Hidden Intellectualism Gerald Graff Summary

In Hidden intellectualism by Gerald Graff, Graff talks about the young person who is street smart but it's a shame that they don't apply it to their education, he goes onto question and ask is it the schools and colleges fault that they don't recognize these children and tap in and hone their street smarts into good academic work. We define intellectualism on how well you know Shakespeare and nuclear fission but we don't consider cars, video games, or TV among these things. He goes on to talk about his youth and how he was torn between the need to prove he was smart and the fear of being beaten if he proved it too well, between the need to not jeopardize his respectable future and impressing the hood. He closes with how he'd rather have a student who writes sharply argued, …show more content…
Schools should cater to those students who are unconventional and set them up for fields that would better suit them in the future. You can't have a student who excels at middle eastern linguistics and expect him to do the same at astrophysics. Why not encourage a child and cater to what they're good at early on and have them hand in works of art compared to mediocre work. I’m not saying we should baby them but hold them up to standards that'll set them up for achievement. There could have been plenty of students that have been failed by the modern school system just because they're skills were overlooked. These students could have been the next Einstein. Michael Faraday is a prime example. As a child with a speech impediment his teacher ostracized him and treated him as if he had a learning disability. He was a bright child, but showed no potential in school. Eventually he left the school around 12 because of the teacher. Faraday worked in a book binding factory. Lucky for him he could read. He found interest in science books. He went on to become a scientist's’ apprentice,