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 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. Penrod’s argument may have several flaws, but overall it is effective because the reading he uses a few appeals throughout; however, not all of his appeals are trustworthy or objective at times, his appeals are still effective through the use of supporting sources, clear-cut thesis, and thought-provoking statements.
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. And furthermore, comprehension goes far beyond academic learning and extends into the day-to-day world. It goes without saying that a lot of people know someone who is “street smart” but doesn't exceed in school, yet “street smarts” are just
Year after year, America has been singled out for its deteriorating educational system. Fridman suggests in his passage that this is due to the attitude of anti-intellectualism plaguing American society. Fridman decides to use ethos and logos as his rhetorical strategies in his essay. Ethos convinces someone of the character or credibility of the persuader. Logos appeals to an audience by using logic and reason. In his passage, Leonid Fridman utilizes logos and ethos in order to urge his audience to value intellectual curiosity.
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
“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.
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.
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
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
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,
Gerald Graff’s “Hidden Intellectualism” goes through many reasons why not being book smart could be a good thing. The sports world is a way of people connecting through the competitive sports that always lead to some sort of debate (268). Graff grew up always liking sports and being “street smart” living in Chicago. He always read sports magazines growing up and realized that reading magazines was a good tactic for schools to teach street smart kids how to write good essays based on their hobbies of reading magazines (265). “What doesn’t occur to us, is 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”(264).
“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.
In the short story "Hidden Intellectualism" by Gerald Graff, the main idea is to bring acknowledgment to the idea that educators of schools and colleges should incorporate students interest into their teaching. In other words, Graff believes schools and colleges are at fault for not taking the opportunity to use "street smarts" for good academic work (Graff,2010). If Gerald Graff is right about educators needing to incorporate "street smarts" into scholarly works, as I agree, then educators should reevaluate their teaching methods. Students are becoming negligent of gaining knowledge of social interest because it is not encouraged by instructors. Therefore, the only topics students can converse with are related to school work (Graff,2010). Graff consistently targets teachers in this story, mainly because he knows that educators are capable of changing the never-ending pattern in the school system but educators are not attempting to use the many opportunities available (Graff, 2010). The author, target teachers not in a negative aspect but in a positive aspect to invite change. Graff is approaching the situation in an
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
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.