The old paper

What a shame it is when a bright and clever child fails at school. If only they had the discipline to apply themselves, they could go far. But is that really the problem here? Is it the child’s fault for not being successful? In his essay, Hidden Intellectualism, Gerald Graff argues that it is t he school’s fault for the child’s failure. He claims that schools fail to attract the attention of certain students because schools do not teach things that students can relate to. He suggests schools should cover the “subjects that interest [the students] rather than those that interest us.” That is not to say, however, that academics should be thrown out the window and replaced by sports and video games. Graff urges that the use of a student’s interest “is not simply to exploit students’ nonacademic interests, but to get them to see those interests through academic eyes.” What Graff is saying here is that schools should use a student’s interest as a gateway to link academics to life.
Graff himself tells about how he, as a child, did not do well in school and was only interested in sports. It was not until later in his life that he realized sports had taught him more than school ever did. “Sports after all [is] full of challenging arguments, debates, problems for analysis, and intricate statistics that you could care about, as school conspicuously [is] not.” Through sports, Graff learned many things that school intended to teach him, but never did. Graff believes that if schools were to realize the connection between a student’s interest and academics, and then help the students to recognize the link, the student will go farther than originally expected.
To achieve this result, Graff suggest making the student’s interests a way of academic study. For example, give a student an assignment to write a paper about videogames. This will make the student interested in doing the work, but that does not mean the student will to it well. “As long as students are required to see these interests “through academic eyes,” that is, to think and write about cars, sports, and fashions in a reflective, analytical way.” Graff’s point is that it does not matter what the topic is, a paper can still be dry if it is not written in a well thought out way. Therefore it is the school’s job to teach the student to think and write that way.
I agree with Gerald Graff in that schools should use a child’s interests to help them learn, but I think schools should be aware of other methods as well. Schools and teachers should have an arsenal of teaching methods designed to help students having difficulty with the standard method. Graff’s method should be in the arsenal, but it shouldn’t be the only one, for I do not think it applies to everyone.
My case in point is myself. When I was in grammar school, I was not athletic and very unsocial. I didn’t read magazines or books, listen to music, or go to other houses to play. I was only interested in my dollhouse and Littlest Pet Shoppe toys. I was not horrid a school, I had mostly Bs and Cs, with usually an A in art and music. The most difficult thing I remember doing, was learning to read. My teacher decided to use a new method designed to make us read faster with thoughts on helping us later on in the ACTs. We were to memorize what the word looked like and to read a sentence by memory. We were not taught to read the word, sounding out the letters, just to recognize it.
As you can imagine, this method worked for some but not for others, I was one of those others. I stumbled and fell over one-on-one tests with the teacher, where she held up a flashcard and if I didn’t say the word instantly I would fail. Because of this method, I had trouble learning to read, and even now, years later, I still find myself having to make myself slow down and sound out the word in front of me. This would have been a perfect time to use a different method, but Graff’s method does not apply.
Graff’s method is for people who are bad at school because they are occupied with life. My life was school; I loved it even though I had some difficulties. Graff’s method is designed to help struggling students get interested in school, and I think it is a very good and important method to know, but I don’t think it is the only one. Schools need to be aware of a number of methods designed to help in different situations. Methods for reading, writing, mathematics, science, and even art and music, should be numerous and diverse. No child is alike; therefore, they do not learn the same way.
Engaging in a child’s interests is a very clever idea, but it is not the only one. The methods used should be ads diverse as the children being taught. Once schools realize this, they can help more children that they thought possible.