Hidden Intellectualism Analysis

When someone is called intelligent, people automatically think of how book smart someone is. Book smart relates to how much information about math, science, and english a person knows. In Hidden Intellectualism, Graff brings up the idea that intelligence isn’t all about a scholarly form of thinking. “Everyone knows some young person who is impressively “street smart” but does poorly in school” is the first line of Graff’s essay (Graff 787). Nowadays, it is popular for a person to have the experience and knowledge for an everyday environment but lack knowledge in educational studies. A reasonable answer for this problem could be that schools aren’t tapping into subjects other than the worn out academics that quickly in-interest students. Graff effectively claims “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 throughly than school culture, which seems pale and unreal” (Graff 790). One may think a person who spends all their time with their nose deep into their sports magazine or rereading the same Vogue issue over and over is wasting their time or
even “nerdy”. Graff touched on the idea that it was and still is easy to get made fun of for being book smart and that most people will hide their ingenuity. However, engaging in a subject other than the basic school subjects still relates to intelligence. Graff states “I was practicing being an intellectual before I knew that was what I wanted to be” (Graff 789). Graff thought he was only focusing only on sports but he actually was learning how to make an argument, evaluate evidence, generate ideas, summarize others opinions, and negotiate on a subject. Graff suggests that students would be more enthusiastic about writing and reading if it is something they care about. It is just as important for a student to learn from entertainment as it is to learn from an old textbook. Graff believes “making students’ nonacademic interests an object of academic study is useful, then, for getting student’s attention and overcoming their boredom and alienation.” (Graff 791) If kids are reading articles everyday in a magazine, it will make it easier for them to transition into intellectual studies. Graff’s essay implies that “book smart” and “street smart” should not be conflicting terms. Although book smart may be better for academics, if a student simply does not obtain a desire for reading a textbook after countless magazines, Graff would rather take “the student who writes a sharply, argued, sociologically acute analysis of an issue of source over the student who writes a lifeless explication of Hamlet or Socrate’s Apology (Graff 792).
An essay on an entertainment subject the writer cares about would be preferable over an essay on a cliche article the writer didn’t want to acknowledge. Schools should allow students to explore more deeply in subjects they care about so that they learn to be more literate and reflective. If schools wanted their students to connect with the intellectual world, it is essential for them to start at a source they’re interested
in.