itself thinks it is okay to do so. In “Anti-Intellectualism: Why We Hate Smart Kids”, Grant Penrod explains why anti-intellectualism exist. People will remember what the anti-intellectuals do but not so much the intellectuals. Society envy those who are smarter than them and only look at any other accomplishment besides education accomplishments. Anti- Intellectuals tend to bash others around them for their success academically. That is how society works in every generation. Penrod informs everyone of an example of how nerds can be treated differently especially in the school system. More recognition goes to sports teams instead of debates teams, which is factual. Penrod’s lack of credible information and the tone that has been presented has brought a lot of thoughts that need to be analyzed more closely on why he presented this article this way.

Contained within Gerald Graff’s, “Hidden Intellectualism,” are several eye opening ideas. Graff main point in his essay, is that non-intellectual topics can be written or talked about in an academic way. Graff uses his past stating that he has street smarts, and that it was a form knowledge. In a way, he negatively scrutinizes the public education for overlooking the intellect of those who aren 't skilled academically. One thing that I believe is very fundamental is that he says, “They would be more prone to take on intellectual identities if we encouraged them to do so at first on subjects that interest them rather than ones that interest us.” He puts it plain and simple that you can take street topics and make them into intellectual debates.

I found it important to understand what types of intellectuals there are and how they feel, so that we may have a better understanding of why we tend to hate the smart kids. In Grant Penrods paper “Anti-Intellectualism: Why We Hate the Smart Kids”, he talks about how intellectuals constantly see their efforts trivialized and society’s distaste for intellectuals. He provides evidence to his statement through stereotypes of geeks and nerds, public figures, and

Gerald Graff’s essay “Hidden Intellectualism” refutes the age-old idea that ‘street smarts’ are anti-intellectual. Instead, Graff suggests that “schools and colleges are at fault for missing the opportunity to tap into such street smarts and channel them into academic smarts.” (244). In saying this, Graff argues that lacking book smarts does not render a person unintelligent. Rather, educational institutions need to find a way to effectively use this format of intellectualism to produce academic intelligence. Graff goes on to point out that society associates ‘weighty’ subjects, like Shakespeare, with intellectualism, but not less serious subjects, such as sports. In consideration of this omission on society’s part, Graff emphasizes to the

In Grant Penrod’s essay called Anti-Intellectualism: Why We Hate Smart Kids he starts by talking about his high school football team and that they won the championship again this year. He says the speech and debate team also won the championship this year. The football team continues to receive mass amounts of praise and attention even after their win, while on the other hand the academic teams that won receive miniscule amounts of recognition. The academic teams might get a shout out at the end of an assembly, but never the amount of praise that the football team receives. The educated kids have the label of nerd and with this label; social norms become more difficult for them. Penrod says that even celebrities make it look like dropping out

In the article, “Hidden Intellectualism” by Gerald Graff examines the differences between “book smarts” and “street smarts.” Graff argues that many schools and college miss the opportunity of incorporating students’ street smarts within the classroom environment. He addresses his audience of fellow educators. Graff’s main point is that a student can connect with their learning if they practice with a subject they’re interested in. The author supports the main idea by using his personal experience of learning about creating arguments and using evidence from reading sports magazines (63). Graff’s experience of learning educational material from sports helps further develop his argument. If kids can talk about sports, video games, movies,

Should students be taught to read and become interested in sports rather than proper intellectual subjects? This is the question that Gerald Graff seeks to answer in his essay, “Hidden Intellectualism”. Graff begins his essay by asking the reader if he or she knows anybody who they consider to be street smart but struggles in school. His assertion relating to these particular individuals is that maybe it is the school system’s fault for not properly learning to, “. . . tap into such street smarts and channel them into good academic work” (260). According to Graff, the reason why schools overlook these potential academic abilities of students is because street subjects are not considered to be “intellectual”.

In “Hidden Intellectualism” , Gerald Graff explains his views on the topic of being smart. His explanation was you are either smart in the streets or in the educational system . During Graffs younger days how he hid his intellect during his days so he wouldn't have to deal with any bullying or being labeled as a weird person. He also was scared of a beating if he proved he was smart . Instead of showing he was smart in the educational system, he showed his intellect by arguing about the cool stuff that people conversed about growing up in his rough neighborhood. Graff refers to the cool stuff as in sports. Graff mentions another person who noticed his hidden intellect, Michael Warner. Warner comes from the background of a christian pentecostal

Grant Penrod, a young college student at Arizona State University, shows how rough the “smart kids” have it, in his essay “Anti-Intellectualism: Why We Hate the Smart Kids.” In Penrod’s essay, he shows the reader the cruel and unusual punishment that “smart kids” go through. Penrod uses a very calm tone of writing but ramps it up with occasional quotes of hate towards these certain students.

America Needs Its Nerds,” an essay indited by Leonid Fridman, proposes a pertinent issue in today’s society: astutely gifted students are ostracized. Fridman argues that keenly intellective, curious students neegd to stop being inglorious of being perspicacious and curious. Society needs to transmute because their current posture towards astuteness is one of pessimism. Fridman develops these arguments in his essay by utilizing the rhetorical strategy of parallelism, drawing conclusions, and utilizing

For instance, when Levitt and Dubner write “” [explain how it is ethos, logos, pathos] (Levitt and Dubner) they use evidence to demonstrate the logical reasoning behind what would otherwise be deemed as a radical conclusion. Freakonomics relies more heavily on logos and ethos than on pathos since logos and ethos work together to provide the audience with evidence supporting the speaker’s conclusions while simultaneously proving that the speaker and the evidence that he presents is reliable. When they write, “” they reference an acclaimed individual to both build ethos while simultaneously using that individual’s research to enhance their logos (Levitt and Dubner). Levitt and Dubner generally only employ pathos when they find that comic relief is necessary to prevent the audience of teenagers and adults from becoming entrenched in the numbers. For example when they state, “” they use humor to create a more lighthearted atmosphere which relieves some of the inherent tension that comes with talking about provocative subjects (Levitt and