As I enter my last few weeks of graduate school—which cannot come soon enough—I wonder where my next academic venture will begin. While typing this thought, I am silently screaming at myself for even considering another academic adventure. I have instructed all members of my family and my closest friends to slap me or ridicule me if I ever mention a doctoral program.
In my undergraduate days, I never thought of myself as an academic. Though Graff’s depiction of flabbergasted college students, in awe of textual material they just cannot understand, doesn’t accurately categorize me as an undergraduate either. I simply believed that a four-year degree was a necessity in the 21st century world; college was the expected route for students who excelled in high school and were clueless as to what to do upon graduation. I went to college because I didn’t know what else I could do. Did I excel while I was there? Sure…but I only did enough to maintain the level of success I had already achieved in high school.
Perhaps I was not intellectually engaged in college. Graff’s educational philosophies strive to engage students with the text and peak their interest in analysis and criticism. His tactics were used (intuitively, I presume) by many of the teachers I had in high school, though I’m sorry to say, many of my professors in college preferred giving lectures on the texts and assigning analysis papers. This “cult” of academia, that views the college classroom as superior to secondary education, seems as though it could learn much from the intuitive tactics of middle and high school educators. The successful secondary educator, with her varied students with multiple-intelligences, must believe that all of her students are capable of producing glimmers of genius, if given the opportunity. College professors, on the other hand, seem to assume that their student population possesses homogenous intellectual abilities and goals. Adopting the secondary educators’ assumption of intelligence might better prepare college professors and academia for the students they receive. Graff supports this assumption in Chapter 11, “Hidden Intellectualism.” He admits that his “own working premise as a teacher is that inside every street-smart student—that is, potentially every student—is a latent intellectual trying to break out, and that it’s my job to tease out that latent person and help it articulate itself in more public form” (212).
This is a smart assumption from a public forum—the University—that seems intuitive. I was guilty of the same assumption that many college professors and some secondary teachers adopt; I thought students who entered college were intellectually superior to their peers. Our assumptions harm our students and the collegiate education system. By assuming that our students know how to analyze and argue and write upon being accepted into a four-year program, we are negating, not promoting, the power of education.