Brilliant essay on high schools

[Chris Nahr]

By Lisp guru Paul Graham, pointed out on JoS: Why Nerds Are Unpopular (www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html)

If life seems awful to kids, it's neither because hormones are turning you all into monsters (as your parents believe), nor because life actually is awful (as you believe). It's because the adults, who no longer have any economic use for you, have abandoned you to spend years cooped up together with nothing real to do. Any society of that type is awful to live in. You don't have to look any further to explain why teenage kids are unhappy.

That's what I've been saying since 1820!

[Nathan Phoenix]

This is a good read for those that haven't already seen it. I happened across it a few months ago, and definitely recommend it.

[Kalle]

I just don't understand this social stratification of American schools, because I've never experienced anything like it. I mean, here you can be the unpopular kid, but you're only unpopular within your class. That's like 30 people. The rest of the kids at school usually ignore you, unless you go out of your way to interact with them. That, and there's no sense that athletes are in any way a cut above the rest. Athletes here join sports clubs, they don't care about school sports, other than getting high grades in phys ed.

[Ranulf]

What bothers me is not that the kids are kept in prisons, but that (a) they aren't told about it, and (b) the prisons are run mostly by the inmates. Kids are sent off to spend six years memorizing meaningless facts in a world ruled by a caste of giants who run after an oblong brown ball, as if this were the most natural thing in the world. And if they balk at this surreal cocktail, they're called misfits.


Good article. I've always found it funny how some people keep wondering why we have things like Columbine happening with more frequency when it has seemed rather obvious to me.

[Idar Thorvaldsen]

Hm. I don't buy it. As Kalle notes, the social issues for high school students around here are not at all like the situation at the US high schools he describes. The author even admits this himself:
Being smart seems to make you unpopular.

Why? To someone in school now, that may seem an odd question to ask. The mere fact is so overwhelming that it may seem strange to imagine that it could be any other way. But it could. Being smart doesn't make you an outcast in elementary school. Nor does it harm you in the real world. Nor, as far as I can tell, is the problem so bad in most other countries. But in a typical American secondary school, being smart is likely to make your life difficult.
However, I wouldn't say that the Norwegian high schools are any more meaningful than US ones.

[Troy S Goodfellow]

Hm. I don't buy it. As Kalle notes, the social issues for high school students around here are not at all like the situation at the US high schools he describes. The author even admits this himself

The author puts a lot of weight on the suburbanization of America, which might account for some of the differences. I'm from rural Canada though, and I remember being taunted and bullied for most of junior high. I eventually did become popular in high school (without sacrificing my intelligence) but, like he said, it took some learning on my part.

Maybe the fact that the elite athletes in my school played volleyball has part in this story.

Troy

[Ben Sones]

Actually, the reason he gives for why suburban communities amplify the stratification of teens (isolation) applies to rural communities as well. Although I don't think he meant to imply that this is the root cause of the problem, in either case--it just adds fuel to the fire.

Good essay.

[noun]

Basically, the point is this: In American schools, conformity in appearance, behavior and tastes is preferred over being different. This point is reaffirmed not only by the prize pupils, but by the teachers themselves. The easiest targets are the kids who dress differently or are simply not as attractive as the upper caste.

High school for me was a long time ago, but I do remember many pretty and smart people who were also popular. So I'm not buying the idea that being smart makes you unpopular.

[Ben]

I pretty heartily disagree with the author.

This was nerd self-pity, with some sort of meta-intelligence boosting irony or something going on. Like he still doesn't get it. We were so smart we wanted to be smart? What? The article stinks of looking down on the "normals" of average intelligence. Actually, it rather explicitly looks down on "normals", but it also stinks of a general elitism.

All of this article's good points are the obvious "kids are cruel, teachers are lazy, etc" stuff.

"When I was in school, suicide was a constant topic among the smarter kids."
Yeah, no. Sorry. Suicide was a constant topic among the crazier kids, and since this guy has so much invested in "crazy/misfit/unpopular=smart" he's unwilling to consider the possibility that he hung out with losers.

[Johan O]

I just don't understand this social stratification of American schools, because I've never experienced anything like it. I mean, here you can be the unpopular kid, but you're only unpopular within your class. That's like 30 people. The rest of the kids at school usually ignore you, unless you go out of your way to interact with them. That, and there's no sense that athletes are in any way a cut above the rest. Athletes here join sports clubs, they don't care about school sports, other than getting high grades in phys ed.
Hm. I don't buy it. As Kalle notes, the social issues for high school students around here are not at all like the situation at the US high schools he describes. The author even admits this himself:
Being smart seems to make you unpopular.

Why? To someone in school now, that may seem an odd question to ask. The mere fact is so overwhelming that it may seem strange to imagine that it could be any other way. But it could. Being smart doesn't make you an outcast in elementary school. Nor does it harm you in the real world. Nor, as far as I can tell, is the problem so bad in most other countries. But in a typical American secondary school, being smart is likely to make your life difficult.
However, I wouldn't say that the Norwegian high schools are any more meaningful than US ones.



I would chalk up the differences to mainly two things. First american highschools are viciously competitive compared to swedish*. You have honour rolls, honour societies, homecoming and prom king and queens, the yearbook is full of contests like most popular or most likely to succeed etc, a much more pronounced competition for scholarships and so on. Secondly in american highschools you have classes with a much greater number of people. In sweden I did for the most part have classes in all subjects with the same 30 or so people. In the states I was subjected to different constellations of classmates for all subjects. I imagine that this will both serve to spread the knowlege of who is popular and unpopular as well as making the pigeonholing of people more essential in order to better manage who is popular and not, possibly it also makes the social competition intenser in general since there is a greater number of competioners you have to deal with as well as increased popularity insecurity because you have more people to deal with, and less time to get a feel for each other.

*I say swedish but I imagine they are much the same in Norway, my experience with american highschools is from one year as a senior in a public high school in rural Iowa, I'll just assume that this experience is representative.

[retartedhampster]

Basically, the point is this: In American schools, conformity in appearance, behavior and tastes is preferred over being different. This point is reaffirmed not only by the prize pupils, but by the teachers themselves. The easiest targets are the kids who dress differently or are simply not as attractive as the upper caste.

High school for me was a long time ago, but I do remember many pretty and smart people who were also popular. So I'm not buying the idea that being smart makes you unpopular.

I'm in 10th grade, and in my grade, if you get a 30 or so on a test, you’re NOT cool. However, in my girlfriend’s grade (9th) the lower you score on a test...the cooler you seem. What happened in the year separation is anyone’s guess.

Another point id like to make is that being smart is not what makes nerds unpopular, its being so smart that they think there better than everyone else. I know that sounds odd but bare with me for a bit. You've all probably heard the term "teachers pet". That was a word used to describe a suck-up or someone who seemed to do anything for the teacher. They were the one who told on misbehaving kids, who ruined the fun of having a sub by giving a list of names of kids acting inappropriately and so on. The common type of person who filled this position was a "nerd". Fast-forward to high school and now you've got a whole different set of rules. The kinds of kids that are usually made fun on are the ones who separate them selves from the school in the first place. (At least in my school).

Your thoughts about my opinion

[milo]

Personally, I found most of the essay uncompelling. The nerds at my school (with one or two exceptions) were of just-barely-above average intelligence. Most of the kids in the top five percent academically were also fairly popular. Most of us were also artists, athelets, and/or musicians in addition to being smart. A few of us were cheerleaders and jocks. Smart kids were admired by the student body in general although to a lesser extent than athletic kids. Weird kids were not admired simply because they were weird, irrespective of their other talents.

Also, I think it is a mistake to conflate conformity with popularity. Popularity is a function of social skills - the ability to relate and adroitly communicate with a given peer group. "Fitting in" does not mean "being the same as", it means "harmonizing with".

Perhaps things have changed significantly in twenty years, I don't know. I guess I will find out when my own kids reach that age.

--milo
http://www.starshatter.com

[Kool Moe Dee]

Yeah, my own personal experience (in one of the worst public school districts in my area, no less) doesn't mirror the essay's. I guess I'm one of those people that feels that respect, even at a juvenile level, has to be earned, and is not inherently tied to anything like intelligence. And while I'm hesitant to just call it a pity party, I don't think the essay is brilliant by any means.

[Peter Frazier]

I don't think that I was particularly popular at school even though I was in the top classes. I think this may have been been because I was a complete and utter dickhead at that age..... I'm not sure though, so I'll instead blame other people for not appreciating my genius. :roll:

[Nathan Phoenix]

I definitely think each individual's mileage will vary in high school, especially given the size of the school and the individual's aptitudes, but the essay did a damn good job of summing up a lot of my own experiences. My wife's too, from what she told me.

That said, I don't agree with EVERYTHING in it, but I still thought it was a good read.

[Malderi]

I just graduated from high school less than a week ago myself, so I have the benefit of good memory and the whole experience, I guess you could say...

During my senior year, the whole "nerds-unpopular" thing was pretty much gone. By that time, most of my friends and I generally hung out with a lot of good people (if not the jocks). It seems to me that in a large high school there's no one group of "popular kids" - there can be "popular people", but you can't point to a group of students talking and saying "There's the popular people". Maybe "There's SOME popular people", but once all the different cliques form, the boundaries are pretty much crossed. High school seniors (in my experience) generally just care if you're a nice guy or not.

Middle school was a different story. I'd agree with most of his opinions on the middle- and lower-half-of-high-school level, but once I got to my junior year in high school, those things just started to go away - for all of my friends and our little "computer nerd clique", as well, so it wasn't just me.

[Because They Are Hirsute]

Title: Why Nerds Are Unpopular.
First Sentence: "When we were in junior high school, my friend Rich and I made a map of the school lunch tables according to popularity. "

I think that pretty much explains the entire phenomenon. Everything else was filler.

Seriously, WTF?
I know a lot of people who were nerds in school, and they all tell the same story: there is a strong correlation between being smart and being a nerd, and an even stronger inverse correlation between being a nerd and being popular. Being smart seems to make you unpopular.
You're mistaking "social ineptitude" for "smartness," jackass. Nobody is an outcast solely for being smart. Even the big mean dumbheads who menaced Paul Graham while he and his super smart Trenchcoat Mafiosi cataloged them by table/popularity level know that intelligence is valuable. In my totally authoritative anecdotal experience at a an archetypal small, rural, football-centric high school, the top 10% of GPAs belonged almost exclusively to the most popular set.
The guys that guys envy, girls like.
Yeah, that sounds like the product of some serious scholarship right there-- if you're a professor of pity parties.
But in fact I didn't <want to be popular>, not enough. There was something else I wanted more: to be smart.
In Paul Graham's world, those two things are mutually exclusive. You can't possibly devote enough energy to doing both. That's why Paul Graham never saw a smart, popular person, despite all the exhaustive lunchtime table indexing. That's why tables D and E were ostracized, because D was super geniuses and E was mentally handicapped. See, it's for reasons that are polar opposites, not because the tables share a mutual inability to follow accepted patterns of social interactions.
The main reason nerds are unpopular is that they have other things to think about. Their attention is drawn to books or the natural world, not fashions and parties. They're like someone trying to play soccer while balancing a glass of water on his head. Other players who can focus their whole attention on the game beat them effortlessly, and wonder why they seem so incapable.
Remember that episode of Malcolm in the Middle where they get a young babysitter? "See, your brain has individual thoughts. Think of your brain like a bee. My brain is constantly examining so many thoughts at once, it's like the whole hive!" Do you understand now, tables A-C or do I need to speak more slowly and clearly?
the popular kids were being trained to please.
For Graham, popularity is synonymous with "pleasing" others. Has he even cracked a book on the psychology of popularity?
Another reason kids persecute nerds is to make themselves feel better.
Again, not the case. The vast majority of child psych experts point not to self-loathing among bullies, but in fact an unrealistically inflated self-image that leads them to believe they truly are much better than others and entitled to abuse them.
When the things you do have real effects, it's no longer enough just to be pleasing. It starts to be important to get the right answers, and that's where nerds show to advantage. Bill Gates will of course come to mind. Though notoriously lacking in social skills, he gets the right answers, at least as measured in revenue.
"CHECKMATE, JOCKS!"
When I was in school, suicide was a constant topic among the smarter kids.
No, the smarter kids know you're only in school for another five years and ignore or thrive in the silly marketplace of popularity. The smarter kids are off doing things they enjoy, making the best of the necessary step of schooling. The smarter kids took the most important thing away from school-- socialization. If you don't catch onto that, why are you even there? Everybody with a clue already knows everything they'll be taught in high school. You can get a much better "education" by watching the History Channel or just reading on your own. The reason we are there is because, Paul Graham, it's time to step out of the womb and realize that you are not the perfect, pristine angel like mom says, and neither is anyone else, and that we all have to live with one another.
Teenage kids used to have a more active role in society. In pre-industrial times, they were all apprentices of one sort or another, whether in shops or on farms or even on warships. They weren't left to create their own societies. They were junior members of adult societies.

Yes, I'm sure you poor bored nerds who are so advanced that you're too good for school would really thrive cobbling shoes. You'd be an active member in society, unlike now, since there are clearly no opportunities for young people to take a leading role in the social organism, what with all their energy going toward cataloging tables.

God damn. I can't finish this atrocious, self-pitying treacle. This guy attended some teen movie high school in his own brain, and he escapes the fact that he was a nerd for good reason by claiming everyone else just didn't get him and besides he was too busy being smarter than them to try and help his cause. No fucking sale.

[stusser]

Nothing gives me greater pleasure than returning to the town where I grew up and seeing the former cheerleaders I lusted over for years, now cutting hair at Supercuts, with six brats, one seriously fat ass, and bad skin.

I mean that.

[Angie Gallant]

In the schools I went to smart kids who let people cheat were popular. Smart kids who didn't let people copy off them were treated badly. I was one of the smart, unpopular kids, but my bad experiences had nothing to do with being smart and everything to do with religion in the South.

[Bill Dungsroman]

Nothing gives me greater pleasure than returning to the town where I grew up and seeing the former cheerleaders I lusted over for years, now cutting hair at Supercuts, with six brats, one seriously fat ass, and bad skin.

I mean that.

A comedian did a bit like that (it might have been Sienfeld or Robin Williams, in an interview), on how to prevent incidents like Columbine. "Make the entire school attend the 10 year reunion that goes on while they're still in school. Introduce everyone. 'See the slim, trim, nice-looking guy with the hot wife? Software tycoon. President of the math club. See that fat bald slob in the corner screaming at his ex-wife on the pay phone over unpaid alimony and child support? Unemployed. Captain of the football team.'"

[nutsak]

http://maddox.xmission.com/dumbassjocks.html
:P yay maddox.

[Sean Tudor]

I thought it was a good article.

My own experience of school was not good though and I hated it from the time I was six up till I left school at the age of 18. I wasn't a sociable kid and couldn't stand to be around people which didn't help. This also probably had a lot to do with my poor family life.

It wasn't until I left school altogether that I finally developed passable social skills through the necessity of finding a job and eventually joining the army. Most of my school life was spent hiding in the library, disappearing to the local arcade parlor, and avoiding sporting events.

[Derek Meister]

In my early high school days attending a school with a graduating class of 931 students, I unfortunately allowed myself to fall into the trap of thinking I was unpopular because I was smarter than everyone else.

Towards the end of my time there, I started working on my social skills and found that I became more accepted by people around me, including several of the "popular kids". I also found that the more my social skills developed, the "smarter" others around me became as I stopped bringing my prejudices to the table.

An interesting related discussion to the "I'm unpopular because I'm smart" argument is the "nice guys never get the women" debate.

For the longest time I bought into the whole mindset that the reason why "nice guys" don't get women is because they only "go after jerks", until I started to look at the real differences between the two groups and noticed that "nice guys" tend to get less women not because they were "nice" but because they were meek and often failed to actively pursue the girls and show a bit of self-confidence that women find attractive. The jerks on the other hand often made up for their short-comings by being active in asking women out and showed confidence in themselves regardless of how well it was deserved.

You can be a "nice guy" and "smart nerd" both suffer because of their lack of social skill, and unfortunately they only make things worse by comforting themselves with false reasons for their unpopularity rather than fixing what the problem is.

[Supertanker]

I agree that the problems are mostly internal. I was a skinny D&D-playing science geek who should have been picked on according to that author. However, I tried to be personable and friendly, which certainly made a big difference. I then moved in the middle of my Junior year, which was a big social blow, but instead of hiding in the back of the class picture I tried to get involved again. Some work with Student Council and winning the lead in the senior play made that a great Senior year, but it wouldn't have happened if I hadn't made it happen.

[Ben]

While this guy talks about what it's like in the adult world, I smell a 19 year old. He's still unpopular because he still thinks he's so damn smart.

And yes, unpopular people generally bring it upon themselves.

[Chris Nahr]

While this guy talks about what it's like in the adult world, I smell a 19 year old.

Was the Bio (www.paulgraham.com/bio.html) link in the sidebar too difficult to click on? Graham is a Lisp veteran who wrote several books and the Yahoo search engine.

No, the smarter kids know you're only in school for another five years and ignore or thrive in the silly marketplace of popularity. The smarter kids are off doing things they enjoy, making the best of the necessary step of schooling. The smarter kids took the most important thing away from school-- socialization. If you don't catch onto that, why are you even there? Everybody with a clue already knows everything they'll be taught in high school.

You were apparently too busy thinking of witty comments to notice, but that's actually Graham's most important point.

Guys, I give you all a D- in reading comprehension. Yeah, the nerd vs jock and popular vs intelligent stuff varies with personal experience and is also self-serving to some degree. But that's not why I posted the link. I even pulled out a quote that shows why I did post the link but apparently nobody noticed. Now I feel like Brian Koontz vs the Crypt Collective.

The remarkable and important thing that Graham observed is the fact that high school, or the equivalent period in other school systems, is utterly wasted time. You don't learn anything job-related, and if you're interested in learning for its own sake you'd easily learn the high school curriculum your own.

So there's an insitution that can only be described as a youth prison, a place where teenagers are stowed away until they can enter the workforce and where they are left to their own devices in the meantime, fully conscious of what a pointless and artifical little world they're living in, completely unrelated to whatever they'll be doing in their adult life.

The fierce popularity contest Graham describes is just one possible outcome of the arbitrary social order that such free-floating mini-societies will create for themselves. I didn't experience this competition in Germany, and our Scandinavian friends didn't experience it either as they say. But I think we all noticed the pointlessness of this period in our life, the fact that we're wasting years in an institution that nobody took seriously, just to get a scrap of paper and reach the legal "adult age".

That is the whole point. Thank you.

[Idar Thorvaldsen]

I liked high school. Good times. I think I even learned something; not all of it was from teachers or books, true, but it was still interesting an enjoyable experience overall, and an important part of becoming an adult.

Here's something, though: Not long ago, standard high school (in Norway) was basically a place that prepared you for administrative jobs and/or academic pursuits. Now, however, a lot of jobs that have chance for advancement require a high school diploma. So:

- High school is now required to deal with a much larger and diverse student body, and to train them for a wider variety of jobs, and

- Businesses, or "real life", apparently think you going to high school matters, since your chances of getting a job improves pretty dramatically.

EDIT: Just to clarify: around these parts, going to high school is perfectly voluntary. Don't know what it's like elsewhere, though.

[Erik]

Graham is a Lisp veteran

Jeez, even in the pecking order of nerds he's pretty close to rock bottom. I can see why he's so bitter.

I feel really bad for jocks. They get about three or four theoretically good years and then everybody gets a free license to openly hate them forever. Usually by pointing out that they're fat and bald and ugly and that the nerd is rich and popular and has a hot wife, which, when you think about it, kind of validates the supposed dumb jock worldview in the first place.

My high school experience mainly consisted of being bullied by groups of mean black kids. Unfortunately, that's a grudge society won't let you nurse. Or else, believe me, I'd be gloating about how they're smokin' crack and living on welfare now. It probably wouldn't be such a popular article.

[Supertanker]

So there's an insitution that can only be described as a youth prison, a place where teenagers are stowed away until they can enter the workforce and where they are left to their own devices in the meantime, fully conscious of what a pointless and artifical little world they're living in, completely unrelated to whatever they'll be doing in their adult life.

The point of all the counter-anecdotes is that the author is wrong, high school isn't a prison. If you are playing the game correctly, it is a huge vacation/party you're allowed before being required to join the sad ranks of working adults that hate their jobs.

High school was the time in my life where I had the most free time & least responsibility. We knew the education part was a joke and that adults don't get to spend so much of their time hanging around with their friends and slacking off. I call the summer between high school & college my Golden Summer because it was a time where I had no responsibilities at all. I already was admitted to college, so that single high school worry was gone, and I lived off my parents money still so I didn't have to work. Nobody had any expectations of me either, since I had achieved the goal of getting into a good college. Life in high school was pretty damn good, and I knew it. Looking back, it was pointless & artificial in the same way as Club Med.

[Doug Erickson]

What a long-winded article. Basically, the argument he never clearly articulated is that TEENS AREN'T KEPT BUSY ENOUGH, which I do agree with -- anyone burdened with a set of overarching responsibilities will favor collaboration and use what time they have productively. Bored minds, on the other hand, will begin to dwell on personal insecurities, which leads to social machination.

Teens and adults need to be in motion and feel like they are progressing toward the accomplishment of personal and societal goals. If they aren't, they inherently begin to suspect their own worth, and insecurity begins to fester. The hormones merely indicate that their body has finished the first major phase of development and that nature considers them adults, and to waste the energy and natural impetus they have on tedious and unchallenging schoolwork as well as copious quantities of undirected free time is to invite the sort of developmental stagnation that fosters insecurity, general depression, and social malaise.

I'm simply guessing that European schools work the kids harder and don't force so many completely arbitrary social situations on the students. Still, the same is true for adults -- among college kids, it's easily observable that those focused on their schooling and careers don't have time for social politicking, whereas those who are idling through the four years hoping for an Mrs. degree or a vice presidency at daddy's Fortune 500 company spend vast amounts of time engaged in little social games. ANd I don't think I really need to point out the whole middle managers phenomenon and the politics THEY nplay.

[Ben]

Nahr- I was accusing him of being immature, not of being 19. "He's still unpopular..."


I liked high school, too. I spent like 6 periods of my day hanging out with my friends, not having to care about classwork, and generally goofing off. School teaches you socialization. That's the point. It's trying to teach you to be popular, and this guy was failing but he didn't even know it because he was too obessed with fellating his own ego.

[stusser]

I guess it all hinges on whether you feel a liberal arts education is a waste of time also. Are philosophy majors chumps? Why do we go to school? Is it to get a good job or to become more interesting well rounded human beings? How many of your friends use their college degrees in their day to day jobs? I don't, and nobody I know does. One friend of mine, a really brilliant guy, dual majored in EE and business at wharton. He now works with me as a DBA, and envies my more liberal arts education in biology and philosophy.

[VegasRobb]

Nothing gives me greater pleasure than returning to the town where I grew up and seeing the former cheerleaders I lusted over for years, now cutting hair at Supercuts, with six brats, one seriously fat ass, and bad skin.

I mean that.

Because obviously choosing to have a family means that they failed in life.

[stusser]

No, jackass, because having six kids and cutting hair for a living in rural pennsylvania at the age of 27 means they failed at life.

[Jason McCullough]

In my totally authoritative anecdotal experience at a an archetypal small, rural, football-centric high school, the top 10% of GPAs belonged almost exclusively to the most popular set.

Same anecdote here, but the reason for that has nothing to do with intelligence.

[Bullhajj]

You mean you wouldn't be happy with six kids and a job cutting hair. It's a big world; I'm sure someone out there think it's the best life imaginable.

[Erik]

No, jackass, because having six kids and cutting hair for a living in rural pennsylvania at the age of 27 means they failed at life.

You might want to consider the possibility that your disappointing social status wasn't due entirely to your enormous intellect.

[Ben]

GPA skews strongly to the popular, hard working, and female demographics. Intelligence is also involved, but rather indirectly.

[VegasRobb]

No, jackass, because having six kids and cutting hair for a living in rural pennsylvania at the age of 27 means they failed at life.

Because choosing to raise a family and work in a job that doesn't require them to choose between family and work means that they failed in life.

[VegasRobb]

No, jackass, because having six kids and cutting hair for a living in rural pennsylvania at the age of 27 means they failed at life.

Now, what is it about *six* kids that equals failure in your mind? I know large families aren't the norm anymore in the United States, but I never linked them with failure.

To be fair, I'm guessing the large majority of "failures" don't require even one kid.

[stusser]

If your babies are born addicted to crack and you blow your welfare check on the pipe, boxed wine and cigarettes but are pretty happy, are you a failure? If you have schizophrenic disorder and are pretty damn satisfied protecting planet alpha 9 from the invading hordes of hypnotoads (while in truth you're spazzing out in a padded cell) are you a success? Looking beyond personal happiness-- is there an objective threshold for success in life?

You've got to draw the line somewhere or you can't even have a discussion, right?

[Bill Dungsroman]

Mental jazzercise time, kids! Put on your loose-fitting, comfortable thinking-caps and do a little dance (in your head).

Pick the failure and success (it's easy):

Person 1: Went through hich school and college with flying colors, got accepted to medical school, but dropped out and found another job in the medical field, but not as an MD, although he'd wanted to be one his whole life. Yeah, but it's not at all what it was cracked up to be. Failure?

Person 2: Went through high school and college with flying colors, got a nice job in his chosen field. Makes good money with plenty of opportunity for advancement, has already been promoted twice, well-liked at work, several perks, etc. Success?






Now, we're all sm0rt people here, it's pretty obvious that Persons 1 and 2 are the same person (your humble Philosophical Personal Trainer, your Yoga Yogi, your Pilates Pontificator, your Spin Doctor of Psychology, moi). On shitty days I slip into Person 1, but when I'm feeling groovy I'm Person 1. So, am I really Person 1 or 2? Don't tell me, in case it's 1, but that's my half-assed point.

[Bullhajj]

If your babies are born addicted to crack and you blow your welfare check on the pipe, boxed wine and cigarettes but are pretty happy, are you a failure? If you have schizophrenic disorder and are pretty damn satisfied protecting planet alpha 9 from the invading hordes of hypnotoads (while in truth you're spazzing out in a padded cell) are you a success? Looking beyond personal happiness-- is there an objective threshold for success in life?

You've got to draw the line somewhere or you can't even have a discussion, right?

You have to look inside yourself for this answer. My kids are 6 and have quite a few books that lay this all out for them.

[noun]

I take the Fifth!

[Bullhajj]

Mental jazzercise time, kids! Put on your loose-fitting, comfortable thinking-caps and do a little dance (in your head).

Pick the failure and success (it's easy):

Person 1: Went through hich school and college with flying colors, got accepted to medical school, but dropped out and found another job in the medical field, but not as an MD, although he'd wanted to be one his whole life. Yeah, but it's not at all what it was cracked up to be. Failure?

Person 2: Went through high school and college with flying colors, got a nice job in his chosen field. Makes good money with plenty of opportunity for advancement, has already been promoted twice, well-liked at work, several perks, etc. Success?






Now, we're all sm0rt people here, it's pretty obvious that Persons 1 and 2 are the same person (your humble Philosophical Personal Trainer, your Yoga Yogi, your Pilates Pontificator, your Spin Doctor of Psychology, moi). On shitty days I slip into Person 1, but when I'm feeling groovy I'm Person 1. So, am I really Person 1 or 2? Don't tell me, in case it's 1, but that's my half-assed point.

I saw this on an episode of Gilligan's Island once, didn't I?

[Bullhajj]

I take the Fifth!

Get back here with the alcohol, noun.

[Derek Meister]

Pick the failure and success (it's easy):

This is like that chain-email bit of glurge (http://www.snopes.com/glurge/twoquest.htm) where the vegetarian, non-smoking, decorated war hero turns out to be Hitler, right?

[Old Man Gravy]

Pick the failure and success
Not enough information available to determine. I don't see how we can possibly deduce from the stated premises how many kids Person 1 and 2 have, whether their current positions involve the cutting of hair, or if it all takes place in rural Pennsylvania or somewhere else. Without being able to test against the true measures of failure, how are we to guess?

On a related note, I was lurking in the forums over at FormerCheerleadersWhoNowWorkForSuperCuts.com, and came across this doozy:
Oh btw, Cindy, remember that guy stusser we went to high school with? The one who was such a jerk to us all the time just because we were pretty cheerleaders? He came back into town last weekend and stopped by. Had this smug smirk on his face for some reason. Did you know he never got a career either in philosophy or biology? Had to settle for working with computers or something like that. Never figured a smart guy like him would wind up being such a failure. It's sad, poor guy.
Anyway, I need to log off because as you know they're having a soiree for parents over at the school for the gifted that our six kids attend, and Jim didn't know if he'd be done with that cranial surgery in time to get home and get ready so I probably have to pick him up at the hospital on the way there. TTFN, can't wait to see you at the place where we cut hair tomorrow.
What a coincidence to come across that this afternoon!

[stusser]

Frickin' buzzkill.

[Bullhajj]

Mother Theresa! Success? Or failure?

[Peter Frazier]

No, jackass, because having six kids and cutting hair for a living in rural pennsylvania at the age of 27 means they failed at life.
If nerds realised that schadenfreude is better off being a private enjoyment, less people would pick on them. :roll:

[Matthew Gallant]

I guess Jobe is really for real gone this time. No way he'd be able to not respond extensively to this thread.

[Because They Are Hirsute]

The remarkable and important thing that Graham observed is the fact that high school, or the equivalent period in other school systems, is utterly wasted time. You don't learn anything job-related, and if you're interested in learning for its own sake you'd easily learn the high school curriculum your own.

So there's an insitution that can only be described as a youth prison, a place where teenagers are stowed away until they can enter the workforce and where they are left to their own devices in the meantime, fully conscious of what a pointless and artifical little world they're living in, completely unrelated to whatever they'll be doing in their adult life.

The fierce popularity contest Graham describes is just one possible outcome of the arbitrary social order that such free-floating mini-societies will create for themselves. I didn't experience this competition in Germany, and our Scandinavian friends didn't experience it either as they say. But I think we all noticed the pointlessness of this period in our life, the fact that we're wasting years in an institution that nobody took seriously, just to get a scrap of paper and reach the legal "adult age".

That is the whole point. Thank you.

If that's the point of the article, then it's poorly written, and especially poorly titled.

High school is not wasted time at all. No, you don't get "job training," but for a lot of people there's more to personal growth than that, e.g., making friends, working, participating in extracurriculars, or drinking yourself comatose on weekends. YMMV, but there's a definite purpose in refining your ability to get along with others, especially as you come into adulthood. The stuff you excerpted about high school as a purgatory of economic uselessness seems to be a very minor, ancillary point in Graham's laundry list of how school is totally unfair to brilliant minds like his.

Same anecdote here <re: high GPAs and popularity>, but the reason for that has nothing to do with intelligence.
I didn't mean to imply that there was a strict positive relationship between brains and GPA, but "nothing to do with" might be a little strong. It was just a convenient benchmark; I could have said "most of the smart kids were popular," but didn't want to sound like a Paul Graham style egotist who presumes to categorize all his classmates by intelligence, or lack thereof.

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.
Right, the smart kid doesn't get that junior high isn't the real world.

[demagogue]

So there's an insitution that can only be described as a youth prison, a place where teenagers are stowed away until they can enter the workforce and where they are left to their own devices in the meantime, fully conscious of what a pointless and artifical little world they're living in, completely unrelated to whatever they'll be doing in their adult life.


Yes, this part rang true for me. It reminded me of my first year at university where a common theme in the first lectures teaching subjects we also learnt at high school was hearing, "Forget what you learnt in high school, we are going to reteach you it right."

[demagogue]

The remarkable and important thing that Graham observed is the fact that high school, or the equivalent period in other school systems, is utterly wasted time. You don't learn anything job-related, and if you're interested in learning for its own sake you'd easily learn the high school curriculum your own.

So there's an insitution that can only be described as a youth prison, a place where teenagers are stowed away until they can enter the workforce and where they are left to their own devices in the meantime, fully conscious of what a pointless and artifical little world they're living in, completely unrelated to whatever they'll be doing in their adult life.

The fierce popularity contest Graham describes is just one possible outcome of the arbitrary social order that such free-floating mini-societies will create for themselves. I didn't experience this competition in Germany, and our Scandinavian friends didn't experience it either as they say. But I think we all noticed the pointlessness of this period in our life, the fact that we're wasting years in an institution that nobody took seriously, just to get a scrap of paper and reach the legal "adult age".

That is the whole point. Thank you.

If that's the point of the article, then it's poorly written, and especially poorly titled.


Thats just your repeatedly negative interpretation. When I read your responses to this thread they come across as bitter and angry. Determined to dismiss whatever he had to say just because he had a bad experience and it colours his analysis.

His article had a lot of good points. And there are a lot of good points in this thread that better analyse aspects of high school and come up with more sensible reasons for things that happen than the ones he came up with that were obviously limited by his perspective.

I didn't pay that much attention to his personal perspective because one thing I have learned since my "sentence" is that its interesting to talk to people you went there with and note the completely different recollections of what actually happened. I was surprised by one girl who told me I used to pick on her when I know I didn't.


High school is not wasted time at all. No, you don't get "job training," but for a lot of people there's more to personal growth than that, e.g., making friends, working, participating in extracurriculars, or drinking yourself comatose on weekends. YMMV, but there's a definite purpose in refining your ability to get along with others, especially as you come into adulthood. The stuff you excerpted about high school as a purgatory of economic uselessness seems to be a very minor, ancillary point in Graham's laundry list of how school is totally unfair to brilliant minds like his.


I am not sure what your point is here except perhaps as a vague attempt to colour or make a good argument by accident against the "high school = pointless prison" point by rambling about it. And then hoping that bolsters your complete dismissal of Graham's admittedly bitter article based on your own bitterness about some undescribed thing.

High school was pretty much pointless education-wise and learning-wise in my country. In university they came out and said forget what you learnt in high school, it is useless and will get in the way of you learning properly. Half of what I learnt in university is pointless even despite them having that perspective. Yes, theres a lot of other stuff that you pick up just by being present - but you could pick that up in a whole manner of other different ways of pointlessly spending time pretending to learn. And you could pick it up with a better designed educational system.

Education systems are in general, a failure. When people get tired of the failures they just lower the standards. Its happened recently in the USA in recent news stories about some successful new educational approach which turned out to be a farce. It was happening in the 80's when I went to high school. It happened in the 90's when I went to university. And its probably still happening.

Whats my point? That Graham's article does have some good insight. I take it as someone's perspective of high school where they try to analyse what was wrong. Yes, it is slanted. But despite that, he notes a lot of things which I can relate to and the schools as pointless prisons, if you don't dismiss it just because you can't accept that the social side of it can have its equivalent in a less pointless, less prison-like system, is not just some ancillary point. It might not be true throughout the world, but it was true at his school in the USA and it was true at my school in New Zealand.

[Anaxagoras]

Mother Theresa! Success? Or failure?

Failure. I hear she can't even afford Phat Farm jeans. That's why she has to wear those rags all the time.

And her hair? Helloo!!! That is *so* 1950 third world country.

[Because They Are Hirsute]

I am not sure what your point is here except perhaps as a vague attempt to colour or make a good argument by accident against the "high school = pointless prison" point by rambling about it.
if you don't dismiss it just because you can't accept that the social side of it can have its equivalent in a less pointless, less prison-like system,
If I understand this, you agree that school provides socialization. By virtue of that, it's not pointless. I described a few of the things adolescents get from high school, and apparently that's "rambling" since it didn't apply strictly to academics.

Graham calls school prison-like, but for most people it isn't. Attendance isn't even compulsory, at least in the US. For those who can exploit the food chain in schools, it's easy street, but even for the socially inept, high school is a time of little responsibility and considerable free time. Graham suggests that giving the students more to do would make the experience less prison-like. Forgive me, I don't follow. It goes from day care to labor camp, and that's supposed to make the social structure in high schools less dog-eat-dog? I doubt it, but even if it did, what I've said would still apply.
I take it as someone's perspective of high school where they try to analyse what was wrong.
Not everyone is as brilliant as you and me and Paul Graham. One student's pointless busywork is another's herculean challenge. I apologize if I'm mischaracterizing you here, but you seem to say that the educational system is broken because it was too easy for you. That may have as much to do with your brains as with the school's inadequacy.
your complete dismissal of Graham's admittedly bitter article based on your own bitterness about some undescribed thing.
It's not a complete dismissal. The underlying idea, that adolescents are in economic limbo because of our increased specialization and we still haven't figured out how best to deal with the unwashed teenage throngs, is absolutely right IMHO, and forehead-slappingly obvious. That buried, belabored, and ill-argued point does not make paragraph after paragraph of Artie Ziff's self-love and elitism any more tolerable. As much as he'd like to attribute his unpopularity to the bogeyman of economic development, that's several levels of abstraction away from the lisping, nose-picking smart aleck at table D who doesn't understand why the subintellectual rabble pick on him.

Graham directs the article to "smart" kids or nerds, but the economic change argument applies to everyone in schools; all students are subject to it, and not just nerds. His rationale for why nerds specifically are unpopular is this:
If they're so smart, why don't they figure out how popularity works...But in fact I didn't <want to be popular>, not enough. There was something else I wanted more: to be smart.
The holes in that argument are hopefully obvious. The truly smart kids can exploit the system while also learning. If Graham can't do both, well, he's either so socially inept that it would take an impossible amount of effort to make himself popular, or more plausibly he's just not smart enough to do both, and therefore I'd rather not read so much about what a genius he is, because it rings totally hollow.

[Kalle]

I am not sure what your point is here except perhaps as a vague attempt to colour or make a good argument by accident against the "high school = pointless prison" point by rambling about it.
if you don't dismiss it just because you can't accept that the social side of it can have its equivalent in a less pointless, less prison-like system,
If I understand this, you agree that school provides socialization. By virtue of that, it's not pointless. I described a few of the things adolescents get from high school, and apparently that's "rambling" since it didn't apply strictly to academics.

Graham calls school prison-like, but for most people it isn't. Attendance isn't even compulsory, at least in the US. For those who can exploit the food chain in schools, it's easy street, but even for the socially inept, high school is a time of little responsibility and considerable free time. Graham suggests that giving the students more to do would make the experience less prison-like. Forgive me, I don't follow. It goes from day care to labor camp, and that's supposed to make the social structure in high schools less dog-eat-dog? I doubt it, but even if it did, what I've said would still apply.


Ok, adolescents get positive things out of high school. You're right. The problem is though that none of those positive things is a result of any direct goal by the school system you are describing, they're only a side effect of shoving massive groups of kids together without any adult social direction. The world described in the article, wose existance you have more or less confirmed, is one of lord of the flies, where kids are left without guidance to make their own society. The kind of socialisation training kids get there is analogous to teaching kids to swim by throwing them in the deep end of the pool.

[stusser]

The kind of socialisation training kids get there is analogous to teaching kids to swim by throwing them in the deep end of the pool.
That's the best way to learn anything.

[Kalle]

The kind of socialisation training kids get there is analogous to teaching kids to swim by throwing them in the deep end of the pool.
That's the best way to learn anything.

Not if you happen to drown.

[Ben]

Kalle- You didn't attend an American high school, correct?

You're taking Graham's anecdotes and offering policy ideas. The primary goal of high school is to socialize students in adult society. And it's not throwing them into the deep end, most American students have been in school for 9+ years by the time they reach high school. Adult supervision is relaxed by levels, so your comment doesn't make any sense.

[Brian Koontz]

The primary goal of high school is to socialize students in adult society.

I'm fairly shocked that this seems to be agreed upon here.

High school doesn't much resemble adult society, so the point doesn't even make sense on that level.

But perhaps that's the problem. Just throw the kids together, they'll socialize, and everything's fine?

When I was in high school, I thought the point was to LEARN STUFF. Academic stuff. Socialization was a side benefit. This perhaps explains my disappointment. I was mystified at the LACK of academic material in high school... so many books and so little to learn.

How about the radical concept of making high school about academic learning?

[Ben]

And a classroom doesn't much resemble a courtroom, but we still teach law school. School is about learning how to work and live with people who aren't your family.

Academic learning? That's what college is for. You've learned all the basic skills you need to be functional by like 7th grade, but there's a big jump to learning job-related skills. So we fill in the gap with college prep and a very important level of socialization. Things like school dances and pep rallies are MORE IMPORTANT than your classes in high school.

[Kalle]

Kalle- You didn't attend an American high school, correct?

You're taking Graham's anecdotes and offering policy ideas. The primary goal of high school is to socialize students in adult society. And it's not throwing them into the deep end, most American students have been in school for 9+ years by the time they reach high school. Adult supervision is relaxed by levels, so your comment doesn't make any sense.

The primary stated goal of high school, any high school, is to give students a formal education. Socialisation skills are at best seen as fringe benefits. Socialisation skills might be the primary *benefit* you get from high school, but it is certainly not the primary goal. And how exactly does high school teach students to fit into adult society when it is completely disconnected from said society? What some students go through in school, no one would accept at their workplace.

Things like school dances and pep rallies are MORE IMPORTANT than your classes in high school.

Really? That's news to me. I thought the important part of high school was making sure I got accepted into a university. Of course, I've never attended a pep rally or a high school dance in my life, there was no such things at my school, so maybe I've missed out on something. I doubt it though.

[Ben]

Kalle- I don't know how high school works in Sweden, but it's clearly a lot different than here, so I won't attempt to comment on it. How important sports or whatever are to Swedish high schoolers is pretty irrelevant to a discussion about American high school sociology. If you'd like to comment on Swedish high schools, that's cool. But please don't try to refute my arguments about A with your personal anecdotes about B.


It's possible that everyone involved in running high school is completely out of it, but I'm pretty sure the extremely easy curriculum is a sign that management knows that they are providing socialization and control instead of education.

High school is college prep for some students, but a lot of students aren't going to a 4 year school over here.

[tronnc]

First that essay is a joke, the smart kids aren't popular because its not worth them dumbing themselves down to be popular. This is just eliteism on part of the author and others here have explained that better than I could.

My opinion of High School. This is only from my experiences graduating in the class of 98. In the US I honestly think they should look to just shutting them all down, they simply aren't worth the cost. I'm not saying they are all bad but the costs outweigh the benefits.

The socialization issue is stupid, sure teens socialize in high school but the schools don't teach socialization. (if that could be taught by government) If teens weren't in highschool they would still socialize. So the argument that high schools are there to give you experience in dealing with other people seems silly to me.

I just don't think that high schools teach enough useful information to justify the costs, they also seemed to be heavily geared toward preping for college which is only useful for a minority of the students. And i'm not even sure how effective in the preping they really are.

[Derek Meister]

Geesh, you people make me glad to have graduated from Mentor High School back in 1990.

The school's programs were comprehensive enough that Ohio colleges often would add weight to your GPA, sometimes to the tune of a full extra .5, when considering your application.

And it wasn't quality due to being a small school either, my graduating class had 931 students in it.

[The Chinese Lawyer]

Here in China is seems we are the opposite from your system. My group of perfect student classmates would often belittle the struggling students by calling them "second borns" or "big feets". I feel remorse now. Kids can be so cruel. But soon law school was over and I entered the adult world where I discovered that those 3.90 student did indeed get jobs working for the corn lady! Ha ha ha

[Anaxagoras]

Here in China is seems we are the opposite from your system. My group of perfect student classmates would often belittle the struggling students by calling them "second borns" or "big feets". I feel remorse now. Kids can be so cruel. But soon law school was over and I entered the adult world where I discovered that those 3.90 student did indeed get jobs working for the corn lady! Ha ha ha

Who is the corn lady? And why is "big feets" an insult? Does this have something to do with the Manchu foot-binding practice? I thought that went out with the communists.... are big feet considered inherently unsightly in Chinese culture?

[Bill Dungsroman]

Here in China is seems we are the opposite from your system. My group of perfect student classmates would often belittle the struggling students by calling them "second borns" or "big feets". I feel remorse now. Kids can be so cruel. But soon law school was over and I entered the adult world where I discovered that those 3.90 student did indeed get jobs working for the corn lady! Ha ha ha

Who is the corn lady? And why is "big feets" an insult? Does this have something to do with the Manchu foot-binding practice? I thought that went out with the communists.... are big feet considered inherently unsightly in Chinese culture?

YOU'RE ALL FUCKING BIG MOUSE.

[Qenan]

The remarkable and important thing that Graham observed is the fact that high school, or the equivalent period in other school systems, is utterly wasted time. You don't learn anything job-related, and if you're interested in learning for its own sake you'd easily learn the high school curriculum your own.


Nice to see someone read and appreciate the essay. Graham is a superb writer as well, IMO - his lisp books are great fun.

[demagogue]

if you don't dismiss it just because you can't accept that the social side of it can have its equivalent in a less pointless, less prison-like system,

If I understand this, you agree that school provides socialization. By virtue of that, it's not pointless. I described a few of the things adolescents get from high school, and apparently that's "rambling" since it didn't apply strictly to academics.


Yes, I agree, it's not pointless in that it does provide socialisation. But I do think it is completely pointless in the sense that the same level of socialisation could be provided while making better use of the student's time.


Graham calls school prison-like, but for most people it isn't. Attendance isn't even compulsory, at least in the US. For those who can exploit the food chain in schools, it's easy street, but even for the socially inept, high school is a time of little responsibility and considerable free time. Graham suggests that giving the students more to do would make the experience less prison-like. Forgive me, I don't follow. It goes from day care to labor camp, and that's supposed to make the social structure in high schools less dog-eat-dog? I doubt it, but even if it did, what I've said would still apply.


It wasn't a prison-like experience for me at the time. But I do look back and see that it was in the sense that it was wasted time that we were given no option but to partake in. School was just something which people did. You entered the gates before a certain time and couldn't leave after until another another time. It didn't matter whether you tried as long as you went through the motions. And if you didn't go through the motions then they went through the motions of doing something about it.

Sure the time might not have been wasted per se in the sense of socialisation but in the other directions that people could be better prepared for life, I do not doubt that an order of magnitude difference could have been made.



I take it as someone's perspective of high school where they try to analyse what was wrong.

Not everyone is as brilliant as you and me and Paul Graham. One student's pointless busywork is another's herculean challenge. I apologize if I'm mischaracterizing you here, but you seem to say that the educational system is broken because it was too easy for you. That may have as much to do with your brains as with the school's inadequacy.


You are mischaracterising me. I wish I was as intelligent as Paul Graham - although I do not envy him his experience. We had a lot of the same things at my school as Paul Graham observed. But when I think of the really brilliant kids, I remember them as being respected for their brilliance. I look back and cannot remember anyone bullying them.

In any case, I do not relate to your response here.



your complete dismissal of Graham's admittedly bitter article based on your own bitterness about some undescribed thing.

It's not a complete dismissal. The underlying idea, that adolescents are in economic limbo because of our increased specialization and we still haven't figured out how best to deal with the unwashed teenage throngs, is absolutely right IMHO, and forehead-slappingly obvious.


Ok. Its nice to hear you say that he is right in that one aspect, its something that I did not get that you agreed with in your previous posts.

I have no interest in whether or not he could have done better for himself in school however. I know I could have done so much better in so many ways. Whether I would have actually done better in those ways if the school system had better spent my time trying to teach me to do so is another matter.