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