A friend shared this with me and I thought I would pass it on through this forum:
Paul Graham on the social heiarchies of American teenagers in school.
"Officially the purpose of schools is to teach kids. In fact their primary purpose is to keep kids all locked up in one place for a big chunk of the day so adults can get things done. And I have no problem with this: in a specialized industrial society, it would be a disaster to have kids running around loose.
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."
Posted by kurt at May 29, 2003 11:53 AMthe thing that seems to be missing (and I'm familiar with Graham - he's a smart dude) is the idea that most of your education is spent in school not necessarily learning (or rather, remembering) facts, etc., but rather figuring out how to exist in society. Obviously, this society we are trying to fit into is a capitalist / post-whatever one - that's obvious. But does it then mean that these "misfits" who can't handle the "surreal cocktail" are all anti-establishment? I doubt it. He's trying to figure out why nerds are outcasts in grade school. This topic I'm sure has been covered extensively, with good reason, and the idea that schools are prisons controlled by hyper-masculine football guys is a little speculative - and assuming that school is where kids develop societal stereotypes, etc., ignores simple facts about the amount of hours kids spend in front of the t.v. where nerds (not N.E.R.D) are seldom seen in a positive light. (I wish they hadn't cancelled Freaks and Geeks, which was actually a decent show).
Posted by: will at May 29, 2003 3:26 PM
That was kinda weird wehn I got a call from my bro's friend and he said I can join the nerd club at nerd.com that's not really a website though.
Posted by: Raiden at July 24, 2004 10:53 AM
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