Why Nerds are Unpopular [Long]

[Solo]

Was bored and typed 'why' into google, this came up on the first page and made a very interesting read There may be bits some of us can all relate to.

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

Its a long read so wait till you have 15 minutes or so free.

Here is an extract

Public school teachers are in much the same position as prison wardens. Wardens' main concern is to keep the prisoners on the premises. They also need to keep them fed, and as far as possible prevent them from killing one another. Beyond that, they want to have as little to do with the prisoners as possible, so they leave them to create whatever social organization they want. From what I've read, the society that the prisoners create is warped, savage, and pervasive, and it is no fun to be at the bottom of it.

..

It's hard to find successful adults now who don't claim to have been nerds in high school.

Anyway, load of garbage or can you see some truth to it?

 

[Dukat]

Alot of truth there I think.

Some of its off slightly from what I experienced, but the majority of it is just the way it was for me, atleast what it feels like it was like now, looking back

Here are a few of the parts I agreed with most:


"Unpopularity is a communicable disease; kids too nice to pick on nerds will still ostracize them in self-defense."



"Like a politician who wants to distract voters from bad times at home, you can create an enemy if there isn't a real one. By singling out and persecuting a nerd, a group of kids from higher in the hierarchy create bonds between themselves. Attacking an outsider makes them all insiders."



"As a thirteen-year-old kid, I didn't have much more experience of the world than what I saw immediately around me. The warped little world we lived in was, I thought, the world. The world seemed cruel and boring, and I'm not sure which was worse.

Because I didn't fit into this world, I thought that something must be wrong with me. I didn't realize that the reason we nerds didn't fit in was that in some ways we were a step ahead. We were already thinking about the kind of things that matter in the real world, instead of spending all our time playing an exacting but mostly pointless game like the others."

 

[Solo]

Good points Anyone else manage to read it?

 

[liloe]

Have a rep for finding this =)

I agree a lot with the author, even if I was much luckier at school =) You could call me a nerd cause I was hardly to find at parties, but my friends from primary school dragged me along often enough, so I always had that link to the others.

Also I think there is a huge difference between different kinds of schools. In Germany we have three types of schools after primary, seperated by your grades in primary (Hauptschule[5-9 grade] - Realschule[5-10 grade] - Gymnasium[5-13grade +A-grades]). I went to "Gymnasium" and the atmosphere there was much more relaxed towards nerds. I mean there were the "cool kids", but the requirements to be really cool were much lower at the time I was there (I think it's different now, but not as bad as on the "Hauptschule", mostly a pool of socially problematic kids). Also the "cool kids" weren't as bad as the author describes.

I think that the problem sometimes is, that the nerds are still kids, but they've taken over some responsability already. This means that they have a much more grown-up opinion about things and are less likely to "simply have fun" in their teens. Adults are not very popular at that age, so everyone showing their attitudes is going to face the same problems, cause teens don't like moral priests.

The other side is, that being stuck up in your own world is sometimes rather bad cause you face the "outside" with a more suspicious attitude. I can say that from myself, cause I sometimes looked down on those who belonged the cooler guys and thought stuff like: "Oh we'll see once school is over and life has started", which is not really a nice attitude aswell. That's the point where the nerd population divides. Some of the are really intelligent, but they build a nutshell around themselves and never come out of it and so they're still talking about Star Wars when they're 20 (no offence dudes, I hope you know what I mean =)) ), while others are very deep into their studies (those are the ones the author mentions). On the other hand, some of the cool guys brake their bubble and go on with university and are just as successful cause they've grown up and realized what's important. I'm giving my personal example here. As I said I was a bit of a nerd, but in touch with popularity aswell. As time went on during school I had developped to a more language oriented person (I blame school for this, cause I was good in lots of things at primary, but thanks to the very crap system nobody ever encouraged me to do more than needed). So I was splendid in language things, still I became more popular with people. Nevertheless I dismissed some of these people as stupid posers who would never win in real life (that's what I really thought about some, yer). Well yer, I still think that stupidity in the world is increasing, but thanks to thinking of me as "the intelligence" I made a wrong decision when I chose my first university path and it took me more than a year to realize it.

Okok, not gonna copy Ebenezer (I think it was him), here comes a paragraph I think it was at that point that I did a complete turn (although I continued another 1.5y with my wrong studies, but oh well, it was a funny time), changed studies and life =) So what I want to say with that is, that the author only describes the path of a very specific kind of nerd, those who follow their nerdness without breaking out of it, being good scholars from primary to university. I had a bit of it all, so I can say it's very different if you're not in such a scheme. I can say that I had problems at school, but I have to say that I'm very open on saying my opinion aswell =) On the other hand I wasn't really member of the "nerds to avoid" (you know, those who talk about Star Wars all the time;-) ).

Well I can continue with personal experience, cause the sportsguys I had in my sports class were really nice and I admit it, I always sucked and still suck at sports. The people who were with me didn't care though and so we had a sports class with some elite sportsguys (and gals) and some really crap people (like me =) ). Now that I've long finished with school I can say that these people are the ones I really like to talk to, cause they always encouraged the nerds to go on and never dismissed them. So I really think that it depends on the social surrounding in what form nerds are accepted or not. Also I repeat that there is a difference between those who shun the outside and those who like to take part if they get asked. (Some people I knew really shunned the "outside world" and well, you bet that they weren't liked at all). It seems like the author shows a more or less black and white scenario. Well, I can't say anything about the situation in the US, but it was a lot different at the school I went to here in Germany. Still, I think it's a very valuable essay =)

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Does school have lots of problems? Yes it has. I think the point with adults not being a representative master figure anymore is very interesting. Of course I don't think an apprentice system like in the medieval world would be good today, but school is lacking a relation to reality. You learn tons of stuff at school, but nobody tells you why you learn it and how you use it in your daily life. Well I had a bit of school experience cause I spent a few months at a french catholic private school and I must say that was the best school time I ever had. Not fun-wise of course, but learning-wise. In Germany you only have school half a day and there it was a full time job. Sure, there was less time to play, but the children overall were very different. They cared about looks aswell, but they worked much more to achieve something and there even was a subject called "techno" which had to do with technical stuff, including computer and regular mechanics, shown on real examples and not on some abstract sheet of paper. I didn't like the subject much, but it was good and I think full day school with more relevance to real life is the way to go.

I read in a magazine, that the Bosch enterprise now sends their technicians to some primary schools to teach the kids the basics of organizing a project and to show them how the real world works. I think this is very good and a step forward to neuter the differences between the different groups of people cause if you have to work together, you forget some differences. Children want to be challenged within their capacities, else they try to exceed at other things, like the author describes with his artificial hierarchy. This exactly is the point where the nerds form, cause they realize somehow (like the author says, even without knowing themselves that they do), that there is more than some shallow values that will most likely not be of any importance later on.

P.S. I don't consider myself much of a nerd nowadays =)) Phone me and ask me to go out somewhere and I'll most likely say yes =)

 

[Solo]

Also I think there is a huge difference between different kinds of schools. In Germany we have three types of schools after primary, seperated by your grades in primary (Hauptschule[5-9 grade] - Realschule[5-10 grade] - Gymnasium[5-13grade +A-grades]).

I find that very interesting that depending on what grades you get determines the type of school you go to. Would you say it is the best scheme? That divison seems to come a very young age so will be completely down to natural ability or how far your parents have tried to educate you at home before school.

The only way I can relate that to the UK is some schools (grammar) have an exam in order to get and only the best are selected. These are very rare though.

Another way is a similar thing is done over here is in 'sets' where you all go to the same school but classes are divided into sets based on ability. While this benefits the high achievers as the distractions of kids not as keen on learning are taken away. The top sets are really pushed to their limits through competition. It seriously hampers the lower sets in my opinion as they tend to be given less experienced teachers and not pushed to their ability, they require more time and individual teaching to achieve the same standards yet they recieve lesser teaching to an extent. They do not see the top students as lose aspirations to some degree.

I could relate to this by seeing some of my friends at my school in lower sets have constantly changing and poor teachers, while in the higher sets we had extra classes and the best and most experienced teachers. The balance of resources was definitely in the top sector perhaps pushing for the easiest high marks. (for school statistics? - very important these days in competiviness in attaching new students) As a result I could fairly comfortably get where I wanted to be for further education with too much 'natural ability' but for some of my unfortunate friends in lower sets found their paths plagued with difficulty which will affect them for the rest of their lives I believe.

It may also have the effect of alienating both sides, perhaps strengenthing this nerd/cool divide.

shown on real examples and not on some abstract sheet of paper. I didn't like the subject much, but it was good and I think full day school with more relevance to real life is the way to go.

I also think in todays world this kind of relevence to real life in the curiculum is so hard to achieve, maybe people are scared to change (politicians). A complete overhaul of the education would be a very dangerous thing in terms of their popularity. Teachers would have to requalify etc. However it could be infinitely powerful in that teaching relevent skills to the world could reduce time spent in education.?

Perhaps this is most seen in IT and technology which is changing so rapidly in the real world that the circulum is so out of date even when it is first released.

But yes I agree with you its not so black and white only in the extreme cases but the idea of the 'bubble' system I find the most intriguing.

 

[liloe]

I find that very interesting that depending on what grades you get determines the type of school you go to. Would you say it is the best scheme? That divison seems to come a very young age so will be completely down to natural ability or how far your parents have tried to educate you at home before school.

Well generally I think it's a good thing to make such a division because it helps to build a social integrity in school, as there are more people thinking the same way. Also it helps teachers when they know that they're always facing a special kind of children, so they can prepare better (at least I think so).

Of course it's not all painted in rose, because often enough the kids of socially problematic parents go to the "lower" schools and they generally have more problems in school aswell. This is partly due to the simply problem that sometimes parents can't help their kids cause they weren't that good in school themselves. A good solution to this would be to hire students on a part time job (as they do in France) to help out these people in special classes (it's like 60 people sitting in a room doing their homework and if they got problems they can ask the student and he comes to explain it to them).

 

[Ezteq]

i like nerds, always have.

 

[tris-]

im not sure its that good idea to segregate kids at the age of 10 or what ever it is because of grades they got in primary. i did shit in primary if i remember rightly, i did shit in the SATs and because of that i was underestimated by teachers. i was predicted to get Cs and Ds in GCSE and i came out with Bs and i got a merit in an AVCE. so you could say im pretty average, but if i was segregated to the retard school where everyone fights and cant add 2 and 2 id of done a lot worse (i believe anyway)

 

[Chronictank]

im not sure its that good idea to segregate kids at the age of 10 or what ever it is because of grades they got in primary. i did shit in primary if i remember rightly, i did shit in the SATs and because of that i was underestimated by teachers. i was predicted to get Cs and Ds in GCSE and i came out with Bs and i got a merit in an AVCE. so you could say im pretty average, but if i was segregated to the retard school where everyone fights and cant add 2 and 2 id of done a lot worse (i believe anyway)

Tbh mate, i would much rather be in a class that was segregated and a good learning enviroment than a class where people who very obviously dont want to learn are disrupting it. You said yourself you dont know where you would be if you were segregated to a "retard school", but average students would go to the average class not the bottom sets so you would be with people of the same level as you.
You arent taught the same stuff, it is different depending on what set you are in as they tend to push the higher students to do the harder things

 

[tris-]

but what about the ones like me, who wanted to learn but just couldnt?
if i was in that system i would be with all the mongs and wouldnt learn jack shit. gaining average or less would of seen me with them.

im in uni now though, so it doesnt much anymore. but i may not have been under another system.

 

[Chronictank]

but what about the ones like me, who wanted to learn but just couldnt?
if i was in that system i would be with all the mongs and wouldnt learn jack shit. gaining average or less would of seen me with them.

im in uni now though, so it doesnt much anymore. but i may not have been under another system.

The groups arent set in stone tho,
if you are showing potential they will bump you up a group. If you dont, you stay where you are and quite frankly (no offence intended) if you cba then why should you be moved up?
If its a matter of you simply cant learn it, or exam badly your potential will still come though, me for example, i am completely pathetic at exams. I average about 50-60% but my coursework and practical extercises pull my grade up to about 70-80%.

The only exception being grammar schools where you are tested before you get in, this is really the brightest students in the area being segregated, as a result they are pushed to harder work. I went to a grammar school and you were expected to do 3 languages (french, german, latin) for 3 years, and then specialise at GCSE.
I dont know anyone from a secondary school was forced to do the same