Over the years, there has been an ongoing debate about “street smarts” and “book smarts” throughout the world. Many people side with either or for their own personal reasons. Although “street smarts” has developed a poor reputation which pushes people to neglect the positive aspects of this particular way of learning. In the article, “Hidden Intellectualism”, Gerald Graff evaluates the structure schools use to teach literature. He explains that intellect is not only found in the academic form of thinking.
At the beginning of the story, the son feels smarter than his family. He feels this way because he has had more education than them. As it states in paragraph 7, “I sighed. “Them things got no basis at all in science.” I’d been going to school for a while, you see, and thought I knew just about everything. . .”
The common assumption that America is the leading nation in the world takes a hard hit in Amanda Ripley’s The Smartest Kids in the World, a book that explores the top education systems throughout the world, which are not that of the United States. After reading the book, it comes off with strong viewpoints, and makes you think critically about our education system. It highlights the PISA tests, both praised and criticized for their ability to calculate the knowledge and creativity and individual possesses. The book also features a unique narrative style involving three students from America embarking on journeys as “correspondents” to three of the tops ranking PISA countries.
Leonid Fridman writes about the disrespect and ridicules smart people get for how they live and how it greatly impacts our country's future. Smart people are bullied and then in a lot of cases thought
In Grant Penrod 's essay, Anti-Intellectualism: Why We Hate the Smart Kids, Penrod argues that intellectualism is declining in America, not because of poor education or electronics, but because of the current public perception of intellectuals (Penrod 762). Penrod first supports his argument with the example of an Arizona high school football team who receives praise and attention from their peers for winning the championship, while the debate team, science team, and the decathletes, who achieved the same feat, were barely recognized: The football team from Mountain View High School won the Arizona state championship last year. Again. Unbeknownst to the vast majority of the school 's student body, so did the Science Bowl Team, the Speech and Debate Team, and the Academic Decathlon Team.
In Grant Penrod’s essay “Anti-Intellectualism: Why We Hate the Smart Kids” he discusses the praise for uneducated success in society today. Penrod that high school athletes receive more glorification after winning a game whereas champion academic teams receive very minimal attention. Conversations from websites like TalkingCock.com reveal a collective distaste for intellectualism while other websites like Angelfire.com give praise to famous high school dropouts. Penrod points out how uneducated success is not only highly praised, but highly rewarded as well.
Prior to this age, intellectual ability was not tested adequately, if it was really challenged at all. Today human beings are able to make something of their self no matter their social class, hard work can help anyone achieve what they want. Shown in this idea enlightenment changed the world, “Through laziness and cowardice a large part of mankind, even after nature has freed them from alien guidance, gladly remain immature” (Document A). In this excerpt it explains not only how if humans would just grow the courage to stand up and become mature, everyone would be enlightened. Immanuel Kant preached these ideals to the world, and they continue to prosper throughout today.
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.
“Hidden Intellectualism,” by Gerald Graff starts off with an older argument between being book smart and street smart. Throughout the reading, Graff uses his own life experiences to critique the education system today. Points made focus on the idea of overlooking the intellectual potential of those who come across as being, “street smart”. Different authors cited in the reading to show how to accept another’s different intellectual. However, we realize that people who come across as being intellectual weren’t always labeled as that.
The Rhetorical Analysis of the “America Needs its Nerds” The mental capacity is treated as a disadvantage in the America, despite the fact it already helped the country many times. This long-term problem became the main topic of the Leonid Fridman’s essay “America Needs its Nerds”. The work first appeared on January 11, 1990 in the New York Times as a part of the series “Voices of the New Generation”. The author spoke about the negative attitude the American society has to smart people and demonstrates it with the usage of words like “nerd” or “geek”.
“Hidden Intellectualism” is a short article written by Gerald Graff. It talks about how teens who are street smart have a difficult time being smart at school. Graff blames schools for not tapping into student’s street smart and converting it to book smart. Ever since the beginning we see smart kids as nerds or geeky but everyone praises the athletic guy who plays sports. Through the beginning of the article Graff has an confusion of what is more important, being tough or being smart.
For example, “Still for Joe the shop floor provided what school did not, it was like schooling he said, a place where you’re constantly learning” (Rose 277). So people shouldn’t judge someone as not being smart if they decide to choose a trade job over higher education. Someone who decides to do a trade related job like Joe in this case learned valuable job related skills and became smarter by trial and error on the shop floor. Doing a trade related job still requires extensive training and definitely makes the person just as smart as the average person with or without a degree. In addition, Joe quickly became a problem solver and improved things on the job that made the line run a lot more efficient.
In the reading, “Anti-Intellectualism: Why We Hate the Smart Kids,” Grant Penrod recommends that there should be a different way to socialize amongst other individuals. This entire description explains the personal burdens that the intelligent scholars undergo. The ideas are as follows: author 's guilt celebrates, ideas held as standard when communicating, and on the bandwagon to get smart people worn down by the individuals that are against smart people. The author is afraid that people would not take the time out of their day to read or study for their classes. Claiming that bad influence towards education makes it resistant.
Intellect is a power that leads us to express our smartness. In the essay “Hidden Intelligence” by Gerald Graff he argues that the intellectual world is “much like the world of team sports, with rival interpretations … rival theories… and elaborate team competitions”. He attests from his own experience that intellect does not only exist in the scholarly form of thinking which is known as academic smart, knowledge can also take the form of street smart. He also demonstrates that there are some students are not academically good at school
Cognition is the study of the mind works. When we study cognitive development, we are acknowledging the fact that changes occur in how we think and learn as we grow. There is a very big difference in the way that children and adults think about and understand their environment. Jean Piaget (1896-1980), a biology student did extensive research work in the area of child development and is attributed with the development of the theory of cognitive development which has played a major role in this field (child development).
