The Critique Of Hidden Intellectualism

Society believes there are two types of people, when it comes to dexterity.There are those who have the knowledge and skills necessary for academics. And then there are those who seem to be full of information about life itself, but do not appear to have perception, when it comes to school. I define “Book smart” as someone who is intelligent and well educated academically. For example a straight A student, or a person who can in a heart beat, give you an answer about history, english, math, or science. On the other hand, a person who is considered “street smart” is one who is dull in school, but has a very bright mentality about life itself and common sense. In Hidden Intellectualism, from They Say I Say, Gerald Graff tells us about how he considered himself “street smart,” but unintentionally became quite an intellectual over time. Using a topic that interests a student is a better way of persuading them to learn, and help them discover they are intelligent in their own way. We should not classify things into different judgmental groups, there is hidden intellectualism amongst every person although we all experience it differently based on past exposures.

The idea of a genius becoming a silly, outmoded idea, although not likely, causes the readers to think about a world without intelligent people and how intelligence is necessary in order for the population and world to move forward and make improvements. The emotion brought out in the previous statement creates a willingness in the audience to learn more about how this may be possible and more importantly how it can be corrected. To further anger the audience about current college education, Edmundson explains that for many professors of English and History classes like himself “one of the ways we have tried to stay attractive is by loosening up. We grade much more softly…” (329). The fact that professors are giving easier grades means that students are not working as hard and therefore are not learning and improving to the level that people have in the past. With college being so expensive any audience of people students or parents would be angered by the fact that the students are not getting as good of an education as they could be. Edmundson asserts that he will not take the easy route and prevent students from their potential he is willing to “aim and shoot” (333) and is not afraid of getting bad evaluations from students for being too difficult. In this way, he convinces the audience to side with him emotionally. Edmundson is trying to prevent such a

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 the world of academia, from Graff’s perspective, street smarts are associated with anti-intellectualism. Graff states “we associate the educated life, the life of the mind, too narrowly and exclusively with subjects and texts that we consider inherently weighty an academic.” He argues that educators should broaden their aspect of material they once preserved as inefficient. Graff implies that a person who is studious enough can find substance in any content. He reasons that intellect can be uncovered and observed in various forms, hence the name “hidden intellectualism.” He suggests that the Education system overlooks the interest of the students because they consider their interest irrelevant.

Society’s view on intelligence is becoming watered down from the truth. In Rose’s article, “Blue Collar Brilliance” Rose discusses societies outlook on intelligence. Rose explains how society thinks blue collared jobs don’t involve any intelligence, and anyone can do a blue collared job. He explains how society thinks that since you don’t have to have a high education to perform well in blue collared jobs, it takes little to no intelligence. Rose says, “We reinforce this notion by defining intelligence solely on grades in school and numbers on IQ test” (Rose 279). Rose explains that even though most blue collared jobs don’t require a college degree, they still demand many forms of intelligence. Rose also explains how his brother dropped out of school in the ninth grade but eventually became a successful employee of the company General Motors. In Graff’s article, “Hidden Intellectualism” he explains how there are many students in today’s world who have an outstanding amount of “street smarts” but are failing school. He explains

“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.

“Hidden Intellectualism,” an excerpt from They Say/I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing by Gerald Graff, explains the importance of having diverse intellectualism and helping the kids with street smart intellectualism turn it into academic growth. The author’s claim in this excerpt is that school and colleges are missing out on an opportunity of helping the street smart kids grow their intelligence into good academic work. The significance in the author’s claim is that the students who believe they don’t have much of an opportunity in school or other things related to academics, realize they do.

In Hidden Intellectualism by Gerald Graff, he begins with the argument of “street-smarts” versus “school-smarts”. Graff explains that school-smarts can be hidden within street smarts and can be learnt through not just talking with friends, but also from the media and our surroundings, hence the “hidden” intellectualism. He goes onto explain that “schools and colleges overlook the intellectual potential of street-smarts” (198) because these types of intellectualism are actually considered anti-intellectualism. Graff then begins to discuss that intellectualism is often looked down upon within schools, and people that are considered “school-smart” are seen as nerdy, or boring. We learn that as a child, Graff was afraid of bullying and

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.

In the article “Hidden Intellectualism” written by Gerald Graff, Graff target college students to inform them about a hidden intellectualism that can be found in our everyday society. In the article Graff draws attention to the many types and ways different people can identify with intellectualism. He argues that people are intelligent in several ways and just need to learn how to plug the intellectualism they enjoy into a school-like setting during classes. He exemplifies this by using his own intellect within sports and such as an adolescent. While being very analytical of sports team movies, and the toughness he and his friends engaged in, he was unknowingly before now trained to be intellect in a class room and other school subjects.

Graff never thought that he would research intellectualism, not even a bit. However, based on his hood experiences he didn’t know that he was in training for it. First of all, Graff described his neighborhood environment in Chicago as a postwar society. The hood was surrounded by people with a separate mind set, which made it hard to fit in. While it was hard to live there, he found his personal intellectualism inside the hood when he had to maintain a strong position for his arguments. Graff uses himself as an example too, when he decides to trade his preferred sports team, everyone that knew him would make fun of him and criticize his choice. He struggled to persuade his reasons to defend his new

When it comes to the topic of hidden intellectualism, most of us will readily agree that a lot of students are seen to have an issue with it. Where this agreement usually ends, however, is on the question of is it the students fault. Whereas some are convinced it is, others maintain it is at the fault of the teachers or professors. Gerald Graff has his argument that in many cases book smarts can be hidden in street smarts. I believe that kids that struggle with their talents being hidden behind “street smarts” need a certain amount of attention and focus to help them acquire their abilities and strengths.

“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.

Academic work should not define intelligence nor should a job define ability; a person, regardless of grades, degrees, or job title, is an intellect. Together, Gerald Graff, a coauthor of They Say I say, professor, and former anti-intellect, author of "Hidden Intellectualism," and Mike Rose, professor, author, and in depth thinker, author of "Blue-Collar Brilliance," share two different perspectives on what an intellect truly is. Yet, both writings hold meaningful points and experiences to prove who qualifies to be an intellect. Society continuously focuses on what leads to a successful and rounded life: go to school, graduate, go back to school, get a degree, and then a job. It is believed that these high expectations of higher academics enables one to be more successful is correct; however, it is not. It is a person’s individual goals that give them the success they wish to have whether that be education, volunteering, or donating. Also, street smarts is not to be overlooked; a person with common sense can know more than a Doctor. Typically, a person can have either common sense or intelligence, not both. Street smarts is, without a doubt, a superior quality to possess as it encompasses more in life than just a degree does. For example, it is more appropriate to know how to cross a street properly in life than know how to perform a craniotomy. Furthermore, one does not gain knowledge and life lessons through school alone, but through experience,

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