Gerald Graff Hidden Intellectualism Summary

I have a friend who is great at working on cars. He was never taught or trained but he can name every part and its function, tell you what’s wrong and how to fix it, and spit endless facts about car brands that don’t even sound like English to me. However, he never did very well in school. Everyone, his teachers included, said that he lacked “book smarts,” and encouraged him to attend technical school for a mechanics certification rather than a university for a degree. This is very common and probably sounds sensible to you. Gerald Graff, author of, “Hidden Intellectualism,” an article published in the writing guidebook They Say, I Say would disagree. Graff would probably fault my friend’s teachers for not using his interest in cars as a way to encourage academic thinking. Graff believes that street smarts can be used as a medium to reach higher levels of intellectualism. He asserts that usually they are not because, “We associate the
He believes educators should include subjects that interest students and encourage them to view these subjects from an intellectual point of view. He says this will act as a medium to reach higher-level thought processes and help many students to develop intellectual identities they would not with their typical schoolwork. I fully agree with Graff and support his points, as he backs them up with evidence and I have seen them working in the real world, myself. I believe it would benefit many students and even the educators themselves if they read and practiced Graff’s theory. By working with what students are confortable with and like already, teachers could explain concepts more effectively and interest students in new things such as analysis and debate, they would have not otherwise paid any attention