For the sake of argument.

CLUELESS IN ACADEME: HOW SCHOOLING OBSCURES THE LIFE OF THE MIND by Gerald Graff. Yale University Press, 2003.

Gerald Graff's Clueless in Academe: How Schooling Obscures the Life of the Mind is a thought-provoking work examining the alienation students (and the public in general) feel about intellectualism and academia. Graff argues that academia reinforces this estrangement by making its ways of thinking unnecessarily incomprehensible. This estrangement leads students to view the life of the mind as a game restricted to academic insiders.

One source of confusion students experience is with the specialized jargon often associated with academic writing. Graff contends that the complexity of an academic subject can and should be communicated to students by intertwining natural language with technical or academic language. In other words, Graff encourages a kind of bridge discourse that allows students to cross from their own discourse to academic discourse and back.

Becoming educated is more than learning jargon, specific facts or course content, however. Rather, education for Graff entails thinking and communicating in analytical ways, learning academic discourse, or learning what Graff calls "arguespeak." "Arguespeak" "involves listening to viewpoints different from one's own, summarizing them in ways others can recognize, comparing and contrasting positions, spotting contradictions and non sequiturs, and coming to conclusions that contribute to a continuing conversation of ideas" (23). "Arguespeak" is an extension of more familiar forms of persuasion that students themselves engage in. Unfortunately, teachers often fail to tap into and refine the rhetorical capabilities that students already have.

One way to make "arguespeak" seem less foreign is to make clear to students that this language is an extension of everyday conversation. In Chapter Eight, "Why Johnny Can't Argue," Graff argues that Johnny can argue. A strategy Graff utilizes to bring forth this ability is to encourage students to write an Other's voice into their text. This writing technique replicates the conversations and debates students already take part in. Graff uses examples from his own students, as well as others, to show that students write more coherently when they write an outsider's perspective into their text. If students write poorly, Graff argues, it's because they are often asked to generate an idea in a void rather than to enter a conversation. It should be the goal of teachers to help students discover that academic forms of discourse are quite close to students' own everyday rhetoric.

Not only does Graff want teachers to exploit the argumentation abilities that students already possess, he dares teachers to be reductive when explaining complex concepts. While many in academia resist what they consider the "dumbing down" of multifaceted matters, Graff argues that beginning students need simplifications before they can move on to the complications of an issue or of a field. "[R]eduction and complication are not opposites but moments in a process," he argues (141). Moments of reduction are necessary when dealing with complication.

Another key to the perplexity students often feel about academia is that students aren't given the opportunity to explore why the demands of coursework are worth doing. Graff identifies this as the "problem problem." Texts seem obvious to students, and analysis seems to have no purpose. Why, students wonder, do academics have to analyze everything? Not only is the academic practice of analysis counterintuitive for students, it ruins the fun of reading a text or viewing a film. The "problem problem" occurs because the point of reflecting in detail about an experience or text is rarely discussed in classes.

This "problem problem," he argues, is compounded by the fact that most curriculums are based on the idea that simply exposing students to diverse viewpoints will automatically stimulate critical thinking. Simple exposure is not enough, however. Courses disengaged within one another within a single curriculum only serve to construct the student as a kind of human volleyball. The student is batted between courses with each course possessing divergent foundational premises. The rules change from course to course. Within this model of curriculum, students don't even think to apply what they've learned in one course to other courses, much less to their life beyond school. The lack of connection results in apathy, Graff argues. Students only learn to "read" the whims of their different teachers and to give whatever teachers seem to "want," even if those wants conflict.

Graff believes that the seemingly arbitrary and contradictory rules of thinking between courses should be discussed openly. The fundamental disagreements between, for example, positivists and humanists, should be aired in front of students, not behind closed doors in faculty meetings. Students will not only learn why the rules of the game change between courses, but they will also develop a stronger grasp of the meaning and consequences of those rules. By easing students into the academic culture of persuasion, and by revealing the rules of the "academic club," students can become members who write and speak well. More important, these strategies will create students who eventually internalize intellectual inquiry.

Graff practices what he preaches, using a reader-friendly style, mixing academic and vernacular language and writing an outsider's perspective within the book, anticipating objections. Furthermore, Clueless is much more than just a description of the problem of disengagement students may feel with education. Graff provides concrete ways in which teachers and programs can combat this problem. His pro-active stance draws on strategies he developed during his own academic journey, as well as the journeys of other educators. While some may find his methods restricted to courses in the humanities, his message is persuasive, practical, and well worth our consideration.