Book Smart Vs Street Smart

Education is an everyday topic of a conversation for both the higher and lower class. It is believed to be the key to success, the key to a new life. According to Gerald Graff, the author of “hidden intellectualism”, educators should consider street smart topics as a form of teaching the students. He believes that although street smart topics are seen as non intellectual it could certainly be used to teach students the exact way they learn from the traditional academic topics. He makes it very clear that we should reconsider our believes on the street smart topic in order to saucer the students success. In the other hand, I argue that the way intelligence is seen is mostly influenced by the education system, they tend to have full on attention

Street smart students should be given a chance because the outcome might be surprising. Street smarts could be much more intelligent than book smart students. According to Graff, he believes teaching students with stuff they are interested in will help them academically. Graff states “I believe that street smarts beat out book smarts in our culture not because street smarts are nonintellectual as we generally suppose, but because they satisfy an intellectual thirst more thoroughly than school culture, which seems pale and unreal” (268). In other words, street smart students would become successful not because they are as intelligent as book smart students but because street smart students will have the desire of learning from their passionate topics. They will feel confident learning in an environment that provides topics they truly know and feel passionate about. Some might claim that teaching students through non-traditional topics will not be considered not learning. When in reality according to Graff students can see “these interests “through academic eyes,” that is, to think and write about cars, sports, and fashions in a reflective, analytical way, one that sees them as microcosms of what is going on in the wider

But in his case he managed to get a well paid job because of his experience, experience he received from past blue collar jobs that many thought did not require anything but physical work. But now the successful jobs book smart students who are meant to achieve are becoming rare because the American dream has changed. In other words, success has now become harder for people to achieve. The reality of the American dream, states the fact that students are going to college for stability. There are not as many opportunities like before, less people are buying houses and people are just getting educated to become stabilized. According to the essay “The American Dream: Dead Alive, or on Hold?”, Brandon King states “Americans were asked questions about what they believed constituted being “successful,” with the majority naming things such as a steady job, financial security for the future, being able to retire without struggling and having a secure place of residence” (611). The quote shows the danger that book smart people are being educated to just become stabilized and if book smart students are renting then it brings up the how will street smart students will end up concerns? Which brings me into conclusion that book smart people are only capable of achieving stability, but