3 ms·

High school rewards people who socialize well, it doesn't punish kids for loving science. If you socialize well, you can 'get away' with being a CS major, hell,

High school rewards people who socialize well, it doesn't punish kids for loving science. If you socialize well, you can 'get away' with being a CS major, hell, you can even make it cool. It just so happens plenty of nerds don't socialize well. Reaching out to teens and asking them to reach out to their dorky classmates because they might be their bosses one day just doesn't take. They lack the foresight, control, and interest. The reality of the situation is that teens can and will be immature, annoying, shits. People have known this for centuries.

officemonkey 15y ago
It's unfortunate that people can't be successful _in high school_ without socializing well. Fortunately, high school doesn't last forever. And, there are other ways to get a functioning adult without mass incarceration at a public school. We talk about how high school is a problem, but improperly-socialized children is a parental failure. Most parents are quick to drop the children off at day care at six weeks old and then they wonder why high school is barely more civilized than a wolfpack. I have a three-year old, and I will support any activity he wants to do (from fly fishing to perl hacking), but I will also make sure he's polite, articulate, and compassionate. If only all parents made that a priority.
- andrewvc 15y ago
  Well, as great as being polite, articulate, and compassionate is, those attributes don't (necessarily) add up to cool in school. I don't think that's something parents can really teach.
  - Locke1689 15y ago
    Perhaps I'm alone in this but I learned in high school that, to a certain degree, being "social" is the art of social manipulation. I'm sure some people are so endlessly outgoing (or attractive, that can minimize any kind of personality requirements) that they can actually "be themselves" and be immensely popular, but the truth is that I don't think most people hold that personality trait. There's a certain amount of lying that's necessary to be social in American high school and its perfectly possible to learn it and still be a "geek," but it requires careful study and introspection. More than anything, you'll need to change your personality depending on who you talk to. Some people seem to acquire this talent easily, others have to put in more effort. If you do, however, you can become popular, which is really just another way of saying that you've discovered how to become relatable to a large group of people (which I'm not sure is possible without a heavy dose of social and image manipulation).
  - impendia 15y ago
    I think the essence of being cool is having a sophisticated understanding of what is going on around you. High school geeks often find their environment tedious and can't be bothered to invest a lot of effort into figuring it out. This is the thesis of PG's "Why nerds are unpopular", and having lived that life, I can assert he's right. Being polite, articulate, and compassionate doesn't hurt you in life -- and neither does intelligence -- but when it comes to "coolness" I think awareness of your surroundings is the most important key.
    - fleitz 15y ago
      Bang on! Most people just want to be liked, if you go through the social motions of liking someone then they'll like you, if you share social norms with them even better. Relate to their social norms and echo their values where you can with out compromising your integrity. Plato does a great job of talking about this with his Cave allegory, when you go back down into the cave you need to respect that in the cave remembering the names of the shadows is important, else you will be put to death. (Or in the real world have no friends).
    - dlitwak 15y ago
      This is spot on. I was a "band geek", more specifically an "orchestra dork", in high school, and a computer science nerd as well. Not exactly the most popular combination. My attitude in high school was mostly not caring about being popular, and I didn't make any effort to identify with people I considered to be unlike me. I had other friends, in the music program, who were sociable and could identify with the less academic oriented crowd and they did fine. I gained a lot of this awareness in college and actually went on to be my fraternities social and rush chair, and what changed was that I gained a more acute awareness of people's social interactions and put in the time to figure out the college social situation. This isn't always a huge priority of nerds, or they just haven't gotten there yet: they may be so advanced in one aspect that the social skills haven't quite caught up yet. However, I disagree that all these geeks will go on to inherit the world: if they don't EVENTUALLY gain those social skills and recognize how valuable they are, they won't get anywhere near as far as they can. There is some ridiculous statistic like some 60-70% of all senators/presidents were Greek (frat and sorority life), and I think this speaks less to the value of the greek system and more to the fact that people who place value on interacting with other people and communicating go farther than those who don't.
  - officemonkey 15y ago
    If every parent raised children that are polite, articulate, and compassionate, being marginalized in High School wouldn't mean much, would it?
- ionfish 15y ago
  > [I]mproperly-socialized children is [sic] a parental failure. This is true in part, but far from the whole story. Parents feel a pressure to "drop the children off at day care at six weeks old" not because they don't want to participate in the upbringing of their children, but because they're under immense economic pressure to return to 'productive' work. Children are extremely time-consuming, so some level of parental abandonment is an unavoidable consequence of both parents working full time (or even part time). The situation is even worse for single parents, especially with the social stigma that usually attaches to them regardless of their choice: either they go to work, and have abandoned their children, or stay at home, and are sponging off the state. If we arrange our society in such a way that it's not economically viable for people who have children to spend time at home raising them, then they will be shoved off to daycare of some sort. Simple as that. (People are not going to stop having children.) If we continue to fetishise so-called economically productive work to the exclusion of all other ends, and as a result, refuse to support families in an appropriate way, then this situation is just going to get worse.
  - gsmaverick 15y ago
    The problem is the fact that most parents don't want to make the sacrifices that come with having kids plain and simple.
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
    - aperrien 15y ago
      While in some sense that is true, your statement shows that you have failed to understand or properly challenge the previous argument.
  - niels_olson 15y ago
    Like any real problem, this one has lots of parts. * the tax system gives better tax incentives for coffee makers than bottles ( etc, etc) * maternity leave anyone? * paternity leave? That's just crazy talk. A good, no, great stay-home friend of ours is watching our kids our most of the summer. We have half-jokingly discussed getting a bigger house and just moving both families in. seriously, the savings in time and money and health are tremendous. Not only is it cheaper or them and us, we routinely (even before the summer) had their family over or they have us for dinner. If we ever move, it may require family counseling. That's what's involved. Overcome the physical isolation of modern life and you can overcome some of the economics. Now, here's the catch. We met vis-a-vis the playground. See, my son and their son are in the same class and my wife and he chatted at the playground for a month, oh and we both live two blocks from school in the same direction. And at the time, they were hard up for some place to eat as their kitchen was demolished as part of a major remodel. yeah, that's way to many coincidences. But somebody could male a website for this. C'mon: you can get a babysitter over the web, you can get airbnb. Surely we can network neighborhoods.
- biafra 15y ago
  Is there really a coherence between giving children to daycare and improper socialization in the US? I am sure there is none here in Germany.
cturner 15y ago
High school rewards people who socialize well, it doesn't punish kids for loving science What if we admitted this, and deliberately streamed kids by the way they socialised rather than an estimate of their aptitude? You could profile their social interaction, and then try and steer the group towards goals.
- forensic 15y ago
  It's called private school, unschooling, and homeschooling. The public school system is about a century away from making changes that benefit the students rather than the bureaucrats.
- khill 15y ago
  If a school tried that, you would have parents complaining about the process because their child was placed into a "does not socialize well" track.

officemonkey 15y ago

It's unfortunate that people can't be successful _in high school_ without socializing well. Fortunately, high school doesn't last forever. And, there are other ways to get a functioning adult without mass incarceration at a public school. We talk about how high school is a problem, but improperly-socialized children is a parental failure. Most parents are quick to drop the children off at day care at six weeks old and then they wonder why high school is barely more civilized than a wolfpack. I have a three-year old, and I will support any activity he wants to do (from fly fishing to perl hacking), but I will also make sure he's polite, articulate, and compassionate. If only all parents made that a priority.

andrewvc 15y ago
Well, as great as being polite, articulate, and compassionate is, those attributes don't (necessarily) add up to cool in school. I don't think that's something parents can really teach.
- Locke1689 15y ago
  Perhaps I'm alone in this but I learned in high school that, to a certain degree, being "social" is the art of social manipulation. I'm sure some people are so endlessly outgoing (or attractive, that can minimize any kind of personality requirements) that they can actually "be themselves" and be immensely popular, but the truth is that I don't think most people hold that personality trait. There's a certain amount of lying that's necessary to be social in American high school and its perfectly possible to learn it and still be a "geek," but it requires careful study and introspection. More than anything, you'll need to change your personality depending on who you talk to. Some people seem to acquire this talent easily, others have to put in more effort. If you do, however, you can become popular, which is really just another way of saying that you've discovered how to become relatable to a large group of people (which I'm not sure is possible without a heavy dose of social and image manipulation).
- impendia 15y ago
  I think the essence of being cool is having a sophisticated understanding of what is going on around you. High school geeks often find their environment tedious and can't be bothered to invest a lot of effort into figuring it out. This is the thesis of PG's "Why nerds are unpopular", and having lived that life, I can assert he's right. Being polite, articulate, and compassionate doesn't hurt you in life -- and neither does intelligence -- but when it comes to "coolness" I think awareness of your surroundings is the most important key.
  - fleitz 15y ago
    Bang on! Most people just want to be liked, if you go through the social motions of liking someone then they'll like you, if you share social norms with them even better. Relate to their social norms and echo their values where you can with out compromising your integrity. Plato does a great job of talking about this with his Cave allegory, when you go back down into the cave you need to respect that in the cave remembering the names of the shadows is important, else you will be put to death. (Or in the real world have no friends).
  - dlitwak 15y ago
    This is spot on. I was a "band geek", more specifically an "orchestra dork", in high school, and a computer science nerd as well. Not exactly the most popular combination. My attitude in high school was mostly not caring about being popular, and I didn't make any effort to identify with people I considered to be unlike me. I had other friends, in the music program, who were sociable and could identify with the less academic oriented crowd and they did fine. I gained a lot of this awareness in college and actually went on to be my fraternities social and rush chair, and what changed was that I gained a more acute awareness of people's social interactions and put in the time to figure out the college social situation. This isn't always a huge priority of nerds, or they just haven't gotten there yet: they may be so advanced in one aspect that the social skills haven't quite caught up yet. However, I disagree that all these geeks will go on to inherit the world: if they don't EVENTUALLY gain those social skills and recognize how valuable they are, they won't get anywhere near as far as they can. There is some ridiculous statistic like some 60-70% of all senators/presidents were Greek (frat and sorority life), and I think this speaks less to the value of the greek system and more to the fact that people who place value on interacting with other people and communicating go farther than those who don't.
- officemonkey 15y ago
  If every parent raised children that are polite, articulate, and compassionate, being marginalized in High School wouldn't mean much, would it?
ionfish 15y ago
> [I]mproperly-socialized children is [sic] a parental failure. This is true in part, but far from the whole story. Parents feel a pressure to "drop the children off at day care at six weeks old" not because they don't want to participate in the upbringing of their children, but because they're under immense economic pressure to return to 'productive' work. Children are extremely time-consuming, so some level of parental abandonment is an unavoidable consequence of both parents working full time (or even part time). The situation is even worse for single parents, especially with the social stigma that usually attaches to them regardless of their choice: either they go to work, and have abandoned their children, or stay at home, and are sponging off the state. If we arrange our society in such a way that it's not economically viable for people who have children to spend time at home raising them, then they will be shoved off to daycare of some sort. Simple as that. (People are not going to stop having children.) If we continue to fetishise so-called economically productive work to the exclusion of all other ends, and as a result, refuse to support families in an appropriate way, then this situation is just going to get worse.
- gsmaverick 15y ago
  The problem is the fact that most parents don't want to make the sacrifices that come with having kids plain and simple.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - aperrien 15y ago
    While in some sense that is true, your statement shows that you have failed to understand or properly challenge the previous argument.
- niels_olson 15y ago
  Like any real problem, this one has lots of parts. * the tax system gives better tax incentives for coffee makers than bottles ( etc, etc) * maternity leave anyone? * paternity leave? That's just crazy talk. A good, no, great stay-home friend of ours is watching our kids our most of the summer. We have half-jokingly discussed getting a bigger house and just moving both families in. seriously, the savings in time and money and health are tremendous. Not only is it cheaper or them and us, we routinely (even before the summer) had their family over or they have us for dinner. If we ever move, it may require family counseling. That's what's involved. Overcome the physical isolation of modern life and you can overcome some of the economics. Now, here's the catch. We met vis-a-vis the playground. See, my son and their son are in the same class and my wife and he chatted at the playground for a month, oh and we both live two blocks from school in the same direction. And at the time, they were hard up for some place to eat as their kitchen was demolished as part of a major remodel. yeah, that's way to many coincidences. But somebody could male a website for this. C'mon: you can get a babysitter over the web, you can get airbnb. Surely we can network neighborhoods.
biafra 15y ago
Is there really a coherence between giving children to daycare and improper socialization in the US? I am sure there is none here in Germany.

cturner 15y ago

High school rewards people who socialize well, it doesn't punish kids for loving science What if we admitted this, and deliberately streamed kids by the way they socialised rather than an estimate of their aptitude? You could profile their social interaction, and then try and steer the group towards goals.

forensic 15y ago
It's called private school, unschooling, and homeschooling. The public school system is about a century away from making changes that benefit the students rather than the bureaucrats.
khill 15y ago
If a school tried that, you would have parents complaining about the process because their child was placed into a "does not socialize well" track.