Intellectual Peer Pressure
- Print
- 4/20/2008 |
- 10:00 am
Categories: Big Brain Club
This is the very essence of The Big Brain Club, and occasionally I'll write a new column to address the issue. This particular article is directed at teachers, librarians, and parents, and helps to explain the pressure that kids feel to dumb down.
To read a PDF version of the article, just click here.
1 Responses to "Intellectual Peer Pressure"
-
Steve
January 11, 2009 6:04 am
Your article seems to suggest that academic excellence is a surer road to "success" than peer popularity. I would question this viewpoint on a couple of levels. On the one hand, I have found as I go through life that success in the world of business seems to go to those who are "people persons". Or, in the words of the old saying, "It's not what you know, it's who you know." I was always academically talented, with good grades and excellent test scores. But, I lacked and still lack social skills. So, I have never fitted in with the corporate world and have never been offered the opportunity to make the big bucks. Those opportunities go to people who are outgoing and likable - not to those who are merely intelligent. That being said, I have to wonder whether what the world calls "success" is really all that anyway. Look at today's headlines (as of January 2009 and late 2008). How many "successful" investors and homeowners are now on the verge of losing everything? Maybe there was something fundamentally wrong with the culture of greed from the beginning. Maybe it's better from the point of view of human values to be intelligent and poor than sociable and rich. I just really question the idea that one gets rich by being intelligent, or that being "successful" is necessarily a good thing. Just a thought, -Steve
