
On telling my son that he is a geek - ColinWright
http://marshallbrain.com/geek.htm
======
maarten
the attitude in this post really saddens me

it sure must be helpful for a 11 year old to be talked into viewing the world
as a dangerous place full of evil people, fearing life will be a bigger hell
for every year to come until he's done with school. all because his own father
feels he needs to explain to his son he is too awkward to for this world, and
he's only really safe at home. and all this to "hopefully prevent himself from
committing suicide".

a boy get's picked last at team-games, do you tell him the rest of his life
will be a hell - and give him the impression he's powerless against it? or do
you tell him that people will forget he was picked last as soon as 5 seconds
later: so he should just forget about it too, enjoy the game and try to
improve his skills in the game.

i guess it's normal for parents to feel they have to warn their children for
the dangers of the world, but it's not the same teaching them to fear the
future. it would be far more useful to concentrate on teaching some confidence
and useful social skills.

------
olifante
the funny thing is how all americans, including geeks, seem to consider this
inevitable. Growing up in Europe, I was a full-blown geek at the age of 13 and
I didn't feel socially isolated at all (much less taunted or tortured) because
of it.

~~~
andrewce
I had a similar experience, and am curious why you think you had the
experience you did?

I grew up an unabashed geek in the midwest, and felt no more social isolation
than anyone else in my peer group at school.

Some of this was because I played sports (not well, but this was a relatively
small school so I wasn't going to get cut). Most of it, came down to two
factors:

1) I didn't react to taunting, teasing, name-calling, or even the occasional
bits of violence. I only really had to deal with this in 8th and 9th grade,
but those who would do such things figured out after a while that I wasn't
going to give them any satisfaction.

2) My peers respected people who were good at things. I was good at things
(our academic bowl team won nationals, for example, and I had several short
stories published). In fact, I'd go so far as to say most people respect
people who are good at things, especially if that "good at things" is
immediate and visible and public.

Frankly, if schools/teachers adopted a broader view of "success", and if they
provided a chance for students to showcase their successes in a public fashion
(I'm talking actual successes here, rather than "Congratulations! You're made
of carbon, and that makes you special!" psuedo-successes designed to prop up
self-esteem), a lot of the bullying would probably stop.

------
ianterrell
Defeatism FTW?

If there's anything the PUA community shows[0], it's that social skills can be
learned. It's also easy to get to a medium level of fitness, especially in our
culture of sloth.

Sure, he's 11, so maybe it's not _that_ easy, but what's really going to hold
him back isn't his "geekiness," it will be his mental habit of _shy_ ing away
from growth opportunities due to fear and "oh I just can't help it!"

[0] not an endorsement of that community, btw, except for Neil Strauss's _The
Game_ , which is a fun read

------
brachiast
The end of compulsory schooling (whether that compulsion comes from parents or
from the state), will one day solve this problem. Bullying occurs wherever
freedom of association is denied.

A zero-tolerance approach to bullying has about as much chance of working as
the War on Drugs. Headteachers and schools always deny serious bullying where
it exists.

And minor bullying is indistinguishable from 'socialization', which nearly
everyone thinks is a good thing.

~~~
andrewce
My experience as both a student and a teacher (in several different schools)
suggests that a decent number of teachers (less than half, but more than a
few) become teachers mostly because they really like the power games that can
be played in school, and the lording of authority.

I don't mean this to disparage teachers as a whole. But the power rush is
pretty substantial, if one lets it take hold.

------
timon
Sigh, americans and there hate for geeks.

The school system is so retarded so that there must be a valedictorian, the
one who is most likely too succeed. I'm wondering how teachers behave towards
those kids, so that the rest of the class hates them perhaps? You don't see
that in the high school movies..

