Free Literacy And Intellectualism Essay Sample

“In Defense of Literacy,” written by Wendell Berry was the topic of this discussion in his own essay of whether or not people are really and truly educated or literate. He acknowledges this in his essay by first acknowledging that while many people do go to school and continue their education in this country, people who are supposed to be well-educated have writing skills which are really not that good.
Some points which are noteworthy are such as even some people who teach English are not even that good at the subject either in regards to reading or writing. They are not completely literate even though they are trying to teach others to be. People are just doing enough to get by in college, in order to earn a piece of paper as a degree. Either that or they may be too bogged down with other things to do that they do not take the time to fully embrace what it is they should be learning and instead students are being taught other languages. People learn much of this information through formal education and continuously learning throughout the course of life through practice and even informal studying. While people are becoming more practical to learn something for a short term, they are unable to apply it in the future. The language that people are most exposed to is that which is already pre-meditated and thought out. It is difficult to analyze something that is written because no one really truly understands and the culture is lacking those who are articulate.
I definitely believe that Berry is correct in his argument about literacy. As people who are trying to study, there are too many subjects when students are in school to truly become experts in one area. We seem to believe that we already know English so we do not strive to learn anything else. We are ruined by society to strengthen what we think we already know about literacy. I think about literacy and writing and consider how lazy we have become when it comes to communicating with others. We often use slang or even emojis or emoticons in everyday communication through text messages, social media, or even emails, have a weak vocabulary, and our means of communication is more informal and less thought out. I admit to doing this and not trying to read or write about topics that are more in depth to try to improve my literacy.
In response to Gerald Graff’s article about “Hidden Intellectualism,” he discusses street smarts and that often people are educated through what they learn in their environment. In many ways people are intelligent but this knowledge rarely goes unacknowledged in formal schooling. In this way, people are intellectual but are more able to apply what they know to what they have picked up about life or topics through various scenarios in their lives rather than through textbooks.
I believe that I do have hidden intellectualism. I generally use more of what I have already picked up on in regards to solving problems. When it comes to classwork, I take what I know and can complete assignments and absorb knowledge but unfortunately, sometimes that overload of information is just crammed long enough for a test and it does not get stored in my memory bank. Additionally, some information I pick up through formal education is kept in my memory until I need to pull it out and apply it to real life scenarios. In general, when approaching situations or trying to make decisions, I use my street smarts. I do not believe that all intellectualism can be measured on standardized tests. The true test of our intellect is utilized in the real world. I am good at some areas in life that require different realms of my intellect but in other areas, I may not always test well or write well because I simply cannot focus. My intellect is based more on what I can do through things that have a hands-on approach and figuring out how things work. I may not be able to read and make sense of numerous works of literature but I can figure out how to do other things that are more hands-on that I have figured out myself.