Hidden Intellectualism Gerald Graff

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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. Schools often focus on test grades, textbook memorization, and interpretation of academic papers to judge intelligence; rather than allow discussion and debate through expanding the curriculum with appealing topics for students. Many students do not express their true potential because they cannot get engaged in these school enforced topics to study or learn the material. Schools underestimate their …show more content…
He wants the two to correlate through developing an equilibrium that promotes a better balance so that more people can express their intelligence, rather than neglect those with street smarts. It does not help them when literature, such as texts written by Shakespeare and Plato, are heavily enforced by schools to analyze because they are so uninterested that they cannot focus on the texts enough to do the work. He explains that “we associate the educated life, the life of the mind, too narrowly and exclusively with subjects and texts that we consider inherently weighty” (244). In other words, Graff challenges that society’s view of intelligence is too directly related to school subjects like literature and history. Most do not consider the idea that subjects like cars or games could cultivate critical thinking skills that schools try to teach. Our culture views these topics on a lower scale in comparison with what is the traditional liberal arts ideal curriculum because of how our education system currently runs. Overall, they rely too much on the literature and subjects themselves rather than the formation of debates and conversations among
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