A Problem in America
I'm a product of the American education system. I've noticed that American schools are extremely anti-intellectual. Students actively have to hide their good grades because they fear social ostracism (the nerd label). Creativity is not even valued but social conformity is emphasized with intellectuals or individuals being persecuted by their peers. This lasts forever even into adulthood. Even though most people have never been to a Mensa meeting, they automatically assume that Mensa is full of pompous stiffs; people don't even take the time to gather correct facts before making judgments. Smart people make others feel threatened in America and immediately others try to attach the 'socially awkward' label to them to condemn them.
Let's look at some cultures across the globe because cutural differences vary dramatically. In Japan, some kids are mocked and ostractized for poor performance! In India, engineers and computer programmers are considered honorable professions almost on par with the Indian deification of doctors. In the US, IT is where the nerds and dweebs from high-school end up and they aren't even considered as prestigious as a middle management in some company no one knows about.
It's funny that I know several intelligent people who came through public schools who had to adopt a sort of second persona and vocabulary in order to interact with "normal" kids without castigation by their peers. The environment is so hostile that smart people have become very guarded and they won't necessarily exhibit creativity and intelligence in socially casual situations until they they have verified the other people won't persecute them for brownie points with the 'cool crowd'.
In America, athletically gifted kids have the exact opposite social reaction as intellectually gifted kids. It makes a lot of sense because American culture is wrapped up around sports and individuals feel they are part of teams they identify with. For instance, you will see people identifying themselves with their favorite team with phrases like "we won" when they're just watching. Furthermore, people want to be on the "winning" team and thus they want to be friends with the good athletes. In elementary school, the popular kids were the ones who got picked first and not-so-coincidentally they were the gifted athletes.
Compare the treatment of athletes to that of 'gifted' or intelligent child and you will see that the opposite occurs. Perhaps kids that do well in school cannot create instantaneous social group benefit. In fact, they create social harm for those that are bad at school. When a smart kid gets a good grade in a class, the others actually are hurt, since it makes their lesser grades look bad in relation. There is resentment and bitterness and you can see very funny coping mechanisms occur in America. For example, some kids purposely "don't try." They do this because it's cool to conform but also they're genuinely afraid that if they try their best, it's still not good enough compared to the gifted/smart kids. To protect their self-esteem they try their best to not care.
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If I had a say in education I would work hard on changing this damaging mentality that has been created in America so that kids won't harm their peers for making them look bad. A system needs to be created where everyone doesn't just deify athletes because our country is falling so far behind in education. This is another reason why I need the resources to start my own utopian city with different values. American values, take a look at Texas it's pretty sad there, are causing us to lose to the rest of the world.
Let's look at some cultures across the globe because cutural differences vary dramatically. In Japan, some kids are mocked and ostractized for poor performance! In India, engineers and computer programmers are considered honorable professions almost on par with the Indian deification of doctors. In the US, IT is where the nerds and dweebs from high-school end up and they aren't even considered as prestigious as a middle management in some company no one knows about.
It's funny that I know several intelligent people who came through public schools who had to adopt a sort of second persona and vocabulary in order to interact with "normal" kids without castigation by their peers. The environment is so hostile that smart people have become very guarded and they won't necessarily exhibit creativity and intelligence in socially casual situations until they they have verified the other people won't persecute them for brownie points with the 'cool crowd'.
In America, athletically gifted kids have the exact opposite social reaction as intellectually gifted kids. It makes a lot of sense because American culture is wrapped up around sports and individuals feel they are part of teams they identify with. For instance, you will see people identifying themselves with their favorite team with phrases like "we won" when they're just watching. Furthermore, people want to be on the "winning" team and thus they want to be friends with the good athletes. In elementary school, the popular kids were the ones who got picked first and not-so-coincidentally they were the gifted athletes.
Compare the treatment of athletes to that of 'gifted' or intelligent child and you will see that the opposite occurs. Perhaps kids that do well in school cannot create instantaneous social group benefit. In fact, they create social harm for those that are bad at school. When a smart kid gets a good grade in a class, the others actually are hurt, since it makes their lesser grades look bad in relation. There is resentment and bitterness and you can see very funny coping mechanisms occur in America. For example, some kids purposely "don't try." They do this because it's cool to conform but also they're genuinely afraid that if they try their best, it's still not good enough compared to the gifted/smart kids. To protect their self-esteem they try their best to not care.
___
If I had a say in education I would work hard on changing this damaging mentality that has been created in America so that kids won't harm their peers for making them look bad. A system needs to be created where everyone doesn't just deify athletes because our country is falling so far behind in education. This is another reason why I need the resources to start my own utopian city with different values. American values, take a look at Texas it's pretty sad there, are causing us to lose to the rest of the world.
posted by Ray at 2:24 PM
4 Comments:
Allow us to look at the other fact that you are so clearly missing. Athletic students also have to achieve high grades so they are able to stay on the team. As of late to be 'cool' is to get good grades. America is failing, yes, yet it is also changing. Please look at all sides before you make a statement against on specific group eh?
Two comments:
1) Accumulating wealth with the goal of creating a city of utopian values seems like the least efficient possible route to that goal.
2) You make some good points on education. From a the perspective of cognitive psychology, however, the key factor that differentiates education East vs. West isn't social pressure, but rather cognitive expectations.
In the East a child with low grades in math is identified as 'lazy'. The notion of innate intelligence never enters the picture.
In the West, we frequently hear 'he's just not a math child.' 'She's not a math person.' The paradigm is one of natural deficiency, and with such a label the child's effort naturally fulfills that prophecy.
Cognitive science research shows that effort & an overall 'need for cognition' are the biggest predictors of general intelligence.
actually athletic groups in a lot of schools are given special leeway and teachers are told to pass failing students. there are even special classes made that are really easy that atheletes take. it depends on the school though, some school care more about their atheletics and will cut any corner to recruit top atheletes who don't care about school
1) point well taken, just one of many possibilities but probably most unlikely
2) thanks for the insightful post bringing in cognitive psychology. do you offer any solutions to alleviate cognitive dissonance amongst students (particularly the western) in which if their actions show that they're intelligent school-wise they have to 'dumb-it-down' to fit in with their peers. how do we change society so that's it's acceptable to be gifted academically? how do we create a society that doesn't become eastern and stress that everyone is capable and over-values book smarts and not enough social smarts? how do we augment each society with the best of both words, eastern v. western without a new utopia?
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