Thought of the Day: Street Smart vs Book Smart

JBC15 said:
College classes are no joke, and going to college seeking a degree and having the discipline to focus on your classes instead of partying every night because you know it'll pay off in the long run is being street smart in a way. I think the problems lies more with middle school and high school. You can literally breeze through these classes. How come people are acing language classes but can't say anything other than 'how are you?' to someone who is a native speaker of that language? How many of us graduate from high school knowledgeable about writing resumés and managing our finances? How many have their own knowledgeable views and opinions about government, economics, philosophy, etc. I am not downplaying the importance of academics, I believe a fundamental understanding of math, science, and english is necessary. But why are art, philosophy, finance, music, and social studies class taught in such a way that you're just memorizing facts? Why can't learn to be both book smart and street smart from school?
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Our country doesn't stress the fundamentals of academics anymore.

Only one thing is important, and that's standardized testing. Hell, schools don't even focus on sciences anymore because it's not being tested on.
 
ninjahood said:
girlslovewaffles said:
Street smart = critical thinking skills, adaptability, and quick thinking


Book smart = memorization, test-taking, and general academic skills
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this.

da weakness of book smart people is they assume that everyone is abiding by da same "rules" and thats hot they get caught with

they pants down exposed...

da problem with street smart people is if you dont know how to maneuver in a "institution" with set guidelines you will

quickly get outpaced by someone who knows how to work in that type of vacuum.
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pretty much. and yet there are many who don't understand this, that's when u get people gettin fooled by Dee Pimpin. some people who are really book smart have no common sense and are naive
 
Intelligent people bashing thread in disguise. Only on NT will someone openly brag about not being book smart or educated.
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being street smart is more important in life overall. If you're street smart you can be successful and get very far in your career, relationships, and everything else. many book smart people are dumb as hell when it comes to common sense things and social situations. 
 
Rexanglorum said:
American popular culture is usually pretty anti-intellectual. From Washington Irving to Mark Twain to George W. Bush to Jaden Smith, taking swipes at formal education is almost obligatory in this Country. However, when push comes to shove, "book smarts" suddenly becomes important.

When a gangster gets shot, he needs the nerdy Doctor to save his life. When we need a bridge built, we get an engineer, not a community organizer to do the job. When we needed to build the A Bomb in order to finish the Second World war, we got nerdy scientists and not slick talking political bosses.

This dynamic does not just apply to the STEM fields. I would much rather read George Will, Paul Krugman, Milton Friedman, Frederich Hayek, Victor Davis Hanson, Thomas Sowell and other nerds with PhD's and Nobel Prizes, instead of reading letters to the editors by "street smart" cops, shop keepers, construction workers and homemakers.

We go on and outwardly say how worthless formal education is and then we privately hope that we have our legal matters litigated by the best lawyers, our kids are educated by the best trained teachers and our loved ones' illnesses are being treated by the best doctors.
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@Rexanglorum  I'm usually the dude that comes in and co-signs whatever it is you posted but I gotta disagree with this one.

My gripe with intellectualism is that we have a lot of theoreticians who have a dismal at best understanding of the interaction between theory and practice.

Ideally the the best combination would be the equilibrium between academia and the real world but if I had to choose who to take advice from, I'm prolly taking the dude with "street smarts" or "real experience" 9 times out of 10.

With that said I will say it depends on the subject matter and said person's expertise within the subject. 

Take the legal field for instance. A good amount of law professors have relatively small amounts of practical experience and as a consequence write scholarship that for the most part contributes nothing to the legal profession. Some of these dudes are just out of touch with the work that actual practicing lawyers and judges do and this trickles down to the classroom. How can one learn to become a lawyer from someone who really doesn't have much, if any, experience actually being a lawyer?

Not tryna **** on formal education, I'm in college my damb self 
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,  but I do however think there needs to be balance.

Some dudes possess this balance while others who stay  cooped up in the ivory tower don't.
 
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Do yall think being street smart is something that can be taught in the classroom to a certain extent?
 
at the end of the day both parties exist. both can be successful in life. this topic can be debated for the rest of eternity and there will be no real winner.
 
Having both is essential in life. They compliment each other..NT is one of few outlets where I can find both ..:smokin
 
Rexanglorum said:
American popular culture is usually pretty anti-intellectual. From Washington Irving to Mark Twain to George W. Bush to Jaden Smith, taking swipes at formal education is almost obligatory in this Country. However, when push comes to shove, "book smarts" suddenly becomes important.

When a gangster gets shot, he needs the nerdy Doctor to save his life. When we need a bridge built, we get an engineer, not a community organizer to do the job. When we needed to build the A Bomb in order to finish the Second World war, we got nerdy scientists and not slick talking political bosses.

This dynamic does not just apply to the STEM fields. I would much rather read George Will, Paul Krugman, Milton Friedman, Frederich Hayek, Victor Davis Hanson, Thomas Sowell and other nerds with PhD's and Nobel Prizes, instead of reading letters to the editors by "street smart" cops, shop keepers, construction workers and homemakers.

We go on and outwardly say how worthless formal education is and then we privately hope that we have our legal matters litigated by the best lawyers, our kids are educated by the best trained teachers and our loved ones' illnesses are being treated by the best doctors.
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NazDrowie said:
street smarts > books smarts




...but yes a healthy combination of the two is ideal
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Lmao

Rex kinda hit it on the head, the thing he was off on is that a lot of the professions he mentioned have people who are exceptionally book and street smart

Most physicians/doctors are witty and extremely well rounded, most engineers also

You can choose a side if you want, just know that most of what you say is extremely ignorant and can be (read is) wrong
 
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