Well known article writer, Leonid Fridman, in his article, “America Needs Its Nerds”, describes the truthful idea that nerds and geeks, in our society, are ostracized while the kids who play sports and party are prominent. Fridman’s purpose is to impress upon the readers that nerds should not have to conform to society’s unimpressive values of what it means to be “popular”. He adopts an indignant tone in order to convey to his readers that the idea of nerds and geeks needs to fought. Fridman moves to the idea that children who would rather read and build model airplanes are the social outcasts compared to the ones who would rather play football and get wasted at parties.
“Celebrating Nerdiness*” by Tom Rogers by far demonstrated the purpose of exposition for this week’s assignment. Rogers’ uses a comparison strategy in his essay to explain the differences in the labeled “nerds;” an example would be the comparison attitudes of the famous individuals such as Newton and Einstein in the essay. Additionally, this topic highly relates to me because of the issue of bullying, as I too was bullied for being different than the others in elementary to middle school. He addresses that individuals not only endure bullying from their peers, but also from adults that should be acting as role models. Consequently, tyrannizing often creates an insecure individual with lack of self-confidence about themselves.
A respected author John Green questions, "Why is being a nerd bad? Saying I notice you 're a nerd is like saying, ‘Hey I knows that you 'd rather be intelligent than be stupid, that you 'd rather be thoughtful of them be vapid, that you believe that there things that matter more than the arrest record of Lindsay Lohan and why is that?” Many people who are passionate about their studies question the same thing. Leonid Fridman wrote a passage “America Needs its Nerds” in order to raise concern that our society does not value intelligence. Fridman uses compare and contrast to get his point across to the readers.
The speaker in “The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth” is the writer, Alexandra Robbins. Alexandra Robbins is a journalist, lecturer, and an author and many of her works center around the life of young adults and education. She graduated from Yale in 1998 and has written for multiply publications including USA Today, The Washington Post, Self, and many others.
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.
Mark Bauerlein, author of ‘The Dumbest Generation’, argues that today’s youth has had a decline in academics due to new technology in today’s economy. In retrospect, we’re growing up in a different time than the generation before us; the world and it’s products are different as to be expected, and with them we must learn new materials than they did. Today’s generation isn’t ‘dumb’, instead we’re adjusting to the times and retaining different knowledge than the generations before us. Many older generations always thinks that the generation after theirs is ‘dumber’, and think themselves to be the superior one.
Gerald Graff’s argument on how educational systems are missing a great opportunity to tap into “street smarts” and focus them into a path of academic work is indeed convincing (Graff, 198). After all, anyone who’s been through the American educational system knows odds are often stacked against the “street smarts.” This is especially true in english classes, where one is often required to read boring and somewhat heartless books like, 1984, Beowulf, and the majority of Shakespeare’s classics. This is not to say these books are bad or shouldn’t be read during one’s schooling years, instead, the problem is one of apathy. For instance, in my high school years I never even remotely liked to read books Othello, but I loved to read magazines and
In the reading, “Anti-Intellectualism: Why We Hate the Smart Kids,” Grant Penrod recommends that there should be a different way to socialize amongst other individuals. This entire description explains the personal burdens that the intelligent scholars undergo. The ideas are as follows: author 's guilt celebrates, ideas held as standard when communicating, and on the bandwagon to get smart people worn down by the individuals that are against smart people. The author is afraid that people would not take the time out of their day to read or study for their classes. Claiming that bad influence towards education makes it resistant.
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.
Intellectualism is the factor of being intellect or intelligent. The idea of what it means to be educated can be interpreted many different ways by different people. Some think it’s having a 4.0 and going to Harvard, while others believe in the idea of having common sense. In the essay, “Hidden Intellectualism,” Gerald Graff reflects how lack of education is viewed negatively in society. On top of that, a question also lies what it means to educated.
In the article, “Anti-Intellectualism and the “Dumbing Down” of America” Ray Williams discusses the increasing trend of anti-intellectualism in American culture. There is an anti-intellectualism that exists in American culture that is the result of the unpopularity of being smart in High School, the lack of the importance of teachers in the U.S. compared to Japan and the effect of reality TV and pop culture. Williams indicates that one of the reasons that anti-intellectualism exists is that education in the United States is not as strong as it once was. Williams says, “After leading the world for decades in 24-34 year olds with university degrees, the U.S. is now in 12th place. The World Economic Forum ranked the U.S. at 52nd among 139 nations
The reading "Hidden Intellectualism" by Gerald Graff reflects views on being "street smart" and "book smart." He explains that society tends to associate people who are intelligent on solely being "book smart" and performing well in academics, rather than being street smart. He goes on to further explain that students perhaps can be intelligent on topics that interest them. Graff opens up the reading by giving his own personal experience on feeling torn between trying to prove that he was smart yet fearing that he was overdoing it. He was trying to prove that he learned just as much about the real world by reading his sports books and magazines as he would have if he had read the classic works of literature like most students in school.
“Intelligence is closely associated with formal education- the type of schooling a person has, how much and how long- and most people seem to move comfortably from that notion to a belief that work requiring less schooling requires less intelligence” (Rose). What Rose is trying to infer is that just because you are labeled blue collar: meaning you have to earn your income from manual labor, and have lack of educational knowledge, does not mean you cannot earn the knowledge in your work career. There are many opportunities to learn from your job even if you are less experienced. “...One who is so intelligent about so many things in life seems unable to apply that intelligence to academic work.
The goal of the usage of this fact is to show readers this common term does not reflect real traits of smart people and can be treated as an insult because of that. It is one of the few examples of Fridman’s appeals to readers’ logic. The essay is based on general data; the author mentioned schools and universities promote negative attitude to smart students: “Nerds are ostracized while athletes are idolized” (Fridman). But he did not use any statistical or science data to support his position. For example, Fridman could provide data about scholarships and other types of funding for sports and other activities.
The main argument is that perceived throughout the reading is that the schools itself is failing students. They see a student who may not have the greatest test scores or the best grades, and degrade them from the idea of being intellectual. Graff states, “We associate the educated life, the life of the mind, too narrowly and exclusively with subjects and texts that we consider inherently weighty and academic” (Graff 244). Schools need to channel the minds of street smart students and turn their work into something academic.