Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Ignorance Vs. Reason in the War on Education Kareem Abdul-Jabber writes an article explaining the attack on education and the serious problems in the classroom involving teachers and students. Abdul-Jabbar describes how students only hold on to one perspective; students should explore different perspectives on topics, and question education’s opinions on practical matters. Republicans, Democrats, and non-partisan discuss this controversy over education.
George Washington Carver once quoted: “Education is the key to unlock the golden door of freedom.” In a changing world, people seem to forget the importance of a good education. Some dislike the idea of skimming through lengthy textbooks or reading uninteresting novels. Yet in Chaim Potok’s historical fiction: The Chosen, the main character, Danny Saunders simply engrosses himself in knowledge from books. With his father being a rigid Hasidic rabbi, Danny has the honor to take his place, but has the hope of maybe becoming a scholar who studies brain analysis and psychology.
In Gerald Graff 's essay “Hidden Intellectualism” starts of by talking about the stereotype of being so called “street smart” and and being “book smart” and how in school when you see someone who is street smart but doesn’t do go in school get a bad wrap. People look at them as a waste because they can’t apply there intelligences that they have and use it towards school, so people view them as not the right kind of smart because they are not a A student in school. Graff then goes on to say that maybe it is not the students that are the problem with how they do in school but maybe it is the school that have missed or overlooked the intellectual potential that kids with street smarts have. Graff also says that we only view the educated minds through schooling as the right way and schools and colleges look at kids who do not like school and don’t do well as anti-intellectual people.
According to Diane Ravitch’s argument in her essay “Critical Thinking? You Need Knowledge,” originally published in the Boston Globe on September 15, 2009, the new educational tendency of “American K12 education,” as known as “21st century skill” is condemned because it targets more on free learning skills than on learning of subjects in order to aim with the emulating of global market. She explains that knowledge-free education cannot work well if students are not interested in leaning of subject. She stays that students are able to have a deep knowledge by learning the concepts in the history, literature and art, instead of the free-learning without general background. She also argues the educational system cannot expect students to have
" The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to critically .". I have looked over, analyze, identity appeals, in these three passages about education. Each author has discussed the educational system, and it has changed in the time and the effect on the matter. Emerson (1803-1882 ), one of the most America's most influential thinker and writers. Secondly, Prose, she was born in the late 1940s, she was a reporter, essayist, critic, editor, and a mother.
Martin Luther King Jr. points out many of his generational problems in "The World House" that have rolled over to our generation and one in particular has caught my attention, "we have allowed the internal to become lost in the external" (pg. 276). This has become more than true because of how embedded it is in the reality I grew up in and how values have drastically changed in the past century. What also occurs to me is that in my particular generations work is being set up to stop this type of thought processes for the next generation and yet we are still being put on hold because of the lack of openness to another type of thinking. Thinking in terms of how people shouldn't determine their value on their possessions but their intelligence
William Deresiewicz writes about what he thinks of the current day society and attempts to explain why this type of society occurred. His essays connect with the reader through his relatable examples that he uses. The three essays I had read of his were “Solitude and Leadership”, “The Disadvantages of an Elite Education”, and “Generation Sell”. These essays were about the culture of current day society and education. His works brings up questions within the readers’ minds.
James Fallows’, “How Actual Smart People Talk about Themselves,” is an opinionated article that discusses about the qualities the author believes truly smart people possess. Fallows publicly shares his ideas in how smart people behave, establishing the target audience to be individuals who are interested in becoming intelligent, or to those who wish to find out whether or not they are truly smart. Since The Atlantic, which is biased in favor of liberals, published the article, the majority of the target audience can be assumed to be supporters of the left wing. Although the article’s content strongly relates to the topic of intelligence, Fallows mainly prioritizes in criticizing US president Donald Trump’s recent twitter post where Trump described
Being an anti-intellectual is just that, not having the desire to discover new things. Anti-intellectualism is spreading like a wildfire throughout America, and it is having an enormous impact on the education system. The No Child Left Behind act is forcing children from grades 3-8 and then either tenth, eleventh, or twelfth graders to take standardized tests in math and reading. Standardized testing and anti-intellectualism link hand-in-hand. When one takes a standardized test there are specific answers that are hand picked, and you only get to pick one, it is generally a, b, c, or d and the answer follows.
The Rhetorical Analysis of the “America Needs its Nerds” The mental capacity is treated as a disadvantage in the America, despite the fact it already helped the country many times. This long-term problem became the main topic of the Leonid Fridman’s essay “America Needs its Nerds”. The work first appeared on January 11, 1990 in the New York Times as a part of the series “Voices of the New Generation”. The author spoke about the negative attitude the American society has to smart people and demonstrates it with the usage of words like “nerd” or “geek”.
“Hidden Intellectualism,” by Gerald Graff starts off with an older argument between being book smart and street smart. Throughout the reading, Graff uses his own life experiences to critique the education system today. Points made focus on the idea of overlooking the intellectual potential of those who come across as being, “street smart”. Different authors cited in the reading to show how to accept another’s different intellectual. However, we realize that people who come across as being intellectual weren’t always labeled as that.
The Minor Geniuses Introduction: “What the dog saw and other adventures” written by Malcolm Gladwell and published by Little, Brown and Company in 2009, presents nineteen articles by Malcolm Gladwell that originally were published in The New Yorker which are categorized into three parts. The first one, Obsessives, Pioneers, and Other Varieties of Minor Genius”, talks about what Gladwell calls “minor geniuses” (Gladwell, 2009) who are really passionate and good at what they do, but are not really well-know. Second one, Theories, Predictions, and Diagnoses, where demonstrates theories, or ways of organizing experience. Finally, the third part Gladwell examines the predictions and perceptions we make about people.
King has provided his opinion about education is building character. Dr. King uses his words to create an audience awareness to think for yourself isn’t the same as you may call it critical thinking. Against the common assumption that colleges should teach their students “critical reasoning,” Dr. King argues that critical thinking alone is insufficient and even dangerous. Teaching one to think critically is no small task. Most students learn by constructing knowledge based on an engaged learning process rather than by absorbing knowledge from passive sources.
In the book Exceptional America, Mugambi Jouet, an author and human rights lawyer who writes books about law, politics, and international affairs, writes in his second chapter about Anti-Intellectualism. He starts the chapter by talking about the belittling of education. How a “uncultured billionaire turned reality star” had won the election. He then states that people are not thirsty for knowledge and then brings in the word Anti-Intellectualism. He then explains this concept in depth.
Being “Street-Smart” means being able to develop confidence in one’s abilities to observe and interpret, analyze and discuss a subject or topic through learning and past experiences. I also firmly believe that a person becomes street-smart if he puts an effort researching on activities and experiences that helps him dribble past obstacles, easily with the right amount of determination towards the goal that he might have set for himself. The thirst for knowledge and the curious mind for a topic develops in that person due to interesting topics that creates a unique vibe while gaining insights or conversing about the subject matter. For this reason, the person genuinely enjoys mastering his art and skills to become more affluent, and constantly influences himself to strive for the better, so that he too can share an intellectual opinion on the topic of interest. Gerald Graff, a professor of English and education at the University of Illinois at Chicago in his essay “Hidden Intellectualism” blatantly describes how college destroys the intellectual
