Words: 1164
What if these interests were brought into the classroom and taught? Gerald Graff, the author of “Hidden Intellectualism” argues that there is more than one way to measure intelligence. This essay significantly considers how Graff beliefs on “Hidden Intellectualism” can be related to today’s education system. While somewhat agree with Graff find it difficult to completely believe that children should be taught only of topics that interest them for the reason that a student should be well rounded and have a general understanding of the other basic academic skills.
In Graff essay, he gives details on his idea that children are not benefiting from learning basic subjects and that it would be more beneficial for them to be introduced to more modern skills that will interest them and make them want to learn. In the essay Graff incorporates his own personal experience with being interested in baseball. He says that sports affected his “anti- intellectual” actions because what he was learning in school was not stimulating his mind while sports and baseball were.
Graff states that he experienced something that eventually made him realize that being academically smart can be very beneficial but that other outside interests should be incorporated in school to make the learning experience more appealing. He uses this experience as a source of credibility to provide evidence for his readers that his theory is correct. He includes his own emotions to help back up his argument that non-academic interests should be taught in academic settings.
Knowing how to add, subtract, read and write will clearly help someone get a job in the real world but also knowing other skills will make a well-rounded person and someone that will be a better antedate for a job. To start Grasps essay, he focuses on the point that children should be challenged in the classroom but they would be a lot more interested if the topics were also incorporated with something that interested them. I have to agree with Graff statement of children only wanting to learn something if it has to do with topics they are interested in.
But if a child doesn’t have a basic understanding of the subject first then it will be more difficult to incorporate interests. First, a child should have a basic understanding on the topic so that f in the future they want to apply it to other interest it will be effortless. For instance, if a child is interested in becoming a doctor and loves learning about the human body, they would first need to know the basics of science in order to make their way up to anatomy and then medical school.
I feel that Graff point is more of an opinion because there is not much credibility behind his reasoning. In addition to Graff argument, he also states that he believes that the knowledge a child gets from non-academic activities overrule academic skill any day. Graff theory of ‘Street smarts” is extremely beneficial due to the fact that it gives the reader a preview on the issue of keeping social life separate from the academic environment. This is not always a sign that academic smarts are less important than street smarts. Greer with Graff on the need to integrate non-academic skills in traditional academic settings. It is obvious that by tying in both academic and social significance, students will want to learn what they need to in the classroom in order to get the knowledge they need for things that interest them more. In class when dents are given the opportunity to write about fun topics that they are interested in, they would be more enthusiastic about learning more on the topic and how it connects to their social lives and also learning more to enhance their classroom knowledge.
For that reason, giving students the chance to research and write on topics that interest them every so often can be used to their advantage to aid their personal and intellectual growth Also, I believe students should be given a chance to learn more about the topics that interest them. Despite the fact that balancing the two aspects can be a bit of a halogen for some, other students may come out of this experience with a better view on learning. Graff tries to convince the readers to take the topics that interest them and kick at them to see if they can apply it to their everyday academic lives.
What Graff is essentially trying to say is that by taking “street smart” skills a child can easily turn them into academic debates. Graff s essay seems to have both negative and positive influences. A positive affect is that it allows the reader to understand the meaning of intellectualism. As a result, Graff accomplished his goal of passing on insight ND knowledge on intellectualism. Graff also seems to argue about points that are disagreeable. An example in the essay is when he suggests that intellectualism can maybe be beneficial but falls short of giving reasons to back up his facts.
Everyone has different interests, which means that what is interesting to one person may not be interesting to someone else. Something Graff could have done better in his essay could have been to talk more about other groups of people who were street smart as well. In conclusion, I agree with Gerald Graff that it is beneficial to encourage any ND all forms of intellectualism. On the other hand, I disagree with his outlook that any student who is street smart can eventually become an intellectual.
Graff concentrates on one example and restates it throughout his entire essay, that topic is sports. I realize that sports do teach children skill that they do not learn in the classroom but there are ways to incorporate the topic of sports into an academic setting. One aspect that Graff does not seem to completely understand is that if these skills are taught more and tied into a child’s learning, then where would they obtain the knowledge for all there academic subjects? Children need to have somewhere to go to learn about essential topics that will benefit them in the future.
Something that schools can do is begin to tie in these outside, non-academic topics and use them as examples to help the students understand the material. The main topic that Graff discusses is the fact that when street smarts are used with intellectual skills they become stronger in the world today. The reason he talks about this is that street smarts have skills and knowledge that they can apply to life real scenarios. On the other hand, there are people that are extremely knowledgeable when it comes to academics but when it comes to real world scenarios they do not know how to react.