Teenagers, popularity, and smarts

[Cloud]

or, an interesting article on "Why Nerds are Unpopular." Is it hormones? or just the lack of anything useful to do?

http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html

This is a 2003 article, and I don't know this guy, but I am interested in this problem. My personal opinion is we are failing our teenagers (I certainly failed as one, and pretty much failed at parenting mine). I don't know that I buy into everything said, but it's thoughtful. Some excerpts:

I know a lot of people who were nerds in school, and they all tell the same story: there is a strong correlation between being smart and being a nerd, and an even stronger inverse correlation between being a nerd and being popular. Being smart seems to make you unpopular.

If someone had offered me the chance to be the most popular kid in school, but only at the price of being of average intelligence (humor me here), I wouldn't have taken it. Much as they suffer from their unpopularity, I don't think many nerds would. To them the thought of average intelligence is unbearable. But most kids would take that deal.

What bothers me is not that the kids are kept in prisons, but that (a) they aren't told about it, and (b) the prisons are run mostly by the inmates. Kids are sent off to spend six years memorizing meaningless facts in a world ruled by a caste of giants who run after an oblong brown ball, as if this were the most natural thing in the world. And if they balk at this surreal cocktail, they're called misfits.

Adults can't avoid seeing that teenage kids are tormented. So why don't they do something about it? Because they blame it on puberty. The reason kids are so unhappy, adults tell themselves, is that monstrous new chemicals, hormones, are now coursing through their bloodstream and messing up everything. There's nothing wrong with the system; it's just inevitable that kids will be miserable at that age.

This idea is so pervasive that even the kids believe it, which probably doesn't help. Someone who thinks his feet naturally hurt is not going to stop to consider the possibility that he is wearing the wrong size shoes.

I'm suspicious of this theory that thirteen-year-old kids are intrinsically messed up. If it's physiological, it should be universal. Are Mongol nomads all nihilists at thirteen? I've read a lot of history, and I have not seen a single reference to this supposedly universal fact before the twentieth century. Teenage apprentices in the Renaissance seem to have been cheerful and eager. They got in fights and played tricks on one another of course (Michelangelo had his nose broken by a bully), but they weren't crazy.

Just food for thought.

[Trilby]

I believe Lisa Simpson proved the theory that nerds emit a particular olfactory phemon that only bullies can detect - and this smell enrages the bullies, thus causing the "purple nurple," the "swirlie," the "Indian burn," the "wedgie," and other assorted nerd-torments.

[Cloud]

a much funner answer, that

[Clodfobble]

In my high school French class we were supposed to read Hugo's Les Miserables. I don't think any of us knew French well enough to make our way through this enormous book. Like the rest of the class, I just skimmed the Cliff's Notes. When we were given a test on the book, I noticed that the questions sounded odd. They were full of long words that our teacher wouldn't have used. Where had these questions come from? From the Cliff's Notes, it turned out. The teacher was using them too. We were all just pretending.

This was the part that struck me. It matches my experience with a lot of teachers who didn't even pretend the stuff we were learning was in any way useful.

My cousin was telling me about a project in a school district near his (not the one he would ever send his own kids to, of course.) They took the worst-performing high school, and split it up into 4 specialized vocational schools: I forget exactly what they were, but it was along the lines of Performing Arts, Mechanical/Engineering, Business, and something else. They made every kid choose which "school" they wanted to attend, and tailored the coursework significantly. No more foreign language requirements for anyone, no more math requirements for the performing arts kids. They were initially laughed at for even creating a "business" school for these kids who by all expectations would never go to college, let alone get an MBA... but within 2 years, they had completely turned around the performance of the whole school. Turns out, if you give them things that matter, and that they care about, teenagers can rise to the challenge.

[ZenGum]

Football players get blingy trophies, even if they come second.

Nerds might get a certificate, if they win and they're lucky.

Which has more cred?

[xoxoxoBruce]

When I went to High School, back in the dark ages, all languages were elective, except English.

[Aliantha]

Originally Posted by Cloud

or, an interesting article on "Why Nerds are Unpopular." Is it hormones? or just the lack of anything useful to do?

http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html

This is a 2003 article, and I don't know this guy, but I am interested in this problem. My personal opinion is we are failing our teenagers (I certainly failed as one, and pretty much failed at parenting mine). I don't know that I buy into everything said, but it's thoughtful. Some excerpts:



Just food for thought.

I don't know why you'd think you've failed your daughters Cloud. It seems to me that they've turned out pretty well.

When I was a kid, I know my parents were too busy hating each other to pay much attention to the fact that my brother and I were both pretty screwed up (largely because of all the fighting at home), but thankfully my own kids don't have to deal with that issue, and from what I can see so far it's making a difference.

Admittedly both of my boys are good looking and excell at sports, so maybe not the best examples, but they're both pretty smart too and don't seem to cop much flak over it at all. In fact, Aden has been labled the cool nerd at school. I actually think that socially this is good for everyone because it partly takes away the whole nerdy nerd stigma for everyone.

I think it's true that the new hormones kids face during puberty do make it tough for them, but as a parent it's your job to help them deal with these feelings and help them find ways of working them out or off. Aden has a lot of trouble keeping his temper under control at times and I put that down to hormone surges because he's never been that way before the last couple of years, so we just talk about it and try and make sure he's aware of how he's behaving and that helps him get it under control.

I know in these times, most families don't have the luxury of one full time stay at home parent, but I really do believe that kids need parents full time. I think this is a big part of the problem and the only way it'll end is when kids have a parent at home to help them deal with these sorts of issues as they come up.

[DanaC]

I recall as a kid, being naturally good at academic subjects and naturally hesitant in sports didn't exactly make me popular :P But in truth, I think the eczema and the fact that I propogated an image of myself as 'quirky' did for me more.

What that article doesn't really take account of is the attraction and power of the various sub sets of the school population. It isn't just as simple as jocks (popular) and nerds (unpopular). In my experience the 'outsiders' are quite likely to form their own groups and within those groups different rules on 'popularity' are forged. I can recall a few very clever, somewhat nerdy, but still popular kids at school. Not just popular with the rest of the 'nerds' but also with cross over appeal for the rest.

I was deeply unpopular for a large chunk of my schoollife, but I gained a degree of popularity and reputation by the final year and a half. Enjoying work and being good at academic pursuits ceased to be a problem once I learned to be slightly outrageous in my rebellions and able to make my companions laugh. Oh and to 'not give a fuck'. Being clever, able and enthusiastic can draw negative attention at school, likewise being less able and enthusiastic about sports; but they're rarely, i think, the only or even central components of what makes someone unpopular or a target for bullying.

[monster]

There's a much bigger "jock" scene here in the US than in the UK. High school sports are huge and the star football player is a king -literally. It's reinforced by the adults and creates potential for a much bigger divide between the geeks and the jocks.

But there's also an emphasis on academics and it's possible and OK to be a smart jock -that's what's going to get you a good college place.

The kids I notice as being unpopular in the early-teen environment my daughter inhabits are the ones with impaired social skills. The ones I instinctively don't llike all that much either on first encounter. The ones who can't tell when to talk and when to listen, when to make eye contact, how close to be to you, who need constant approval or insist on everything being a certain way regardless of how that negatively affects others...... And most of them are smart kids. With smart parents. Who often also are not the people to invite to liven up a party. Autism spectrum/nerd disease anyone? The fruit just doesn't fall far from the tree. Nature or Nurture, this is what I see. What could we do to help the kids have a smoother passage? Give more of them autism spectrum diagnoses? Are the adults really failing theses kids? Maybe. Maybe not. Society needs all sorts of people and all sorts of personalities.

So, back to the suggestion that it's the lack of anything useful to do that makes these smart kids unpopular.... could be..... I got in to trouble at school when I got bored.... Thor does too (A LOT).... same for most kids, smart or dumb as a box of rocks. My kids attend a school with a alternate program, with emphasis on challenging kids individually and co-operative rather than competitive learning. There are no grades given to say who is smarter than who, and no makework homework to show parents that they really are getting their money's worth. Kids who "get" a particular task are then encouraged to think about it in a way that they could use to teach someone else to do it, rather than being given busy work while everyone else catches up. So yes, I guess I do agree, becasue I picked a school that does address this somewhat.

[Shawnee123]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

Football players get blingy trophies, even if they come second.

Nerds might get a certificate, if they win and they're lucky.

Which has more cred?

Eh, you get a trophy these days just for showing up to soccer practice. "Hey kid, way to get out of that car. Woohooo!"

[monster]

so true.

[skysidhe]

Yeah those poor nerds who grow up and become engineers,professors and researchers. They can cry all the way to the bank.

[jinx]

Well, some do. Some work in comic book stores and live in their mother's basement.

[skysidhe]

I guess the word nerd is all a matter of perspective.

I was being sarcastic mainly for the purpose of saying once an adult most things even out. We need all kinds of people and that means everyone contributing to society so I don't go for labels and one more nerdy diagnosis is just one more degree of separation.

Second thought. Is your example from a movie jinx? Seems so familiar.

[jinx]

Not specifically sky, just a stereotype.