Get Schooled

By Becca

March 29, 2006 09:11 AM | Link to this

I don’t consider myself a math person, but I do consider myself a nerd. I am a scfi nerd and I do encourage my students to read, read, read. It isn’t a popular thing.

By Brayn

March 29, 2006 10:09 AM | Link to this

Boy, am I sick of people implying that smart people have no style, no personality, no anything-but-brains. It’s an incredibly ugly stereotype, and the foundation for much of what is “wrong” with education these days.

By MMM

March 29, 2006 10:58 AM | Link to this

When I was in k-12 I was picked on for being willing to actually answer questions and study.

In engineering school the culture was completely different. When students refered to another student as “a good geek”, it was meant as high admiration for someone who could figure out and fix things with confidence. My husband (also an engineer)and I throw the term “geek” around all the time as a shorthand for “showing technical competence”—but the other day I casually used it in that manner in an e-mail read by elementary educators and they sure did let me know that it was NOT PROPER.

This says something profoundly sad about our values—and is partly why parents of “gifted” kids feel they must fight so hard to pull their kid out of the mainstream group. So many smart kids feel they must hide it to fit in. Shame on us!

By The Jock

March 29, 2006 10:59 AM | Link to this

An all that jock stuff i was trying to do in high school has not been of great benefit to my career aspirations. About the only thing i can do now is sit own my fat a* in my easy chair and shoot the bull with you about the Georgia bull-dogs. My high school nerd friend is out ball room danceing with the best looking blonde on the block. His ballet danceing in high school is really paying off.

By Leia

March 29, 2006 11:15 AM | Link to this

I’m not a nerd, but, I’m definitely a geek! What’s more, I embrace my geekiness and try to make my students recognize the value of my geekitocity. Now they know that geeks can be cool, attractive, smart, funny and all other attributes that are “acceptable.”

By LHK

March 29, 2006 11:28 AM | Link to this

From my experience, there’s a divide between general intelligence and nerdiness. The kids pegged as nerds are the ones who possess the combination of book smarts and off-kilter social skills. Kids who are outgoing and socially smart as well as book smart are usually afforded a good deal of respect by their peers. They’re the ones who can get voted class president and “most likely to succeed.”

The ones who are academically ahead yet socially behind are the ones who are going to get the “nerd” label and struggle with feelings of underconfidence. I had this problem up until my last year of high school. I remember being in the final two contestants of the school spelling bee in 8th grade… and purposely misspelling my last word because I didn’t want another notch in my Quiet Bookish Unsociable Nerd Girl belt. I sure wish I’d taken that word and gone to the county spelling bee; maybe I would have met more people like me.

By Nel

March 29, 2006 11:51 AM | Link to this

Today the “geeky” types are the entrepreneurs providing work for the “cool” people, but the kids in school right now are not made aware that it’s a good thing. Kids need to be shown that geeks rule in today’s business environment. Musicians and jocks come and go very quickly. If a kid can completely figure out a videogame in a couple of hours without reading the instructions, to me that’s totally geeky and there is a very fertile brain in there that’s probably not being challenged in the right way at school. Maybe school field trips should be more outside the box to expose kids to real world jobs where your brainpower comes into play. Kids understand the concept of having money and you can make money consistently using your geek abilities. Since kids typically follow the leader, they need to be shown being called a geek is really a backhanded compliment.

By Nel

March 29, 2006 11:57 AM | Link to this

LHK, it is unfortunate that despite what people say, popularity is still the standard, and kids who are not considered “popular” have a hard time of it typically until they get to the college level and finding people who don’t necessarily care about being cool or in. I child is in that geek category, plus has never been into “girly” things, which can be hard for a pre-teen/teen girl. As a society, we need to show that it’s cool to be different because the “different” people are the moves and shakers in history.

By David200

March 29, 2006 12:03 PM | Link to this

LHK, Few kids have the combination of brains and social skills. The ones that appear to have both have great social skills and an ability to fake “book-smarts.” The book-smart and poor social-skills kids are the norm, not the exception. The ones high school kids vote most likely to succeed rarely do – unless their parents help them out. They’re found out in college because they don’t impress brainy adults. I hate to inject politics here so I’ll use both sides of the isle: our current president and former president. Both went off to prestigious universities at some point. The difference was that our current president had wealthy parents who could buy him his degree (Yale), and the former didn’t (Oxford). Do you remember our current president’s comment at his college reunion? Something to the effect, ‘Aren’t you surprised to see what I’ve done?’

Georgia’s Governors Honors program was initially for the nerds. It was great for these kids to see other kids like themselves and see that while high ability was discouraged by their classmates, there were many kids just like themselves. Unfortunately, like everything, the “norms” do the selecting now and most of the great social-skills kids get picked now.

By Amy

March 29, 2006 02:05 PM | Link to this

My husband and I are both computer nerds. I love Suduko puzzles and I do at least one (okay probably 4) online every day. Someone told me I shouldn’t let that fact be known because people might think I was a geek. Who cares? I’m 40, I’m keeping my brain active and I’m doing something I enjoy.

It’s sad that kids get labeled as ‘geeks’ or ‘nerds’ when they are just following their bent.
(I hate to bring this up because I will end up with hateful comments directed at me. Just remember I’m NOT MrLiberty.) This is actually one reason we decided to homeschool our son. He’s not talented athletically but he is ‘gifted’ in many areas. We’ve been able to direct him into areas he enjoys without worrying about labels or teasing. He has other homeschool friends who are also into the same ‘geeky’ kind of subjects like science, chess, Lord of the Rings.

I’ve been very open with my son that while he is talented in some areas (reading at age 2), he is not in others (still runs like a girl). There are other people who are talented in areas that he is not. We are all created differently. Knowing this has allowed him to have a deep friendship with a boy his age who doesn’t read yet but who loves a lot of the same things he does. His friend doesnt mind that my son can’t run as fast or skate as well as he does and my son doesn’t mind the fact that his 10-yr-old friend can’t read as well as he does. They accept and enjoy each other’s differences.

I think all parents can help their kids to see their own personal strengths without denigrating the strengths of others. If we were all the same this world be so boring!

By Ernest

March 29, 2006 02:09 PM | Link to this

Was it my pocket protector, slide rule, and mechanical pencils that gave it away? Nowadays, I only have the mechanical pencils but being called a nerd by my kids recently brought back memories, mostly funny. It is unfortunately that ‘being smart’ and ‘doing your homework’ are sometimes perceived as uncool. I’m glad my kids are in an environment with ‘like minded’ students and parents who also encourage them not be afraid of ‘being smart’.

Along the same lines, I was also called ‘streetlight’ because I had to be inside by the time the streetlights came on. Kids could be so cruel…..

By Jim in Marietta

March 29, 2006 03:57 PM | Link to this

The “nerd” stereotype and all others are propagated by public schools and are generally unique to schools. In other words, becoming socialized in a public school setting exposes kids to BS that doesn’t exist in the “real world.” Think about that the next time you feel the urge to expound on the virtues of being socialized in a public school and equating the experience to something that’s meaningful. Public school kids are generally immature, hung up on peer pressure and little cliques, and when they leave those wonderful little windowless habitats they squint dumbfounded in the bright sunlight of the “real world”.

By luvs2teach

March 29, 2006 04:30 PM | Link to this

Ha, ha! Not only was I a nerd and geek (band, chorus, science club and - gasp - MATH LEAGUE!), but I am still a geek today! I love all tings techno; I play trivia, and I went to all three LOTR movies on opening day. My daughter is a self-professed geek (as is her boyfriend) - and very OK with it. She pulls a 4.0 in school and doesn’t want to go out and party - what mom is going to have a problem with that?

I joke with my students about my being a geek, but I do it in a fun and positive way. It lets them know (and as middle schoolers, they are so sensitive to EVERYTHING) that it’s OK to be a little different - just be comfortable with who you are.

A scientist friend of mine said, “We are all nerdy about something.” I think that’s true - find your inner geek and run with it! You’ll probably have a good time.

By LHK

March 29, 2006 04:50 PM | Link to this

David200, I’m going to counter your post a little. Perhaps this situation was peculiar to my Alpharetta middle school and high school in the 90s, but I remember having a number of classmates who were whip-smart and also quite popular: took all AP and Honors classes, ended up at Tech or Duke or Tufts or Emory or the Honors Program at UGA… and were also great with jokes and small talk and always knowing how to say the right thing and capture social attention. Surely they weren’t ALL “faking it.” I was in enough classes and group projects and occasional social outings with those kids to know that they were truly intelligent people who’d also been able to learn fantastic social skills somewhere along the way. The other shy kids and I certainly didn’t have a monopoly on intelligence at my school.

Perhaps the divide between nerds and non-nerds was not only about social skills, but also about which kids were perceived to take academics (and themselves) “too seriously” and which kids were smart but didn’t carry that as their main identifying factor.

I went to GHP back in ‘97 and we had a good mix of social kids and less social kids. Every hall in the dorms there seemed to have its resident social butterfly and its resident shut-in. I fell pleasantly in between. I’d be interested to see what the social mix is like there now. I have a friend who conducted GHP interviews last year; maybe I’ll pick her brain about it sometime.

By Lee

March 31, 2006 09:15 AM | Link to this

Some things never change….

This stuff was going on back when I was in school 35 years ago and my great-grandkids will probably have to deal with it 35 years from now. My advice - be yourself and do what makes you happy and quit worrying about what everyone else thinks. (Unfortunately, most of us learn that lesson about middle age when we start getting those gray hairs and extra pounds…)

On the downside, sports seem to be even more dominate today than when I was in school. You know, our kids pick this stuff up from us. I have co-workers who go on and on about every sport under the sun - football, basketball, baseball, golf, etc, etc. If you were to ask them about the last book they read, they would look at you like you had a third eye in the middle of your forehead.

So, my advice to you “nerds” out there is to be yourself and don’t change your personality in order to try to “fit in”. Often, the barbs thrown your way are because you can do something that they can’t.

By Mike

April 7, 2006 02:05 PM | Link to this

I am a geek/nerd whatever and proud of it. I work as an engineer in a very highly advanced field. I am only 27 years old so when I wasn’t in school all that long ago but computers weren’t all that popular then. I got made fun of myself but always shrugged it off. I was a jock too and captain of the baseball and soccer teams. I guess I am lucky in that I was a geek and a jock. I will say that without question I did learn A LOT from playing sports. It’s about being competiive, never quitting, working in a team environment, learning what your role is inside something bigger. I realize that sports have a stigma but it’s the same stigma that us nerds have. There is good in everything it’s up to you to find it. Today I am happy I was enjoy both experiances because it has made the person i am today…good… and bad.