The Power Of Thought : An Essential Lesson

In his essay titled “Hidden Intellectualism”, Gerald Graff questions the traditional academic approach that correlates the school curriculum of colleges and high schools with intelligence. He believes that schools may not be promoting the full potential of students because they rely too much on the academic skills rather than the topics themselves. This means that schools often focus on the analysis and interpretation of academic papers rather than considering expanding the curriculum to have more topics that interest students. As a result, many students cannot express their true potential because they cannot get engaged in these school enforced topics. Schools underestimate their “hidden intelligence” because they do not try to promote their

"the word, 'intellectual ', of course, became the swear word it deserved to be...the boy in your class who was exceptionally 'bright ', did most of the reciting and answering while the others sat like so many leaden idols,

Most people, when asked, say that a person is intelligent if they have “book smarts.” People that are book smart can write and converse about subjects taught in school. On the other hand, people with “street smarts” aren’t seen as intellectuals because the subjects they are knowledgeable about are not traditional. In his essay called “Hidden Intellectualism,” Gerald Graff insists that schools and colleges are missing an opportunity to translate street smarts into academic work.

When it comes to the topic of hidden intellectualism, most of us will readily agree that a lot of students are seen to have an issue with it. Where this agreement usually ends, however, is on the question of is it the students fault. Whereas some are convinced it is, others maintain it is at the fault of the teachers or professors. Gerald Graff has his argument that in many cases book smarts can be hidden in street smarts. I believe that kids that struggle with their talents being hidden behind “street smarts” need a certain amount of attention and focus to help them acquire their abilities and strengths.

❖ Perhaps the last thing that should be mentioned when relating to how pupils learn and develop self-esteem is. “The question is, not how intelligent is the child, but in what ways is the child intelligent?”

Many intelligent kids are being overlooked because of the stigma of being a “nerd,” as well as the fact that anti-intellectualism is becoming more popular. A man, author Grant Penrod, wrote “Anti-Intellectualism: Why We

Penrod argues that intellectuals crave for compliments, which is incorrect. “This instance finds plentiful company in the experiences of everyday life; intellectuals constantly see their efforts trivialized in the rush to lavish compliments elsewhere” (Penrod 754). This piece of information lacks credibility. Smart kids are praised for being the way they are, just not everybody in society is recognizing it.

With today’s education, teachers are enforcing much academic work on students to, hopefully, increase their intelligence. The goal of this academic work is to give the students that they will need for their life later. All schools have a group of students that have a lot of “street smarts,” but don’t do well in school. There is a common argument of if “street smarts” and academic work should be combined to better teach students. In Gerald Graff’s piece, Hidden Intellectualism, Graff talks about the academics that teachers enforce on students and “street smarts.” Graff claims 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” (Graff 1).

Jeannette Walls had a very atypical childhood, as she wrote about in her memoir The Glass Castle. As an adult she left her childhood aspects of life behind to create a new life for herself. Her ability to develop into her adult life was supplemented by the enriching intellectual environment she was continually exposed to as an adolescent. Jeannette and her siblings might have not lived in the most luxurious of conditions but they were taught an excess of information which was apparent when the Walls were enrolled into a new school. She noted that “once our new teachers heard us read, they’d realize we were all gifted” (Walls 124). Reading is considered a popular source of determining intelligence, the better a kid can read, the smarter the

In his essay Hidden Intellectualism, Gerald Graff emphasizes the idea that to be an intellectual one does not have to excel in school. Graff argues that a person’s intelligence should not be measured by solely what they learned and how they progressed through school, rather, intelligence should be measured by more secular standards. Throughout the essay, Graff provides many examples on how this biased view of intellectualism affected him and others in his childhood and how he suggests that school curriculum be changed to better reflect the different types of intellectualism.

Gerald Graff, the author of “Hidden Intellectualism” argues that there is more than one way to measure intelligence. This essay significantly considers how Graff’s beliefs on “Hidden Intellectualism” can be related to today’s education system. While I somewhat agree with Graff I find it difficult to completely believe that children should be taught only of topics that interest them because a student should be well rounded and have a general understanding of the other basic academic skills.

In “Hidden Intellectualism”, Gerald Graff argues that street smart kids can do better in school if teachers had gave them the opportunity to perform their intelligence on academic work. It will be helpful if school encouraged students to learn the subject they are interested in. Graff share his adolescent experience to support this argument. He was passionate about sport. Until entered college, he only read things about sports. This habit unwittingly developed his literacy, analyzing and debate skills. In the neighborhood he grew up, to maintain the class boundary between upper class and lower class, it was better to be book smart. However, he was struggle about whether to be intelligent or not. Because he wanted to be smart and impress the

The intelligence of a child is demonstrated by the use of signs, improvement of language, memory and the imagination when articulating in the non-logical and non-reversible way. The child’s sphere of socialization improves when the child is engaged with other people around them; if this does not happen and the child is reserved to itself there is a possibility the child will lack ability to make his/her own decisions in life after (Dodge, 2004).

Albert Einstein once said: “If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” This quote seems adequate for explaining his experience with the school system in his youth. And despite his humility, Einstein does not believe that he is not intelligent, because, if he were, he would not be in a position to comment on the school system rather than himself. Yet, we could speculate that there is a moment of epiphany for the prodigy, a moment that changed his initial misgivings into a self-deterministic upon introspection. In that case, all it took was an Algebra book and some math puzzles from his Uncle Jakob.

There are many smart people in the world that do not know how smart they really are. The reason for this is they have not been given the tools in their environment to know their capabilitieswhat they are capable of. While genetics may place some limits on intelligence, there are “views that genius is not inborn, but that outward evidence that genius occurs via practice, persistence, and maybe a little luck ” (Phoenix 1). Studies have been conducted to help high achievers and gifted individuals to reach their full potential. There was a family of three children in the UK who were homeschooled. Their