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Xiomara Bates Professor Newhart English-1010 20 February 2014 What do most learning institutions deem as academics?

Intelligence does not need to fall within the scope of what society deems as academics. Even though some people have expansive knowledge about life, sometimes it seems hard for them to apply it in school. This is because most of the information they manage is about topics that interest them or things they do on a daily basis; but in school, they are required to work with a curriculum that often does not draw their interest. I will be discussing the author argument by which he claims academic analysis is universal and can applied to almost anything (Graff 199) and I will be referring to the article Hidden Intellectualism by Gerald Graff ,They Say I Say with readings 2nd edition to base my text. I would like to start by agreeing with the author in stating that educated life is often misunderstood and protests that those found to be identified by it are considered to have knowledge of intellectual topics. I think being intelligent is not limited to what other people consider to be important or relevant, but one should be able not extract from everyday life a model of intellectuality that can be applied to their own life interests like sports, fashion, etc. I also agree with the notion that most of us could do better than we are presently doing , whether it be focusing more on getting ahead in the job field or on an assignment in academia success affects each of our lives; this is where education takes place and the quality of it becomes the main point of my text. If the primary and secondary level education meets a high standard, then the students that receive that education are going to be better prepared for the rest of their lives whether or not

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they pursue college or university studies. In order to achieve a higher standard, there is a requirement of high quality and highly motivated educators to guide the learning environment in the classroom. In order to provide higher quality educators you must have a higher budget for their salaries, which is another topic entirely but merits mention here as it is part of the equation. The necessitation of high quality basic education is not a new subject, it is clearly known by the people that control the public educational system as expressed through requisite examinations from elementary through high school. Now that the problem is recognized there needs to be a greater focus in order to formulate a plan that gets effective results. The timing of an education can be key to a long and successful career. Obviously if a person graduates high school at 18 or 19 years old and immediately goes on to pursue a postsecondary education they will have a jump-start on a person who does not complete high school until later in life or someone who, even though they graduated at the same age, went on to endeavor other interests or to labor instead of furthering their education immediately. There are numerous studies that exemplify this point in their pointing out average differences in lifetime income when comparing the income of a high school graduate with that of a person with a specified university degree, be it an associates degree, a bachelor degree or beyond. The content is a particularly significant part of the topic at hand. There is a lot of focus from the author on this, as he believes that it is a good idea to assign readings and topics that are close to students existing interests (Graff 202). For example, if a student is entirely disinterested in classical readings and finds themself day-dreaming through a class instead of focusing on learning about writing and literacy, then they are not likely to progress much in a course that requires that subject matter. However, if they are intrigued by something like cars or dance and can read for hours about those topics, then it would be wise, on the educators part,

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and much more effective to teach that student those same skills of literacy basing their work on materials of interest to their students rather than something that puts them to sleep after 15 seconds. There are examples of this concept being applied in many communities throughout the country. For example: in Washington State there is a secondary school named River's Edge High School where the professors, some of whom previously taught at Ivy League universities, allow their students to select their topic of interest for a given assignment and then hold them to the same standards of final evaluation. Even with varied topics the students prove this an effective method of learning as they turn out final products well worthy of passing grades and are thus provided with a higher level of literacy than they had upon matriculation, which capacities they can then utilize in further education and in the workforce. My own view is that there must be a balance in all things. Thought I concede that what the author argues would be effective in developing their academic ability, I still maintain that a limit to this tactic needs to be applied since it is common for students to get excited about the opportunity to write about their passions, or wherever topic they may select, which often results in poorly developed and unreflective work. However, if a topic of daily life is the only way to prevent a total loss of interest of the student then it would be best to use that as a source of inspiration because, in the long run, that will be equally effective in developing their academic ability rather than focusing on something that they are obligated to write about but that is not appealing to them at all. Ultimately, it is apparent that educated life or the life of the mind as Graff (198) refers to it, is misunderstood, linking it with the exclusive knowledge of academics when it is really about having the ability to think in a variety of life situations. This is why academic analysis is universal and can be applied to almost anything, which is why education becomes an important part of my text, basing it on some relevant points such as the quality of the educators, the timing

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and content utilized to teach. Now I invite you to ask yourself who do you consider to be truly educated.

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Work Cited

Graff, Graff. Hidden Intellectualism. They Say I Say. 2nd ed. New York London: W. W. Norton, 2010. Pages 198-205. Print.