In Grant Penrod’s “Anti-Intellectualism: Why We Hate the Smart Kids,” the reader is presented with a piece concerning the attitude of society towards the academically gifted and intellectually advanced. Throughout the piece, Penrod brings forth the general claim that intellectual growth has been forced to take a backseat to the growing mindset that heightened intelligence is now a faux pas. Society as a whole has become less supportive of expanding our knowledge, and has moved from nurturing those who lead a quest for knowledge in favor of hindering them through a slurry of verbal and mental trauma. Within the first paragraph, Penrod exemplified that one high school in Arizona glorified their football team for coming home with the State Championship …show more content…
The path to stardom, however, is not one that most of these “media-inundated”, as Penrod describes, youth will find to be a legitimate life choice (3). The downside to our culture’s fascination with celebrities is that an image has been implanted in the minds of their followers. This image, as Penrod states, has been “presented by modern celebrities suggesting that intellectualism has no ties to success and social legitimacy (3).” As quoted by Penrod, the 2000 census concluded that “People holding doctorate degrees earned more than twice the salary of high school graduates (4).”This set of ideals one of the hardest ideals to remove from the upcoming generation, as a mindset is often times cemented to the very core of a person. Sports are by no means a waste of time, however. Nothing can bring an entire town, state, or country together quite like a sporting event can. We’ve developed a sense of pride with our favorite teams, and we live vicariously through the victories and defeats of our beloved, modern day gladiators. However, winning the World Cup or the basketball game against the rival school has not, or will ever, produced a major breakthrough in the advancement of human life. Instead, those types of victories belong solely to the intellectuals who were pushed away by others for most of their
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.
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.
In “Do Sports Build Character or Damage it?” Mark Edmundson explains the pros and cons of children who grow up playing football. Firstly, he believes the perseverance it takes to show up for hard practices is useful later in life. Especially when they get frustrated with something and don’t notice the little bits of progress they are making.
Analysis pt. 2 After reading, “The Secret to Raising Smart Kids” and “It’s Not Me, It’s You” I have come to the conclusion that both journalists understand intelligence differently. Dweck thought that one had a choice whether one would like to be intelligent or not; she thought as long as one applied his or herself, they’d be able to grasp the knowledge at hand and apply it when needed later on. “Our society worships talent, and many people assume that possessing superior intelligence or ability- along with confidence in that ability- is a recipe for success” (Dweck, 10-12).
“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.
In the article "The secret to Raising Smart Kids" I unaware of the complexities that came along with how to raise a child to have a passion for learning. Carol Dweck offers reasoning why students should be taught that success comes from effort, rather than how naturally brilliant or talented they are. Teaching professionals, and also parents should all become aware of the different types of praise can vastly effect a child 's mind set. Student should be welcoming towards a challenge rather than call it quits. This process of teaching students to rely more effort, and have more of a growth mind-set should become part of the teaching program, this could dramatically create a difference in the behavior of students struggle in school.
In Grant Penrod’s, “Anti-Intellectualism: Why We Hate the Smart Kids” he describes to the reader why the majority of people hate the “nerds” and “geeks” in school. Penrod begins his argument by using high school as an example. The idea of anti-intellectualism is most commonly introduced in high school when the classifications of “geek” and “nerd” are used for the people who take academics seriously, and unfortunately get excluded from social activities. At the Mountain View High School the students and workers only recognized the football team for making it to state. Even though the school’s academic decathlon, science bowl team, and speech and debate team made it to state as well.
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.
In his essay “Dumb Kids Class” by Mark Bowden argues about student being categorized depending on their look and what class they are in, stereotypes and how everything is not what it always seems. Students are always going to be labeled whether it’s by teachers, and or other students. Bowden is specifically writing about his own experience with the stereotype of the two classes, how the students are looked upon. Individuals in society want to be a part of a certain group to have a meaning, a power and with that power comes identity. But at the same time you must work for that group, prove yourself so other respect you for what you have chosen, however that doesn’t mean you don’t be labeled.
There is a lot of waiting around to become famous while the world rages around us, with terrorism and war happening around us. However, we’re so caught up in social media and the latest celebrity stories, that we simply either don’t notice or don’t care about the outside world. A quote from the article “Celebrity Culture is Harmful” states “The American oligarchy-1 percent of whom control more wealth than the bottom 90 percent combined-are the characters we most envy and watch on television. They live and play in multimillion-dollar mansions. They marry models or professional athletes.
In Grant Penrod’s Anti-Intellectualism: Why We Hate the Smart Kids, Penrod states his belief that we seemingly “hate” the brightest kids in school partially because of some of the most “noted dropouts” in today’s society. Additionally, Penrod claims that the perceived hatred of intelligence in a high school setting is causing actual emotional harm to the children who are labeled as the “nerds” or “geeks”- thus, the classic “smart kids.” If entering just about any of the several thousand high schools around the country, they will hear choruses of “Did you actually study?’ , “Why would you even bother studying- the game was on last night”, “Of course I didn’t study; I had football practice” or dozens of similar taunting phrases can be heard constantly
You feel relaxed when you're with your friends, and when you're doing something that you enjoy doing. However, one side reasons why sports bring many together and connect is maybe they might want the same goal at the end to win a event or make a meaningful memory with others. By participating in a sport, or multiple sports, it can have a positive impact on one’s
A contributing writer to The Nation, Lakshmi Chaudhry argues in her article “Mirror, Mirror On the Web” about the obsession shared by many with being famous and the desperate desire of being regarded, significant and seen. Moreover, Lenn Goodman a professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University wrote “Supernovas: The Dialectic Of Celebrity In Society” Goodman discusses how being a celebrity is easily achieved by accessing the social media. The term fame completely differs years ago and now. Comparing fame years ago than today, fame lost its definition and sense. In addition, “Media Burn: What’s in a Name?” by Tom Weinberg, an adjunct professor at Columbia College, In his article, Weinberg discusses the celebrities fake their personality in
The value of organized sports, whether at the Pop Warner or professional level, is a highly debated topic. Proponents cite catch phrases such as team building, a sense of community, and discipline just to name a few. There is nothing more wholesome as watching a parent and child “tossing a ball” back and forth on the lawn or seeing a group of children playing ball in the neighborhood vacant lot. These types of activities help cultivate social competence, problem solving skills, and builds a team spirit that can help children be more responsible adults. What started out as neighborhood children gathering at the vacant lot for an impromptu team game of choice has somehow morphed into an overly competitive, politically charged, billion dollar
Sports brings people together in these communities and provides benefits socially. Sports also bring shared experiences and wonder from watching the game. Finally sports is a collective body of experiences, community, benefits and wonderment allow fans to willingly attach themselves to an organization at the cost of their emotional, monetary, and time