In “Hidden Intellectualism” Gerald Graff explains his view on intellectualism and how the education system only limits intellectualism to book smarts. Graff also enlightens the misunderstanding on society with “street smarts.” He explains that everyone including “street smart have potential and they are overlooked.…
Burro Genius: A Memoir tells a story of the author, Victor Villasenor, and his rich background from which the American education system was reviewed. This book explores the challenges and problems that various students and teachers experience in the public school system. Victor tells the story of a young Mexican man, who went to school in the 1940’s. Despite Victor’s ability in mathematics, he lags behind because of the challenges he has in the English language. Victor’s teachers and classmates think that he is stupid and lazy and cannot learn English (Villasenor, 2004). These challenges do not hinder the progress of Victor in his pursuit to work hard to achieve his childhood dreams.…
In the authors writing “Hidden Intellectualism” Gerald Graff contends that schools and society have possibly overlooked numerous knowledgeable people by not being able to adapt and find a identify a common ground to enhance their intellectuality, one example being sports. Likewise by incorporating sports into their learning they may become engaged and excel academically. When this opportunity is missed people can be down casted as non-intellectual. However, later in life their background in sports can give them many gifted advantages like the ability to compete, argue and struggle in the adult workforce. In the article he contends what is intellectual to one may not be to another and our schools may be missing a huge opportunity to teach…
Young people are most often guided by their parents and guardians of what they should or shouldn’t do. However, some unfortunate ones are left alone to find their own paths. In their search of making their own destiny; some young people choose to fight against all obstacles to reach goals that will lead to a successful fortune, while some will walk an uneasy way and repeat themselves in the misery of self-destructiveness and self-sabotaging behaviors. In Tobias Wolff’s memoir This Boy’s Life, the author presents a life that is built up on continuous self-destructive decisions; making himself his own worst enemy and causing all kinds of pitiful situations which he hopes to change and evolve into a better self, only to once again find him fallen into the very trap set up by no one but himself.…
In his writing, Richard Rodriguez describes himself as a “scholarship boy”, a label he read about in Hoggart’s book, The Uses of Literacy. His description of himself and Hoggart’s description of a scholarship boy do seem to align with each other in various ways, which Rodriguez points out in his essay. He gives block quotes from Hoggart’s book and then relates those quotes to his own life to show the reader just how much the two descriptions align with each other. Rodriguez uses Hoggart’s book to describe his life, it wasn’t until he came across that book that he knew what category of student he fell under.…
Who ever said being street smart but not book smart was a bad thing? In his short essay “Hidden Intellectualism” written in 2003 Gerald Graff talks about what people call book smart (Intellectualism) can hide into what one calls “Street Smart”(Hidden Intellectualism). Graff argues about how teachers are going the wrong way on how they should do their job, stating that they can use this to their advantage by using topics that such individuals are interested in whether it’s clothing, sports or even video games to educate them. The essay was illuminating and persuasive at convincing it’s readers because of the ethos, well written counterclaim and purpose. If topics such…
Albert Einstein once said “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life thinking it 's stupid”. As stated by one of the greatest minds of all time, every individual has the capacity to be an intellectual, but the way society currently measures intellect purely based off of one’s “book smarts” not everyone’s genius is fully realized. As stated by Gerald Graff In his essay “Hidden Intellectualism” Graff states that our current system of teaching does by no means try to foster the intelligence of street smart people who account for many in our society. In Graff’s experience he thinks that a style of teaching incorporating street smarts would have benefitted him and would benefit people today. If we tried to teach street smart people using topics they are interested they would be able to understand…
By the end of the “Achievement” chapter, Rodriguez has some very profound things to say about his views on educational reform and personal evolution. The things that he says in the ending pages of the chapter do not really seem like they are the tale of a “happy ending” but more so, a large pun or an ironic statement made about how our desires entail such influential consequences. On pages 72-73, Rodriguez basically states that education is a tough process, a changing process even, and if one wants to become educated, one must be willing to embody some type of mental and/or spiritual change. He makes the point that some people, which would most likely be hippies or democrats –but he refers to them as “Radical educationalists”, are quick to…
1. In my opinion, the introductory story Pratt is telling about her sons and their baseball cards not only gets the reader interested in what is to come, but also gets them thinking a little about how worthy their education system. It sparked my interest to learn that her sons were learning their phonics not in school, but by reading the names and statistics of players on baseball cards. Later on, Pratt relates a story about Guaman Poma and his manuscript. She states that the essay was hard to read and very ungrammatical. This shows that he, also, was uneducated due to the fact that he couldn’t write properly. Like Poma’s inability to be literate, the Incas weren’t literate either. A passage in the book states that the Incas weren’t able to read what Poma had written. Granted part of this reason is because Poma couldn’t write correctly, but even if he could, the Incas had no system of education. Therefore, none of them knew how to read. The third valid point to support my theory was the example of her son and the system of how his classroom worked. Like the text says, most classrooms work in a homogenous way. This means that the teacher has the most authority over all of the students. By teaching in this way, most of what the students are going to learn are in the teacher’s point of view. This isn’t right because it only gives the kids a sense of what one person has to say, rather than reflecting opinions off each other. After reading this story a few times, one of the central arguments that appears is that in every situation given, education lacks some way. In the first example, her sons were learning more from baseball cards than they were in school. For the second, it is obvious education lacks because it appears as though nobody knows how to read or write a simple text. Lastly, moral in the education system isn’t there. If a teacher is the only one speaking, nothing…
Gerald Graff's essay, "Hidden Intellectualism," is a critique on how schools are missing out on a valuable opportunity to encourage students to learn more academically. Graff feels that utilizing what he calls "street smarts" is an effective way to relate to students. I feel Graff's theory is an effective way to use student's interests to engage them in school. I agree with Graff because if a student is more interested in the lesson that is being taught, they are more likely to pay attention and actually learn something.…
In chapter one of The Dumbest Generation, Mike Bauerlein makes several statements about our generation and comes to a conclusion that helps set the groundwork for the entire book. His analysis of today’s youth states that the current generation is lacking when it comes to intellectual knowledge. He provides evidence that states that today’s under-thirty population in the United States does not have adequate knowledge, and their lack of knowledge with affect them greatly in their adulthood years.…
1. One way to read Richard Rodriguez’s essay is as a discussion of two discrete educational philosophies. What are they?…
“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education.” Martin Luther King, Jr. During the Great Depression, not everyone was given a decent education, and it most certainly was not the number one priority. You were pretty much fine if you were in a rich white family, but the further down the caste system you were, you harder it was. In Maycomb, the Finches, the Cunninghams, and the Ewells all have a different view of their education, inside and outside of the schoolhouse.…
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.…
This article was amazing! It showed me so much and brought things into perspective. “One student I hears about said she could not describe her good teachers because they were so different from each other.” (Palmer, 1997, p. 3). I want to be a good teacher. I want to be the teacher that everyone remembers and everyone says is a good teacher. I remember teachers that were good and some that were bad. I don’t want to be that bad teacher but how am I going to do that? “They are able to weave a complex web of connections between themselves, their subjects, and their students, so that students can learn to weave a world for themselves.” (Palmer, 1997, p.3). As someone going into agriculture, I want to be able to incorporate agriculture into every aspect of their life and learning. To be a good teacher, I need to be able to have multiple examples and hands on learning. I need to use many methods of learning to help kids with all different learning types. The article talks about two guys Alan and Eric. Both of these men were similar all throughout school. They grew up similar and both went to college. Only one ended up being successful. In the end it goes back to the experience these two had. Eric had culture shock and suffered in school because of it. He always felt as if he needed to measure up to everyone and be like everyone else. Alan did not experience culture shock and thrived in school. He did not hide his gifts and he made everything academic rather than personal. In the end Alan was an amazing teacher who students loved. Eric became the teacher that was quick to judge and many students did not like him. “The self is not infinitely elastic-it has potential and it has limits.” (Palmer, 1997, p. 8). Students are going to have different experiences in your classroom. It is important to meet each students needs and to really listen to your students. To be a good teacher, you need to make…