| When we were in junior high school, my friend | | | | smarter. John Nash so admired Norbert Wiener |
| Rich and I made a map of the school lunch | | | | that he adopted his habit of touching the |
| tables according to popularity. This was easy | | | | wall as he walked down a corridor. |
| to do, because kids only ate lunch with | | | | |
| others of about the same popularity. We | | | | As a thirteen-year-old kid, I didn\'t have |
| graded them from A to E. A tables were full | | | | much more experience of the world than what I |
| of football players and cheerleaders and so | | | | saw immediately around me. The warped little |
| on. E tables contained the kids with mild | | | | world we lived in was, I thought, the world. |
| cases of Down\'s Syndrome, what in the | | | | The world seemed cruel and boring, and I\'m |
| language of the time we called \"retards.\" | | | | not sure which was worse. |
| | | | |
| We sat at a D table, as low as you could get | | | | Because I didn\'t fit into this world, I |
| without looking physically different. We were | | | | thought that something must be wrong with me. |
| not being especially candid to grade | | | | I didn\'t realize that the reason we nerds |
| ourselves as D. It would have taken a | | | | didn\'t fit in was that in some ways we were |
| deliberate lie to say otherwise. Everyone in | | | | a step ahead. We were already thinking about |
| the school knew exactly how popular everyone | | | | the kind of things that matter in the real |
| else was, including us. | | | | world, instead of spending all our time |
| | | | playing an exacting but mostly pointless game |
| My stock gradually rose during high school. | | | | like the others. |
| Puberty finally arrived; I became a decent | | | | |
| soccer player; I started a scandalous | | | | We were a bit like an adult would be if he |
| underground newspaper. So I\'ve seen a good | | | | were thrust back into middle school. He |
| part of the popularity landscape. | | | | wouldn\'t know the right clothes to wear, the |
| | | | right music to like, the right slang to use. |
| I know a lot of people who were nerds in | | | | He\'d seem to the kids a complete alien. The |
| school, and they all tell the same story: | | | | thing is, he\'d know enough not to care what |
| there is a strong correlation between being | | | | they thought. We had no such confidence. |
| smart and being a nerd, and an even stronger | | | | |
| inverse correlation between being a nerd and | | | | A lot of people seem to think it\'s good for |
| being popular. Being smart seems to make you | | | | smart kids to be thrown together with |
| unpopular. | | | | \"normal\" kids at this stage of their lives. |
| | | | Perhaps. But in at least some cases the |
| Why? To someone in school now, that may seem | | | | reason the nerds don\'t fit in really is that |
| an odd question to ask. The mere fact is so | | | | everyone else is crazy. I remember sitting in |
| overwhelming that it may seem strange to | | | | the audience at a \"pep rally\" at my high |
| imagine that it could be any other way. But | | | | school, watching as the cheerleaders threw an |
| it could. Being smart doesn\'t make you an | | | | effigy of an opposing player into the |
| outcast in elementary school. Nor does it | | | | audience to be torn to pieces. I felt like an |
| harm you in the real world. Nor, as far as I | | | | explorer witnessing some bizarre tribal |
| can tell, is the problem so bad in most other | | | | ritual. |
| countries. But in a typical American | | | | |
| secondary school, being smart is likely to | | | | If I could go back and give my thirteen year |
| make your life difficult. Why? | | | | old self some advice, the main thing I\'d |
| | | | tell him would be to stick his head up and |
| The key to this mystery is to rephrase the | | | | look around. I didn\'t really grasp it at the |
| question slightly. Why don\'t smart kids make | | | | time, but the whole world we lived in was as |
| themselves popular? If they\'re so smart, why | | | | fake as a Twinkie. Not just school, but the |
| don\'t they figure out how popularity works | | | | entire town. Why do people move to suburbia? |
| and beat the system, just as they do for | | | | To have kids! So no wonder it seemed boring |
| standardized tests? | | | | and sterile. The whole place was a giant |
| | | | nursery, an artificial town created |
| One argument says that this would be | | | | explicitly for the purpose of breeding |
| impossible, that the smart kids are unpopular | | | | children. |
| because the other kids envy them for being | | | | |
| smart, and nothing they could do could make | | | | Where I grew up, it felt as if there was |
| them popular. I wish. If the other kids in | | | | nowhere to go, and nothing to do. This was no |
| junior high school envied me, they did a | | | | accident. Suburbs are deliberately designed |
| great job of concealing it. And in any case, | | | | to exclude the outside world, because it |
| if being smart were really an enviable | | | | contains things that could endanger children. |
| quality, the girls would have broken ranks. | | | | |
| The guys that guys envy, girls like. | | | | And as for the schools, they were just |
| | | | holding pens within this fake world. |
| In the schools I went to, being smart just | | | | Officially the purpose of schools is to teach |
| didn\'t matter much. Kids didn\'t admire it | | | | kids. In fact their primary purpose is to |
| or despise it. All other things being equal, | | | | keep kids locked up in one place for a big |
| they would have preferred to be on the smart | | | | chunk of the day so adults can get things |
| side of average rather than the dumb side, | | | | done. And I have no problem with this: in a |
| but intelligence counted far less than, say, | | | | specialized industrial society, it would be a |
| physical appearance, charisma, or athletic | | | | disaster to have kids running around loose. |
| ability. | | | | |
| | | | What bothers me is not that the kids are kept |
| So if intelligence in itself is not a factor | | | | in prisons, but that (a) they aren\'t told |
| in popularity, why are smart kids so | | | | about it, and (b) the prisons are run mostly |
| consistently unpopular? The answer, I think, | | | | by the inmates. Kids are sent off to spend |
| is that they don\'t really want to be | | | | six years memorizing meaningless facts in a |
| popular. | | | | world ruled by a caste of giants who run |
| | | | after an oblong brown ball, as if this were |
| If someone had told me that at the time, I | | | | the most natural thing in the world. And if |
| would have laughed at him. Being unpopular in | | | | they balk at this surreal cocktail, they\'re |
| school makes kids miserable, some of them so | | | | called misfits. |
| miserable that they commit suicide. Telling | | | | |
| me that I didn\'t want to be popular would | | | | Life in this twisted world is stressful for |
| have seemed like telling someone dying of | | | | the kids. And not just for the nerds. Like |
| thirst in a desert that he didn\'t want a | | | | any war, it\'s damaging even to the winners. |
| glass of water. Of course I wanted to be | | | | |
| popular. | | | | Adults can\'t avoid seeing that teenage kids |
| | | | are tormented. So why don\'t they do |
| But in fact I didn\'t, not enough. There was | | | | something about it? Because they blame it on |
| something else I wanted more: to be smart. | | | | puberty. The reason kids are so unhappy, |
| Not simply to do well in school, though that | | | | adults tell themselves, is that monstrous new |
| counted for something, but to design | | | | chemicals, hormones, are now coursing through |
| beautiful rockets, or to write well, or to | | | | their bloodstream and messing up everything. |
| understand how to program computers. In | | | | There\'s nothing wrong with the system; it\'s |
| general, to make great things. | | | | just inevitable that kids will be miserable |
| | | | at that age. |
| At the time I never tried to separate my | | | | |
| wants and weigh them against one another. If | | | | This idea is so pervasive that even the kids |
| I had, I would have seen that being smart was | | | | believe it, which probably doesn\'t help. |
| more important. If someone had offered me the | | | | Someone who thinks his feet naturally hurt is |
| chance to be the most popular kid in school, | | | | not going to stop to consider the possibility |
| but only at the price of being of average | | | | that he is wearing the wrong size shoes. |
| intelligence (humor me here), I wouldn\'t | | | | |
| have taken it. | | | | I\'m suspicious of this theory that |
| | | | thirteen-year-old kids are intrinsically |
| Much as they suffer from their unpopularity, | | | | messed up. If it\'s physiological, it should |
| I don\'t think many nerds would. To them the | | | | be universal. Are Mongol nomads all nihilists |
| thought of average intelligence is | | | | at thirteen? I\'ve read a lot of history, and |
| unbearable. But most kids would take that | | | | I have not seen a single reference to this |
| deal. For half of them, it would be a step | | | | supposedly universal fact before the |
| up. Even for someone in the eightieth | | | | twentieth century. Teenage apprentices in the |
| percentile (assuming, as everyone seemed to | | | | Renaissance seem to have been cheerful and |
| then, that intelligence is a scalar), who | | | | eager. They got in fights and played tricks |
| wouldn\'t drop thirty points in exchange for | | | | on one another of course (Michelangelo had |
| being loved and admired by everyone? | | | | his nose broken by a bully), but they |
| | | | weren\'t crazy. |
| And that, I think, is the root of the | | | | |
| problem. Nerds serve two masters. They want | | | | As far as I can tell, the concept of the |
| to be popular, certainly, but they want even | | | | hormone-crazed teenager is coeval with |
| more to be smart. And popularity is not | | | | suburbia. I don\'t think this is a |
| something you can do in your spare time, not | | | | coincidence. I think teenagers are driven |
| in the fiercely competitive environment of an | | | | crazy by the life they\'re made to lead. |
| American secondary school. | | | | Teenage apprentices in the Renaissance were |
| | | | working dogs. Teenagers now are neurotic |
| Alberti, arguably the archetype of the | | | | lapdogs. Their craziness is the craziness of |
| Renaissance Man, writes that \"no art, | | | | the idle everywhere. |
| however minor, demands less than total | | | | |
| dedication if you want to excel in it.\" I | | | | When I was in school, suicide was a constant |
| wonder if anyone in the world works harder at | | | | topic among the smarter kids. No one I knew |
| anything than American school kids work at | | | | did it, but several planned to, and some may |
| popularity. Navy SEALs and neurosurgery | | | | have tried. Mostly this was just a pose. Like |
| residents seem slackers by comparison. They | | | | other teenagers, we loved the dramatic, and |
| occasionally take vacations; some even have | | | | suicide seemed very dramatic. But partly it |
| hobbies. An American teenager may work at | | | | was because our lives were at times genuinely |
| being popular every waking hour, 365 days a | | | | miserable. |
| year. | | | | |
| | | | Bullying was only part of the problem. |
| I don\'t mean to suggest they do this | | | | Another problem, and possibly an even worse |
| consciously. Some of them truly are little | | | | one, was that we never had anything real to |
| Machiavellis, but what I really mean here is | | | | work on. Humans like to work; in most of the |
| that teenagers are always on duty as | | | | world, your work is your identity. And all |
| conformists. | | | | the work we did was pointless, or seemed so |
| | | | at the time. |
| For example, teenage kids pay a great deal of | | | | |
| attention to clothes. They don\'t consciously | | | | At best it was practice for real work we |
| dress to be popular. They dress to look good. | | | | might do far in the future, so far that we |
| But to who? To the other kids. Other kids\' | | | | didn\'t even know at the time what we were |
| opinions become their definition of right, | | | | practicing for. More often it was just an |
| not just for clothes, but for almost | | | | arbitrary series of hoops to jump through, |
| everything they do, right down to the way | | | | words without content designed mainly for |
| they walk. And so every effort they make to | | | | testability. (The three main causes of the |
| do things \"right\" is also, consciously or | | | | Civil War were.... Test: List the three main |
| not, an effort to be more popular. | | | | causes of the Civil War.) |
| | | | |
| Nerds don\'t realize this. They don\'t | | | | And there was no way to opt out. The adults |
| realize that it takes work to be popular. In | | | | had agreed among themselves that this was to |
| general, people outside some very demanding | | | | be the route to college. The only way to |
| field don\'t realize the extent to which | | | | escape this empty life was to submit to it. |
| success depends on constant (though often | | | | |
| unconscious) effort. For example, most people | | | | Teenage kids used to have a more active role |
| seem to consider the ability to draw as some | | | | in society. In pre-industrial times, they |
| kind of innate quality, like being tall. In | | | | were all apprentices of one sort or another, |
| fact, most people who \"can draw\" like | | | | whether in shops or on farms or even on |
| drawing, and have spent many hours doing it; | | | | warships. They weren\'t left to create their |
| that\'s why they\'re good at it. Likewise, | | | | own societies. They were junior members of |
| popular isn\'t just something you are or you | | | | adult societies. |
| aren\'t, but something you make yourself. | | | | |
| | | | Teenagers seem to have respected adults more |
| The main reason nerds are unpopular is that | | | | then, because the adults were the visible |
| they have other things to think about. Their | | | | experts in the skills they were trying to |
| attention is drawn to books or the natural | | | | learn. Now most kids have little idea what |
| world, not fashions and parties. They\'re | | | | their parents do in their distant offices, |
| like someone trying to play soccer while | | | | and see no connection (indeed, there is |
| balancing a glass of water on his head. Other | | | | precious little) between schoolwork and the |
| players who can focus their whole attention | | | | work they\'ll do as adults. |
| on the game beat them effortlessly, and | | | | |
| wonder why they seem so incapable. | | | | And if teenagers respected adults more, |
| | | | adults also had more use for teenagers. After |
| Even if nerds cared as much as other kids | | | | a couple years\' training, an apprentice |
| about popularity, being popular would be more | | | | could be a real help. Even the newest |
| work for them. The popular kids learned to be | | | | apprentice could be made to carry messages or |
| popular, and to want to be popular, the same | | | | sweep the workshop. |
| way the nerds learned to be smart, and to | | | | |
| want to be smart: from their parents. While | | | | Now adults have no immediate use for |
| the nerds were being trained to get the right | | | | teenagers. They would be in the way in an |
| answers, the popular kids were being trained | | | | office. So they drop them off at school on |
| to please. | | | | their way to work, much as they might drop |
| | | | the dog off at a kennel if they were going |
| So far I\'ve been finessing the relationship | | | | away for the weekend. |
| between smart and nerd, using them as if they | | | | |
| were interchangeable. In fact it\'s only the | | | | What happened? We\'re up against a hard one |
| context that makes them so. A nerd is someone | | | | here. The cause of this problem is the same |
| who isn\'t socially adept enough. But | | | | as the cause of so many present ills: |
| \"enough\" depends on where you are. In a | | | | specialization. As jobs become more |
| typical American school, standards for | | | | specialized, we have to train longer for |
| coolness are so high (or at least, so | | | | them. Kids in pre-industrial times started |
| specific) that you don\'t have to be | | | | working at about 14 at the latest; kids on |
| especially awkward to look awkward by | | | | farms, where most people lived, began far |
| comparison. | | | | earlier. Now kids who go to college don\'t |
| | | | start working full-time till 21 or 22. With |
| Few smart kids can spare the attention that | | | | some degrees, like MDs and PhDs, you may not |
| popularity requires. Unless they also happen | | | | finish your training till 30. |
| to be good-looking, natural athletes, or | | | | |
| siblings of popular kids, they\'ll tend to | | | | Teenagers now are useless, except as cheap |
| become nerds. And that\'s why smart people\'s | | | | labor in industries like fast food, which |
| lives are worst between, say, the ages of | | | | evolved to exploit precisely this fact. In |
| eleven and seventeen. Life at that age | | | | almost any other kind of work, they\'d be a |
| revolves far more around popularity than | | | | net loss. But they\'re also too young to be |
| before or after. | | | | left unsupervised. Someone has to watch over |
| | | | them, and the most efficient way to do this |
| Before that, kids\' lives are dominated by | | | | is to collect them together in one place. |
| their parents, not by other kids. Kids do | | | | Then a few adults can watch all of them. |
| care what their peers think in elementary | | | | |
| school, but this isn\'t their whole life, as | | | | If you stop there, what you\'re describing is |
| it later becomes. | | | | literally a prison, albeit a part-time one. |
| | | | The problem is, many schools practically do |
| Around the age of eleven, though, kids seem | | | | stop there. The stated purpose of schools is |
| to start treating their family as a day job. | | | | to educate the kids. But there is no external |
| They create a new world among themselves, and | | | | pressure to do this well. And so most schools |
| standing in this world is what matters, not | | | | do such a bad job of teaching that the kids |
| standing in their family. Indeed, being in | | | | don\'t really take it seriously-- not even |
| trouble in their family can win them points | | | | the smart kids. Much of the time we were all, |
| in the world they care about. | | | | students and teachers both, just going |
| | | | through the motions. |
| The problem is, the world these kids create | | | | |
| for themselves is at first a very crude one. | | | | In my high school French class we were |
| If you leave a bunch of eleven-year-olds to | | | | supposed to read Hugo\'s Les Miserables. I |
| their own devices, what you get is Lord of | | | | don\'t think any of us knew French well |
| the Flies. Like a lot of American kids, I | | | | enough to make our way through this enormous |
| read this book in school. Presumably it was | | | | book. Like the rest of the class, I just |
| not a coincidence. Presumably someone wanted | | | | skimmed the Cliff\'s Notes. When we were |
| to point out to us that we were savages, and | | | | given a test on the book, I noticed that the |
| that we had made ourselves a cruel and stupid | | | | questions sounded odd. They were full of long |
| world. This was too subtle for me. While the | | | | words that our teacher wouldn\'t have used. |
| book seemed entirely believable, I didn\'t | | | | Where had these questions come from? From the |
| get the additional message. I wish they had | | | | Cliff\'s Notes, it turned out. The teacher |
| just told us outright that we were savages | | | | was using them too. We were all just |
| and our world was stupid. | | | | pretending. |
| | | | |
| Nerds would find their unpopularity more | | | | There are certainly great public school |
| bearable if it merely caused them to be | | | | teachers. The energy and imagination of my |
| ignored. Unfortunately, to be unpopular in | | | | fourth grade teacher, Mr. Mihalko, made that |
| school is to be actively persecuted. | | | | year something his students still talk about, |
| | | | thirty years later. But teachers like him |
| Why? Once again, anyone currently in school | | | | were individuals swimming upstream. They |
| might think this a strange question to ask. | | | | couldn\'t fix the system. |
| How could things be any other way? But they | | | | |
| could be. Adults don\'t normally persecute | | | | In almost any group of people you\'ll find |
| nerds. Why do teenage kids do it? | | | | hierarchy. When groups of adults form in the |
| | | | real world, it\'s generally for some common |
| Partly because teenagers are still half | | | | purpose, and the leaders end up being those |
| children, and many children are just | | | | who are best at it. The problem with most |
| intrinsically cruel. Some torture nerds for | | | | schools is, they have no purpose. But |
| the same reason they pull the legs off | | | | hierarchy there must be. And so the kids make |
| spiders. Before you develop a conscience, | | | | one out of nothing. |
| torture is amusing. | | | | |
| | | | We have a phrase to describe what happens |
| Another reason kids persecute nerds is to | | | | when rankings have to be created without any |
| make themselves feel better. When you tread | | | | meaningful criteria. We say that the |
| water, you lift yourself up by pushing water | | | | situation degenerates into a popularity |
| down. Likewise, in any social hierarchy, | | | | contest. And that\'s exactly what happens in |
| people unsure of their own position will try | | | | most American schools. Instead of depending |
| to emphasize it by maltreating those they | | | | on some real test, one\'s rank depends mostly |
| think rank below. I\'ve read that this is why | | | | on one\'s ability to increase one\'s rank. |
| poor whites in the United States are the | | | | It\'s like the court of Louis XIV. There is |
| group most hostile to blacks. | | | | no external opponent, so the kids become one |
| | | | another\'s opponents. |
| But I think the main reason other kids | | | | |
| persecute nerds is that it\'s part of the | | | | When there is some real external test of |
| mechanism of popularity. Popularity is only | | | | skill, it isn\'t painful to be at the bottom |
| partially about individual attractiveness. | | | | of the hierarchy. A rookie on a football team |
| It\'s much more about alliances. To become | | | | doesn\'t resent the skill of the veteran; he |
| more popular, you need to be constantly doing | | | | hopes to be like him one day and is happy to |
| things that bring you close to other popular | | | | have the chance to learn from him. The |
| people, and nothing brings people closer than | | | | veteran may in turn feel a sense of noblesse |
| a common enemy. | | | | oblige. And most importantly, their status |
| | | | depends on how well they do against |
| Like a politician who wants to distract | | | | opponents, not on whether they can push the |
| voters from bad times at home, you can create | | | | other down. |
| an enemy if there isn\'t a real one. By | | | | |
| singling out and persecuting a nerd, a group | | | | Court hierarchies are another thing entirely. |
| of kids from higher in the hierarchy create | | | | This type of society debases anyone who |
| bonds between themselves. Attacking an | | | | enters it. There is neither admiration at the |
| outsider makes them all insiders. This is why | | | | bottom, nor noblesse oblige at the top. It\'s |
| the worst cases of bullying happen with | | | | kill or be killed. |
| groups. Ask any nerd: you get much worse | | | | |
| treatment from a group of kids than from any | | | | This is the sort of society that gets created |
| individual bully, however sadistic. | | | | in American secondary schools. And it happens |
| | | | because these schools have no real purpose |
| If it\'s any consolation to the nerds, it\'s | | | | beyond keeping the kids all in one place for |
| nothing personal. The group of kids who band | | | | a certain number of hours each day. What I |
| together to pick on you are doing the same | | | | didn\'t realize at the time, and in fact |
| thing, and for the same reason, as a bunch of | | | | didn\'t realize till very recently, is that |
| guys who get together to go hunting. They | | | | the twin horrors of school life, the cruelty |
| don\'t actually hate you. They just need | | | | and the boredom, both have the same cause. |
| something to chase. | | | | |
| | | | The mediocrity of American public schools has |
| Because they\'re at the bottom of the scale, | | | | worse consequences than just making kids |
| nerds are a safe target for the entire | | | | unhappy for six years. It breeds a |
| school. If I remember correctly, the most | | | | rebelliousness that actively drives kids away |
| popular kids don\'t persecute nerds; they | | | | from the things they\'re supposed to be |
| don\'t need to stoop to such things. Most of | | | | learning. |
| the persecution comes from kids lower down, | | | | |
| the nervous middle classes. | | | | Like many nerds, probably, it was years after |
| | | | high school before I could bring myself to |
| The trouble is, there are a lot of them. The | | | | read anything we\'d been assigned then. And I |
| distribution of popularity is not a pyramid, | | | | lost more than books. I mistrusted words like |
| but tapers at the bottom like a pear. The | | | | \"character\" and \"integrity\" because they |
| least popular group is quite small. (I | | | | had been so debased by adults. As they were |
| believe we were the only D table in our | | | | used then, these words all seemed to mean the |
| cafeteria map.) So there are more people who | | | | same thing: obedience. The kids who got |
| want to pick on nerds than there are nerds. | | | | praised for these qualities tended to be at |
| | | | best dull-witted prize bulls, and at worst |
| As well as gaining points by distancing | | | | facile schmoozers. If that was what character |
| oneself from unpopular kids, one loses points | | | | and integrity were, I wanted no part of them. |
| by being close to them. A woman I know says | | | | |
| that in high school she liked nerds, but was | | | | The word I most misunderstood was \"tact.\" |
| afraid to be seen talking to them because the | | | | As used by adults, it seemed to mean keeping |
| other girls would make fun of her. | | | | your mouth shut. I assumed it was derived |
| Unpopularity is a communicable disease; kids | | | | from the same root as \"tacit\" and |
| too nice to pick on nerds will still | | | | \"taciturn,\" and that it literally meant |
| ostracize them in self-defense. | | | | being quiet. I vowed that I would never be |
| | | | tactful; they were never going to shut me up. |
| It\'s no wonder, then, that smart kids tend | | | | In fact, it\'s derived from the same root as |
| to be unhappy in middle school and high | | | | \"tactile,\" and what it means is to have a |
| school. Their other interests leave them | | | | deft touch. Tactful is the opposite of |
| little attention to spare for popularity, and | | | | clumsy. I don\'t think I learned this until |
| since popularity resembles a zero-sum game, | | | | college. |
| this in turn makes them targets for the whole | | | | |
| school. And the strange thing is, this | | | | Nerds aren\'t the only losers in the |
| nightmare scenario happens without any | | | | popularity rat race. Nerds are unpopular |
| conscious malice, merely because of the shape | | | | because they\'re distracted. There are other |
| of the situation. | | | | kids who deliberately opt out because |
| | | | they\'re so disgusted with the whole process. |
| For me the worst stretch was junior high, | | | | |
| when kid culture was new and harsh, and the | | | | Teenage kids, even rebels, don\'t like to be |
| specialization that would later gradually | | | | alone, so when kids opt out of the system, |
| separate the smarter kids had barely begun. | | | | they tend to do it as a group. At the schools |
| Nearly everyone I\'ve talked to agrees: the | | | | I went to, the focus of rebellion was drug |
| nadir is somewhere between eleven and | | | | use, specifically marijuana. The kids in this |
| fourteen. | | | | tribe wore black concert t-shirts and were |
| | | | called \"freaks.\" |
| In our school it was eighth grade, which was | | | | |
| ages twelve and thirteen for me. There was a | | | | Freaks and nerds were allies, and there was a |
| brief sensation that year when one of our | | | | good deal of overlap between them. Freaks |
| teachers overheard a group of girls waiting | | | | were on the whole smarter than other kids, |
| for the school bus, and was so shocked that | | | | though never studying (or at least never |
| the next day she devoted the whole class to | | | | appearing to) was an important tribal value. |
| an eloquent plea not to be so cruel to one | | | | I was more in the nerd camp, but I was |
| another. | | | | friends with a lot of freaks. |
| | | | |
| It didn\'t have any noticeable effect. What | | | | They used drugs, at least at first, for the |
| struck me at the time was that she was | | | | social bonds they created. It was something |
| surprised. You mean she doesn\'t know the | | | | to do together, and because the drugs were |
| kind of things they say to one another? You | | | | illegal, it was a shared badge of rebellion. |
| mean this isn\'t normal? | | | | |
| | | | I\'m not claiming that bad schools are the |
| It\'s important to realize that, no, the | | | | whole reason kids get into trouble with |
| adults don\'t know what the kids are doing to | | | | drugs. After a while, drugs have their own |
| one another. They know, in the abstract, that | | | | momentum. No doubt some of the freaks |
| kids are monstrously cruel to one another, | | | | ultimately used drugs to escape from other |
| just as we know in the abstract that people | | | | problems-- trouble at home, for example. But, |
| get tortured in poorer countries. But, like | | | | in my school at least, the reason most kids |
| us, they don\'t like to dwell on this | | | | started using drugs was rebellion. |
| depressing fact, and they don\'t see evidence | | | | Fourteen-year-olds didn\'t start smoking pot |
| of specific abuses unless they go looking for | | | | because they\'d heard it would help them |
| it. | | | | forget their problems. They started because |
| | | | they wanted to join a different tribe. |
| Public school teachers are in much the same | | | | |
| position as prison wardens. Wardens\' main | | | | Misrule breeds rebellion; this is not a new |
| concern is to keep the prisoners on the | | | | idea. And yet the authorities still for the |
| premises. They also need to keep them fed, | | | | most part act as if drugs were themselves the |
| and as far as possible prevent them from | | | | cause of the problem. |
| killing one another. Beyond that, they want | | | | |
| to have as little to do with the prisoners as | | | | The real problem is the emptiness of school |
| possible, so they leave them to create | | | | life. We won\'t see solutions till adults |
| whatever social organization they want. From | | | | realize that. The adults who may realize it |
| what I\'ve read, the society that the | | | | first are the ones who were themselves nerds |
| prisoners create is warped, savage, and | | | | in school. Do you want your kids to be as |
| pervasive, and it is no fun to be at the | | | | unhappy in eighth grade as you were? I |
| bottom of it. | | | | wouldn\'t. Well, then, is there anything we |
| | | | can do to fix things? Almost certainly. There |
| In outline, it was the same at the schools I | | | | is nothing inevitable about the current |
| went to. The most important thing was to stay | | | | system. It has come about mostly by default. |
| on the premises. While there, the authorities | | | | |
| fed you, prevented overt violence, and made | | | | Adults, though, are busy. Showing up for |
| some effort to teach you something. But | | | | school plays is one thing. Taking on the |
| beyond that they didn\'t want to have too | | | | educational bureaucracy is another. Perhaps a |
| much to do with the kids. Like prison | | | | few will have the energy to try to change |
| wardens, the teachers mostly left us to | | | | things. I suspect the hardest part is |
| ourselves. And, like prisoners, the culture | | | | realizing that you can. |
| we created was barbaric. | | | | |
| | | | Nerds still in school should not hold their |
| Why is the real world more hospitable to | | | | breath. Maybe one day a heavily armed force |
| nerds? It might seem that the answer is | | | | of adults will show up in helicopters to |
| simply that it\'s populated by adults, who | | | | rescue you, but they probably won\'t be |
| are too mature to pick on one another. But I | | | | coming this month. Any immediate improvement |
| don\'t think this is true. Adults in prison | | | | in nerds\' lives is probably going to have to |
| certainly pick on one another. And so, | | | | come from the nerds themselves. |
| apparently, do society wives; in some parts | | | | |
| of Manhattan, life for women sounds like a | | | | Merely understanding the situation they\'re |
| continuation of high school, with all the | | | | in should make it less painful. Nerds aren\'t |
| same petty intrigues. | | | | losers. They\'re just playing a different |
| | | | game, and a game much closer to the one |
| I think the important thing about the real | | | | played in the real world. Adults know this. |
| world is not that it\'s populated by adults, | | | | It\'s hard to find successful adults now who |
| but that it\'s very large, and the things you | | | | don\'t claim to have been nerds in high |
| do have real effects. That\'s what school, | | | | school. |
| prison, and ladies-who-lunch all lack. The | | | | |
| inhabitants of all those worlds are trapped | | | | It\'s important for nerds to realize, too, |
| in little bubbles where nothing they do can | | | | that school is not life. School is a strange, |
| have more than a local effect. Naturally | | | | artificial thing, half sterile and half |
| these societies degenerate into savagery. | | | | feral. It\'s all-encompassing, like life, but |
| They have no function for their form to | | | | it isn\'t the real thing. It\'s only |
| follow. | | | | temporary, and if you look, you can see |
| | | | beyond it even while you\'re still in it. |
| When the things you do have real effects, | | | | |
| it\'s no longer enough just to be pleasing. | | | | If life seems awful to kids, it\'s neither |
| It starts to be important to get the right | | | | because hormones are turning you all into |
| answers, and that\'s where nerds show to | | | | monsters (as your parents believe), nor |
| advantage. Bill Gates will of course come to | | | | because life actually is awful (as you |
| mind. Though notoriously lacking in social | | | | believe). It\'s because the adults, who no |
| skills, he gets the right answers, at least | | | | longer have any economic use for you, have |
| as measured in revenue. | | | | abandoned you to spend years cooped up |
| | | | together with nothing real to do. Any society |
| The other thing that\'s different about the | | | | of that type is awful to live in. You don\'t |
| real world is that it\'s much larger. In a | | | | have to look any further to explain why |
| large enough pool, even the smallest | | | | teenage kids are unhappy. |
| minorities can achieve a critical mass if | | | | |
| they clump together. Out in the real world, | | | | I\'ve said some harsh things in this essay, |
| nerds collect in certain places and form | | | | but really the thesis is an optimistic one-- |
| their own societies where intelligence is the | | | | that several problems we take for granted are |
| most important thing. Sometimes the current | | | | in fact not insoluble after all. Teenage kids |
| even starts to flow in the other direction: | | | | are not inherently unhappy monsters. That |
| sometimes, particularly in university math | | | | should be encouraging news to kids and adults |
| and science departments, nerds deliberately | | | | both. |
| exaggerate their awkwardness in order to seem | | | | |