An intellectual Person is not only book smart but is well rounded and diverse in subjects such as cars, games, sports and fashion. People should be given the opportunity to be judged by all of their characteristics and not simply on their book smarts. Book Smarts do not teach people how to tie their shoes, cross the street safely or to throw a curve ball. It is teachers’ responsibility to find a way to get through to each one of their students whether it be through sports, television, or a common hobby. But in doing so they’ll be able to broaden their horizon from cars and games to Shakespeare and history.
“Real Intellectuals turn any subject, however lightweight it may seem, into grist for their mill through the thoughtful questions they bring to it, whereas dullard will find a way to drain the interest out of the richest subject. This is what we will be doing later in the semester through our TED talks. I have already chosen to talk about the Air National Guard and portray to the class why I believe it is a positive move for anyone trying to move forward in their futures. It is a way to grow as and individual, meet new people, a means of making money, having your education paid for and most importantly to teach discipline. By my being interested in what I am telling the class my enthusiasm will reflect through what I am saying hopefully highlighting to the class how I really feel about the Guard. The same is true for students, if we allow students to write or talk about things that interest them instead of textbook characters like President Washington or Clara Barton they’ll have a new excitement in school and a more profound yearning to want to learn- or at least want to pay attention more so if it is something that interests them.
Sports are a prime example as to something that is a diverse interest to the whole country. Whether it is recreational, high school, college or professional the majority of the United States shows an interest in sports. However, what most intellects overlook is sports are not only very competitive but are full of challenging arguments, debates, problems of analysis, and intricate statistics that are crucial to the game and ending result of the game or season. For example, my boyfriend graduated from Stockton last May with a bachelors in business; he can tell you absolutely everything you want to know about NFL history but getting him to read a book is harder than pulling teeth from an old man’s mouth with no teeth. What I’m trying to get at is that intellectualism shouldn’t be measured by how much knowledge you grasp from reading a book however it should be measured by the whole picture.
I’m willing to bet that if teachers did a study that entailed them giving a class assignment to write and project to the class about their favorite book or favorite sports team that they’d extract much more information and enthusiasm out of the assignment than doing the same project on Shakespeare. “It is not to exploit through nonacademic interests, but to get them to see those through academic eyes.” I agree with Graff,” schools and colleges are missing an opportunity when they do not encourage students to take their nonacademic interests as objects of academic study.” In order to learn and retain the information students have to have an interest otherwise they are zoning out. If they could take courses that interested them you would see an increase in grades and participation.
