Book Smarts Vs. Street Smarts: Which is Better?
When it comes down to skills, which is more valuable: what you learn from real-life experiences or what you learn from a textbook? Book smart describes a person as intelligent, well educated and academically successful. However, the underlying idea is that the person deals with situations (especially difficult situations) from an intellectual direction by using or basing on facts, knowledge or insights gained from books and structured experiences (e.g. studying). In contrast, street smart describes the person as having common sense, having knowledge of the world’s workings — how things are done in real life. The underlying idea is a person who deals with matters at hand from a more practical direction with more pragmatic considerations. When people discuss street smarts versus book smarts, it is usually implied that we can only have one or the other. The ideal intellectual will utilize a book-smart approach that is formed by street-smart thinking.
Gerald Graff, the author of “Hidden Intellectualism,” believes that there are two types of people when it comes to dexterity: Those who have the knowledge and skills for academics and those full of information about life itself, but appear to have perception in school. Most people go to school or college for education and to increase our prospects of getting a job. There are some who excel in academics and end up with a job that pays well. But book smarts can only get you so far. A practical and rational understanding of our situation is what we need to push ourselves forward. Book smarts derive knowledge from theories and books while street smarts derive knowledge from experiences. Relying on theoretical knowledge all the time can lead up to disastrous consequences because a little pragmatism is always necessary to analyze our next move. The ability to do math helps us through a test but it becomes useless when it comes to a fight.
Graff explains in the essay that “schools and colleges overlook the intellectual potential of street-smarts (Graff).” Street smarts are normally seen as “Anti-intellectualism.” However, book smarts can be hidden within street smarts. It is learned through talking with friends, media and our surroundings. Hence, “Hidden Intellectualism.” It would be wrong to dismiss book smarts completely as useless. Book smarts and street smarts are complementary to one another and require each other to exist in the life equilibrium in order to reach success. Graff puts blame on the school system for this handicap way of thinking one is superior to the other. If we choose to believe we need to be one or the other to go forward in life we become half-blind to the world. We look at the world with one way of thinking and handicap ourselves into a certain category when both are essential to be a true intellectual.
It is a myth that we need to excel in school in order to earn a six-figure salary. Neither Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg had college degrees in their area and yet they are multi-billionaires. As Mark Twain said in a biography, “It is from experiences such as mine that we get our education of life. We string them into jewels or into tinware, as we may choose.”
It is necessary to take risks and survive accordingly. When reading a book it is from the perspective of the author and not of the reader. It does not matter how intelligent the writer makes themselves, everyone reacts and thinks differently depending on the situation at hand. Someone else’s approach to life may not necessarily work in ours. The more informed we are about our surroundings, the less likely and more prepared we will be to face dangers and the risk of failures. The ability to read others can help us make an impression of the world, but there is no replacement for the life experiences as we can learn by failing, trying to understand what went wrong and avoid or fix those mistakes in the future. As Tyler Durden said in Fight Club, “How much can you know about yourself if you’ve never been in a fight?”
The educational system and society have made people think that we can either be book smart or street smart. This is a black and white way of thinking which handicaps students and adults into believing we are inferior or superior to the other. This is false. The only way to truly learn something is by making mistakes and failing at something. We can’t really fail by reading a textbook or listening to a lecture. “You can have all the degrees in the world but, if you don’t have a hustler’s mentality, ambition, and common sense you will be lost in the world (Dagogo).” We need to go into the world and see what works and doesn’t work for you only. So, in reality, it doesn’t matter whether we can read and study effectively, we learn by experiencing it ourselves.
Works Cited
Graff, Gerald, and Cathy Birkenstein. “They Say, I Say”: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing. W.W. Norton & Company, 2018.
Truslow, Patricia. “Mark Twain.” Mark Twain Summary, bymarktwain.com/mark-twain-education/324/.
Fight Club. (1999). [film] Directed by D. Fincher. Wilmington, California: Fox 2000 Pictures.
Dagogo, E. (2020). Esse Dagogo Quotes | YourQuote. [online] Yourquote.in. Available at: https://www.yourquote.in/esse-dagogo-iwz3/quotes [Accessed 6 Feb. 2020].
