Summary Of Gerald Graff's Hidden Intelectuals

Senior year I was trying to puzzle together this geometry problem in my mind. I couldn’t figure it out, I felt like I hit a brick wall and couldn’t break through it to solve the problem. Maybe if I reworded the problem to be similar to a real world situation I could solve it. In the essay “Hidden Intellectualism” by Gerald Graff, his thesis is that intellectualism is more valuable than academic intelligence. Graff begins talking about how schools fail to reach into the minds of kids who are street smart and connect that into their academic school work. He states that students would be more willing to take the academic intellectual characteristic if the schools would engage them into subjects they are interested in, rather than what the teachers think. Graff then opens up to a personal

In paragraph 5, Graff opens with his own experiences in school in the 1940s. He discussed how he only liked reading sports magazine and that he was often faced with the issue of being accepted by two different set of school boys, the hoods and the well dress, clean cut boys. He learned through his own experiences that showed him that “street smarts” were a part of an intelligence. (Graff, "Hidden Intellectualism", 2017)

The essay Hidden Intellectualism is based upon whether street smart should be considered equal with academic intelligence. Many people have remarkable street intelligence, but have very little academic intelligence. The author of the essay, Gerald Graff uses his personal examples before college of possessing street smarts then developing academic intelligence. More often than not students prefer video games, clothes designers and sports. “It’s a good bet that students get hooked on reading and writing by doing term papers on Source, they will eventually get to On Liberty” (Graff, pg 250) most likely students would prefer reading a book and writing a paper on a topic of their choice, and be better informed about the subject to write the paper,

The issue being debated in the article “Hidden Intellectualism” by Gerald Graff is street smarts versus book smarts. Gerald Graff is an English professor at the University of Illinois and has written many books. The author claims that people are better off if they are more street smart than book smart. The authors is very persuasive using real life examples. I although disagree with this claim. I think that you need an equal mix of both street and book smarts.

“There must be many buried or hidden forms of intellectualism that do not get channeled into academic work…” (Graff 22), this said by non-other than Gerald Graff himself within his article “Hidden Intellectualism”. This quote being his overall main point of the entire article. Graff meaning that students can be intellectual even if they feel like they aren’t a book smart student. Graff argues that students who are street smart could also be intellectual. Within Graff’s article, there are a few arguments he makes that I agree with but also a few that I disagree with. “Hidden Intellectualism” offers various points about how every student possesses intellectualism but it’s also possible that not every student possesses this trait.

In this excerpt, the author expresses it’s important to have knowledge not only in school but out of school as well. For instance, Gerald Graff states “I believe that street smarts beat out book smarts in our culture not because streets smarts are nonintellectual, as we generally suppose, but because they satisfy an intellectual thirst more thoroughly than school cultures, which seems pale and unreal,” (par. 11). In other words, the author elaborates on the importance of also having street smarts because you will need knowledge from school and outside of school in real world situation. This

Everyone knows some young person who is impressively street smart but does poorly in school. What a waste, we think, that one who is so intelligent about so many things in life seems unable to apply that intelligence to academic work. This is how Gerald Graff’s essay titled “Hidden Intellectualism" begins. Although this is not Graff's personal belief, he is approaching us with a common stereotype. After reading Graff's article I would say that I agree with him from beginning to end. Gerald Graff begins with differentiating between “book smarts” and “street smarts". Book smart is defined as a person who is intelligent and very well educated academically. People that are book smart can write and discuss subjects taught in school. On the

Intellectualism is most often described as someone who has a vast amount of knowledge, is well spoken, and most people’s idea of intelligence is someone who is “book smart”. Book Smart would be described as someone who van write and converse about subjects that are most often taught in school. Another type of “smart” would be someone who is known as “street smart”. They are seen as intellectuals who are knowledgeable in the world around them, and today’s culture, and individuals who learn through personal experiences. In the essay Hidden Intellectualism, by Gerald Graff he insists

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.

are“street smart” rather than book smart (Graff 198). He speaks of how it is ridiculous that

“Hidden Intellectualism” an article written by Gerald Graff is a very interesting piece of writing intended for the audience of high school and college educators. Throughout the text Graff argues that high schools and colleges are failing to incorporate topics that interest street smart students into the school system, which is therefore resulting in street smart students failing to do well academically in high school and college. He uses his own personal anecdote to support this. Graff successfully persuades his audience that high school and colleges can develop a student’s intellectualism by using topics that already interests students. He successfully does this through the use of development, conventions, and evidence.

As I read Gerald Graff’s Hidden Intellectualism I agree that “street smart” can also be adapted in a scholarly setting. Graff attest that “street smart” overpowers academic intellect. Graff uses his childhood experience to prove his arguments. I’m on Graff’s side of argument on his beliefs that “street smart” is gained before academic intellect. In my own experience as a child growing up, I was around agriculture from the day I was

    School teachings are full of artificial context to brainwash students into thinking that school is the only place you can learn. Education can be taught by exploring your passion and interests even if it’s not seen as academically correct. In the article, “Hidden Intellectualism,” by Gerald Graff, he suggests that students should be able to “exploit students’ nonacademic interests, but to get them to see those interests through academic eyes.”(Gerald Graff, page 400). In contrast, Malcolm X in “A Homemade Education,” wants to spread awareness about black history through actual academic readings. Both Graff and Malcolm believe that passion plays a role in learning, however,  for Graff it's the teacher's job to use the students interests first, whereas Malcolm wants students to find their passion and be self educated just like himself.

With today’s education, teachers are enforcing much academic work on students to, hopefully, increase their intelligence. The goal of this academic work is to give the students that they will need for their life later. All schools have a group of students that have a lot of “street smarts,” but don’t do well in school. There is a common argument of if “street smarts” and academic work should be combined to better teach students. In Gerald Graff’s piece, Hidden Intellectualism, Graff talks about the academics that teachers enforce on students and “street smarts.” Graff claims that “schools and colleges might be at fault for missing the opportunity to tap into such street smarts and channel them into good academic work” (Graff 1).

People who work on Wall Street are considering elites of the society, their works relate to finance and deal with the world economy. Many students desire for working on Wall Street; however, this dream is hard to accomplish because this job is for people who are considered “smart”. In Biographies of Hegemony, the author Karen Ho brings up the idea of smartness, which addresses to people not only have individual intelligence, but also have the quality of being an expert and has self-confidence, aggressive, and hard-working. Basically, in the article, Ho talks about students graduate from Harvard or Princeton and now they are working on Wall Street. Ho believes smartness is a form of impressiveness because smartness is not just about intelligence, but also a way to separate away from normal people. However, in Project Classroom Makeover, the author Cathy Davidson pays more attention to students who may not be the expertise, but they will use collective learning to share different opinions. Collective learning brings out the idea of crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing is a group of people share ideas and solve problems, which is one way of collective learning. The theory of smartness shares commons and differences with collective learning. For common, both smartness and collective learning require students to work together and have the confidence to conquer the difficulties, which lead students to the future success. For differences, smartness is associated with students who have an