Intelligence

I think it unfair that people should be bullied because of their intelligence, but I do not agree that being intelligent is not 'cool', you can have intelligent people who are considered cool; it's all an attitude or how others perceive you. Admittedly people who answer all the questions correctly all the time in class may appear to be a smart-arses and this may cause some consternation with their fellow classmates, the easy solution would be not to answer ALL the questions asked but to let others answer; if you know the answer straight off then do not put your hand up immediately and answer, wait a while and let others think of the answer or work it out themselves, if after a short period no-one else proffers an answer then do so yourself, this pause will even make others think you have had to work the question out yourself or will let someone else answer, if you are answering a few questions, especially the ones that no-one else is, the teachers cannot think you shy or stupid as you are answering when no-one knows the answer. You should not need to answer all the questions aloud to prove that you are intelligent; if you know yourself that you knew the answer, is that not sometimes good enough?

Originally posted by Phoenix
Has anyone else noticed that being intelligent is somehow not 'cool'? At my school, I used to be bullied and picked on because I was smart and answered questions in class and had a posh voice. As soon as I stopped answering questions in class and just did the written work, the teasing stopped.

I guess what's 'cool's defined by the 'ruling majority' of a class. If there's a lot of intelligent people, these'll form the largest group, turn confident and popular and thus brains might be the hot thing in that class. and the other way around. whoever's the 'popular' group'll probably sometimes feel threatened by the strengths of the other group, may it be brains or good looks, and this'll be marked 'uncool' to keep this group from descending from the bottom of the hierarchy.

Originally posted by Papaumau

The REALLY lucky ones are the ones that are attractive, intelligent, confident, sociable AND don't need to study all that hard to gain the highest grades.

I think we will find that the classic "nerds" are the ones that are so lacking in self-confidence that they feel the need to bury their heads in books all the time. This is - in the main - a self-protectionist behaviour that actually makes them more of a target for the "cool" types than less of a target.

when did reading make someone lacking in self-confidence? I am a self confessed bookworm. I find reading more satisfying then going out to get legless everynight - whats wrong with that. I'm a very self-confident person, and - I'll admit it, sometimes too self-confident.

And I certainly don't think that the non-studying types are great acheivers - they may get the good grades because they have a sponge like memory, but grades are not a measure of true knowledge. I personally think it is better to do your absolute best and get a D then to not try and get an A

Originally posted by BackFire
Being smart is awesome. If some morons made fun of your for asking questions you should have used your smarts and wit to make them feel even dumber. That's what I do. Tell them to look behind them, and then when they turn to do so, walk off, they won't turn around untill you're gone because they're too stupid to realize what just happened.

Just rest assured that the people who made fun of you and bullied you in class will probably spend the rest of their lives delivering pizza's to pay for the child they accidentally had during or after high school because they weren't bright enough to figure out how to use a condom.

Anyways, don't let some fools make you feel bad because of your intelegence. And don't let them stop you from raising your hand in class and answering questions. If they bully you, either defend yourself or, if you must, tell the teacher. You're status in high school is extremely trivial, and only matters to, well, idiots.

I realised this when I was about 15 and stopped letting them bother me - which is when I got my self-confidence back. Don't get me wrong - there's nothing wrong with being in the lower ability classes, ther is only something wrong if you know you could easily do better and go higher.

Originally posted by Lord_Andres
Well first of all, whats intelligence? well there are seven kinds of intelligence

1.Linguistic intelligence (as in a poet)
2.Logical-mathematical intelligence (as in a scientist)
3.Musical intelligence (as in a composer)
4.Spatial intelligence (as in a sculptor or airplane pilot)
5.Bodily kinesthetic intelligence (as in an athlete or dancer)
6.Interpersonal intelligence (as in a salesman or teacher)
7.Intrapersonal intelligence (exhibited by individuals with accurate views of themselves)

My schools really big on this at the moment - has all these posters up, and we had to do a 'personal assessment'. I'm mostly Linguistic and Musical, and pretty high on interpersonal and average on logic-math. atrocious at spatial and Intra - Body depends - I don't like competetive sports, I'm good at dance and yoga and swimming

Originally posted by Corran
I think it unfair that people should be bullied because of their intelligence, but I do not agree that being intelligent is not 'cool', you can have intelligent people who are considered cool; it's all an attitude or how others perceive you. Admittedly people who answer all the questions correctly all the time in class may appear to be a smart-arses and this may cause some consternation with their fellow classmates, the easy solution would be not to answer ALL the questions asked but to let others answer; if you know the answer straight off then do not put your hand up immediately and answer, wait a while and let others think of the answer or work it out themselves, if after a short period no-one else proffers an answer then do so yourself, this pause will even make others think you have had to work the question out yourself or will let someone else answer, if you are answering a few questions, especially the ones that no-one else is, the teachers cannot think you shy or stupid as you are answering when no-one knows the answer. You should not need to answer all the questions aloud to prove that you are intelligent; if you know yourself that you knew the answer, is that not sometimes good enough?

In my experience tho, a good half the class is afraid to answer in case the other half isolates them. Why should we be scared to show intelligence? Why is sports and 'coolness' so much better than academics? We always used to have 'Sports DAy', but never a Maths Challenge or a Poetry competition, something I would have actually enjoyed taking part in. I even suggested it to the head teacher, but, without even asking the school, he said that not enough people would be interested. What he meant that it would be too much hassle and cost too much - he cared more about the budget than the happiness of the students

I think some schools have differing opinions to others; my school was very good at sports, being an all boys school you would expect this, but we still had other clubs and competitions of an academic calling, we had poetry comps but I think that was mainly due to the fact that Wilfred Owen went to our school (not while I was there I may hasten to add), we had a chess team and entered comps with other schools, we had one of the best soccer teams and the best rugby team in the area, plus a decent cricket team and other sports, we had a brass band that entered competitions too; it sounds like a failing of your head-teacher or school governors if they concentrated wholly on sports. Sports is an important part of schooling too, this helps to build team spirit and helps kids develop so that they are able to work in a team with others, it helps make people more confident in themselves and others, it could even be that your school deemed these benefits as highly important to develop and having competitions involving intelligence etc may restrict the kids who can enter, sports is not restricted to anyone; regardless of your intellectual levels anyone can take part in sports.

Phoenix> Why? Because the average school-kid has average intelligence. The average parent has average intelligence.
So smart kids will distinguish themselves merely by being… smarter. I had the dubious pleasure of being greatly bullied in school when I was younger, for being the “smart kid.”

Trust me – later on revenge comes all by itself, when you get the cool job, the cool pay – and they… work at general stores or not at all 😉

And today being a "nerd" is a cool label.

Originally posted by Corran
I think some schools have differing opinions to others; my school was very good at sports, being an all boys school you would expect this, but we still had other clubs and competitions of an academic calling, we had poetry comps but I think that was mainly due to the fact that Wilfred Owen went to our school (not while I was there I may hasten to add), we had a chess team and entered comps with other schools, we had one of the best soccer teams and the best rugby team in the area, plus a decent cricket team and other sports, we had a brass band that entered competitions too; it sounds like a failing of your head-teacher or school governors if they concentrated wholly on sports. Sports is an important part of schooling too, this helps to build team spirit and helps kids develop so that they are able to work in a team with others, it helps make people more confident in themselves and others, it could even be that your school deemed these benefits as highly important to develop and having competitions involving intelligence etc may restrict the kids who can enter, sports is not restricted to anyone; regardless of your intellectual levels anyone can take part in sports.

OUr school is/was ((I don't go there anymore)) JUST sports. We had a netball team, football, rugby, swimming, hockey, tennis, badminton ((all in boys and girls and mixed teams)). The only academics they cared about was that we reached the OFSTED quota

Originally posted by The Omega
Phoenix> Why? Because the average school-kid has average intelligence. The average parent has average intelligence.
So smart kids will distinguish themselves merely by being… smarter. I had the dubious pleasure of being greatly bullied in school when I was younger, for being the “smart kid.”

Trust me – later on revenge comes all by itself, when you get the cool job, the cool pay – and they… work at general stores or not at all 😉

And today being a "nerd" is a cool label.

I think of myself more as a 'geek' than a 'nerd'... 😉

Intelligence

doh, I don't agree that you shouldn't answer a question in class if you know it... of course you should answer, everyone should have the right to speak up ✅ that doesn't make you a smart ass imho

The funniest part about the whole thing for me is like, you get people saying "Look how hard you work, you must have no life or no friends."

.......Is that the dumbest conclusion ever to me alone? You go to school to learn, not to hang out with friends. That is a secondary thing. I use outside of school time for hanging out and having fun. School is just that, school. There's a social element of course but primarily it's to learn and to work. Those who claim it's dumb to work are often those who end up flipping burgers. Bill Gates was called a geek at school, now he's one of the richest, most successful men on Earth. The guy that picked on him probably isn't as successful.

-AC

Originally posted by Papaumau

The REALLY lucky ones are the ones that are attractive, intelligent, confident, sociable AND don't need to study all that hard to gain the highest grades.

Sounds like me. 😄

Originally posted by Phoenix
Has anyone else noticed that being intelligent is somehow not 'cool'? At my school, I used to be bullied and picked on because I was smart and answered questions in class and had a posh voice. As soon as I stopped answering questions in class and just did the written work, the teasing stopped.

Why is this, do you think? I personally think being clever is the 'coolest' thing you can be - who wants to be illiterate and struggle with the easiest sums, just because they decided being smart was 'sad'?

Thankfully, I am no longer considered 'sad', so I can speak up in class as much as I want, but when I was 13/14, it really hurt for the teachers to think I was shy or stupid just because I knew I would get railed on after class if I answered any questions.

What do you guys think? Why is 'cool' so much better than clever?

Because the "pack" is generally stronger than the individual, people respect those with a big circle of friends, no matter how dumb they are. And generally, the majority of the population is of average intelligence. So to put it bluntly, stupid people stick together, and there are more of them than there are smart people... I used to get picked on a lot for that, because I used long words and acted too smart for them to handle. It really sucked.

Remember though that the kids who look at you funny and bully you for being smart are the same ones who are going to be sitting in cubicles doing grunt work for wealthier individuals for the rest of their lives.