nerds

Today I ran across a superb essay by Paul Graham titled Why Nerds are Unpopular.

If I could go back and give my thirteen year old self some advice, the main thing I'd tell him would be to stick his head up and look around. I didn't really grasp it at the time, but the whole world we lived in was as fake as a twinkie. Not just school, but the entire town. Why do people move to suburbia? To have kids! So no wonder it seemed boring and sterile. The whole place was a giant nursery, an artificial town created explicitly for the purpose of breeding children.

The essay goes in great detail deconstructing the systems involved in creating the modern secondary school experience (social, education and economic). It should be required reading for all parents, educators and policy makers.

Comments

[Laura]

Excellent article. I saved a copy so that when my kids are teenagers I can let them read it. (It's doubtful that I will remember it then. But you never know. One day, J may be argueing with me about tattoos or something and the thought will pop into my head.)