Hidden Intellectualism Gerald Graff Analysis

“America Needs Its Nerds” an article created by Leonid Fridman, puts forth a pertinent issue in today’s society: intellectually adept students are ostracized. Fridman argues that smart, curious students need to stop feeling ashamed for being smart and curious. Society needs to change because their current philosophy towards intellect is one of pessimism. Fridman develops these arguments in his essay by utilizing the rhetorical strategy of parallelism, drawing conclusions, and through his use of diction.

Gerald Graff’s argument on how educational systems are missing a great opportunity to tap into “street smarts” and focus them into a path of academic work is indeed convincing (Graff, 198). After all, anyone who’s been through the American educational system knows odds are often stacked against the “street smarts.” This is especially true in english classes, where one is often required to read boring and somewhat heartless books like, 1984, Beowulf, and the majority of Shakespeare’s classics. This is not to say these books are bad or shouldn’t be read during one’s schooling years, instead, the problem is one of apathy. For instance, in my high school years I never even remotely liked to read books Othello, but I loved to read magazines and

Graff says street smarts offer more life skills than the education provided in school. In other words, you can be smart without being highly educated because knowledge goes beyond academics. He grew up thinking he was anti-intellectual because his writing skills were not great about the topics he’s expected to write in school. Graff describes how sports helped him excel in academics and discover his hidden intellectualism. He believes ‘’Making students’ nonacademic interests of an object study is useful, the, for getting students’ attention and overcoming their boredom and alienation, but this tactic won’t in itself necessarily move them close to an rigorous treatment of those interests.’’ (Graff 400) By allowing students express their nonacademic interests in schoolwork then students will be more interested and motivated to do well in school. So no matter what you’re most interested in or have the most knowledge about, if you’re an expert on it, you’re an intellect. My nonacademic pursuit is playing the violin, which is very challenging. You have to learn many things in order to play it correctly and not sound terrible. It takes time and patience to learn

Intellectualism is the factor of being intellect or intelligent. The idea of what it means to be educated can be interpreted many different ways by different people. Some think it’s having a 4.0 and going to Harvard, while others believe in the idea of having common sense. In the essay, “Hidden Intellectualism,” Gerald Graff reflects how lack of education is viewed negatively in society. On top of that, a question also lies what it means to educated. In order to be truly educated, a person should be well rounded not in just tests of intelligence, but the tests of life as well.

In "Blue-Collar Brilliance" Mike Rose Shares his perspective on how education is not Intelligence. He lets us know how growing up he was around a bunch of Blue-Collar workers himself, and how intelligence is not based on the education you have but what you can Develop on your own from just being open minded. He explains to use how blue-collar jobs take a toll on both body and mind. He believes that you don't need to be taught things to develop intelligence that your intelligence comes from within. He shared the different stories of blue-collar workers life that he experience such as his mother and his uncle to help us see that even if you don't have a high education and a college degree you can still become a successful. He wants use to see that blue-collar jobs take more intelligence then what we think: it's more than just an elementary job.

David Brooks is a well-refined journalist for the New York Times News Paper Company. He writes many different controversial articles, that tends to focus around arguments of education. Within Brooks’ arguments he uses effective techniques to persuade the audience. In this specific column, he addresses society as a whole, but with special emphasis on students. David Brooks successfully persuades his audience through his presentation of his claim, his persuasive writing style, and his usage of emotional appeals.

The goal of the usage of this fact is to show readers this common term does not reflect real traits of smart people and can be treated as an insult because of that. It is one of the few examples of Fridman’s appeals to readers’ logic. The essay is based on general data; the author mentioned schools and universities promote negative attitude to smart students: “Nerds are ostracized while athletes are idolized” (Fridman). But he did not use any statistical or science data to support his position. For example, Fridman could provide data about scholarships and other types of funding for sports and other activities. The author also mentioned that such negative attitude to smart citizens is not common for other developed countries. While he named the region, “in East Asia, a kid who studies hard is lauded and held up as an example to other students” (Fridman), he did not provide more detailed information, like results of surveys or funding statistics of the foreign universities. It is also possible to question this argument, at least in respect of the past. It is difficult to provide a source, but there was a joke that said “the intellectual is a kind of an insult” in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and some of its

Having never taken a college writing course before, I did not know what to expect and therefore assumed that I would choose my own topic to write about; of course, this isn’t the case. However, if I had the choice, I would not have chosen to write a response to Gerald Graff’s “Hidden Intellectualism”. After going through his essay with a fine-tooth comb, I have found a few flaws in his reasoning. Gerald Graff believes that schools and colleges are not taking advantage of “street smarts” by not using them in an intellectual setting when in fact, schools are providing students with a large assortment of other knowledge and skills. In Graff’s essay “Hidden Intellectualism”, he argues for the importance of changing school curriculums in order to better reflect the interests

In the essay “Blue-Collar Brilliance” it begins with a fairly detailed description of Mike Rose’s mother at her work as a waitress in Los Angeles during the 1950’s, when he was a child. Mike Rose is a professor at the UCLA graduate school of education and information studies. This article originally appeared in 2009 in the American Scholar, a magazine published by the Phi Beta Kappa Society. Rose’s intended audience for this article is white collar workers, who usually hold a negative perspective towards their colleagues who aren’t as well educated as them. Mike Rose uses his mother and uncle as examples of his argument that those without formal education have important kinds of intelligence as well just in different ways. He also points out that people assume less time in school means that a person is less intelligent.

The reading "Hidden Intellectualism" by Gerald Graff reflects views on being "street smart" and "book smart." He explains that society tends to associate people who are intelligent on solely being "book smart" and performing well in academics, rather than being street smart. He goes on to further explain that students perhaps can be intelligent on topics that interest them. Graff opens up the reading by giving his own personal experience on feeling torn between trying to prove that he was smart yet fearing that he was overdoing it. He was trying to prove that he learned just as much about the real world by reading his sports books and magazines as he would have if he had read the classic works of literature like most students in school. Essentially,

To conclude this analyzation of Mike Rose’s essay “Blue Collar Brilliance” and Gerald Graff’s essay “Hidden Intellectualism”, Mike Rose’s essay was more effective. He gave readers examples of real life scenarios to validate his point. He used rhetorical tools that would help the more academic successful audience. He also connected with the audience labeled as “Blue Collars”, with stories from his mother and uncle

In the article, “The War on Stupid People”, Freedman depicted the emphasis the society has placed on determining or facilitating human capacity has failed the less intelligent people. Freedman detailed his argument by providing evidence on how intelligence played a huge role in employment opportunities and academic performance. Moreover, he illustrated the issue of the economically disadvantaged/less intelligent, the current approach is flawed in the favoring the intelligent. He asserted with the evolution of the view of intelligence to the point as becoming a detrimental measure for human worth. He developed his main message by first established a neutral tone by providing statistical evidence of what a significant role intelligence has played,

In Gerald Graff 's essay “Hidden Intellectualism” starts of by talking about the stereotype of being so called “street smart” and and being “book smart” and how in school when you see someone who is street smart but doesn’t do go in school get a bad wrap. People look at them as a waste because they can’t apply there intelligences that they have and use it towards school, so people view them as not the right kind of smart because they are not a A student in school. Graff then goes on to say that maybe it is not the students that are the problem with how they do in school but maybe it is the school that have missed or overlooked the intellectual potential that kids with street smarts have. Graff also says that we only view the educated minds through schooling as the right way and schools and colleges look at kids who do not like school and don’t do well as anti-intellectual people. As Graff continues his essay he says that he was on the side of being more anti-intellectual and he found that through sports he was more interested in sports then he was in school. He would use this love for sports to build up his hidden intellectualism with sports. I think that Graff is right about what he is talking about with how we as a society think if you want to be smart them you need to do well in school and get all A’s or then you are not that smart. In all reality there are many times that kids go through school and don’t do well not because they are not smart,but because people don’t

What this essay is saying about students and education is there is no student who doesn’t want to learn or what’s to get an education. Everybody is capable of learning, but the problem is sometimes the education are given by people who don’t care if you are learning or not. In this essay, we learned that the author was put in classes where the teachers didn’t care too much about their students and because of this he become a mediocre student. Not because he didn’t like school or he was lazy, but because there was no inspiration in learning. Luckily, Mike Rose the author of I Just Wanna Be Average found someone that wants him to start learning someone that make him change his mind.

“My own working premise as a teacher is that inside every street-smart student there is latent intellectual trying to break out”. (23) Graff is willing to dig deep in able to get these students to understand and find that intellectual person that has always been inside them. Graff, I think feels if you push the students hard enough the intellectualism inside them will show through and come out in unexpected ways. I feel he also thinks if you can get the students to relate “street smarts” with classwork they will be able to put together connections with learning and therefore put connections together in life. Edmundson is concentrated on having students who are already in the high-level institutes have the intellectualism be outside of them and have it stay the same. I think Edmundson feels that students who are already at these Universities do not need that push to find their intellectualism because if their, there at high level schools that intellect should already be surrounding them in group discussions, writing’s,