Does society put the stupid on a pedestal?

[d00d]

First off, apologies if anyone is somehow offended by me using the term stupid. If you read on you'll see how I've used the word in a very broad sense, and that it encompasses several groups of people into one word, which makes writing it more convenient.

 

Now, on topic. I thought about this throughout school and after making a return to certain sections of GTAF, I'm querying my mind again. Note that this is an open discussion, NOT a thread to criticise GTAF. If your typing finger is itching I'll point you to the suggestions subforum now.

 

During school, there were stupid kids. These might be bullies, guys who aren't as bright, or those who are lazy and put no effort in. The measure of success in school (marks/grades) is clearly established. However if one of these "stupid" people makes a little bit of progress, they are infinitely praised for it and all sorts of incentives are given out (in school we had incentives like stars, badges, sweets, whatever. We were like under 10 years old). However students that had been consistently trying their hardest the whole time would get nothing.

 

Working a job is a bit of a fairer environment, in this respect. If you don't make the cut you're out, but thats because workplaces are mostly profit-driven so they're more cut-throat.

 

Only reason I make this topic is because I've noticed an award, namely "Most Improved". This isn't a stab at anyone who has received it, I don't know anyone who has. Personally on here I welcome any improvement. But its a similar example to the school one I gave earlier - we can have someone be a total jackass with many warnings, but if they decide to turn a new leaf and just stop swearing we medal them up. Whereas members who have consistently abided by the rules aren't acknowledged.

 

This is dragging on so I'll wrap it up here. Again, NOT a stab at the system which operates absolutely fine, here. But as a society, aren't we babying the stupid a bit too much?

[Robinski]

Purely on the topic of grades and the support and rewards given in school, the school system in the UK does favour those who are performing at sub-C levels for GCSEs. The problem is with the culture of how we measure success in the schools though, not with "celebrating the stupid". recent governments have been obsessed with the target culture, where schools, government departments, hospitals, basically anything that receives a government penny will be assigned a specific numerical target and a place on a league table in relation to how they perform on their goal. The league tables positions are heavily tied to funding too.

 

Brining that to the schools, you have the target of GCSE grades A*-C as the measure of success. Now, not to be a twat, but I was in top set for every class all the way through secondary school and I got the best overall GCSE results in the year. Over the course of my five years in secondary school my class didn't change much, a few people came and went but about 20 of us were in top set from start to finish. We were given a few extra classes here and there to try and make sure we pushed ourselves to get the top grades. But the majority of the revision classes, study trips and teaching hours went into helping the kids who were wavering around the C/D borderline. The kids who weren't on this specific point on the spectrum got very little compared to them, because they weren't crucial to the how the school looked. The kids at the top were always going to at least scrape Cs just because we were naturally academic, and the best you'd get from the kids at the bottom was going from an F to a D. So the administration considered putting any work in on either end pointless even though the increase in the number grade levels would have been similar. Going from a C to an A, or from an F to a D, was nowhere near as important as going from a D to a C.

 

I completely understand why the school did it, because of the system that was in place. Our teachers never made any effort to hide it from us, and actively apologised on a number of occasions. We felt a bit cheated by them, but it wasn't their fault but that of the system that was in place.

 

I'm not saying that because I was at the "better" end of the spectrum I should have got all the help, but rather that the additional help should have been spread equally to help everyone do better, rather than just those who could fill another checkbox on an audit form.

Edited July 5, 2011 by Robinski

[d00d]

I can relate to that, I was in your shoes. Can't really say this without sounding like a twat but I was scoring top in every class.

 

I'm not talking as general as grades though, I'm referring to the troublemakers and the people that actively pursued disruption, too. Any slight improvement in behaviour is showered with reward. I know there's a proven link of rewarding positive behaviour being followed by more positive behaviour, but is it fair to base it on the same scale that everyone else is on?

 

I've found in life, there are several situations where I could have got a bigger "payoff" if I acted like a complete douche and then behaved like myself after a while, as opposed to just being myself the whole way through.

[d0mm2k8]

 

But its a similar example to the school one I gave earlier - we can have someone be a total jackass with many warnings, but if they decide to turn a new leaf and just stop swearing we medal them up. Whereas members who have consistently abided by the rules aren't acknowledged.

This is something I can heavily relate to. I live in a working class city and went to a working class high school in the middle of a deteriorating council estate. The school was previously in the bottom 100 hundred in the country not too long before I enrolled and it is known for it's unusually high amount of students with special needs.

 

But now to the point. I consistently got some of the highest grades in the school with A*s in science, As in maths + history and Bs for the rest, yet not once was I ever even congratulated, let alone rewarded. However, during award ceremonies/assemblies the dumb-sh*t idiots who practically skipped school constantly yet showed up for one week were given 'Improvement' prizes (usually consisting of gift vouchers, iPod Nanos and cinema tickets). The situation was a lot like how Robinski described it to be honest, except the resources were spent on prizes for people that improved their attendance, a system I don't quite understand.

 

To make things worse, all this did was fuel a certain social idea around this area. You see, it isn't stupidity that's put on a pedestal, it's intelligence that is looked down upon, something that has held me back ever since I was old enough to count. Just look at people such as a lot of footballers, reality TV celebrities and my example above; why be intelligent when you can potentially get more by not being too?

[d00d]

I was afraid of sounding like a bitter guy looking for excuses for his failures in life, so its reassuring to know I'm not alone here. I wouldn't consider myself doing too bad either, doing a degree at the moment and just finishing up a year-long work placement at a law firm.

 

Was it not as obvious to the adults of our childhood, though? That they could reap a crop of a few extremely high quality students, as opposed to maybe a slightly greater quantity of mediocre ones? Even then, the latter were probably meeting the bare minimum requirements in order to get the rewards (I know in my school they were).

 

This is of course just one example. There are plenty more through life, unfortunately, so its not something exclusive to the education system, as broken as it may be.

[GTA_stu]

I had very similar experiences to everyone here as well. The school I went to was a massive comprehensive, it got the worst overall grades for GCSE's from A*-C in the entire city, and the city got the worst in the whole country. So you could say I went to the worst school in England, depending on how you look at it. It was notorious for performing badly, and the buildings were run down, on top of that the year in which I sat my GCSE's there was a huge flood which completely wrecked the school, as well as my own house. It disrupted my schoolwork pretty bad, but in fact I was pretty lucky because hundreds of peoples coursework got destroyed, but mine survived.

 

Anyways, I was in top set and even though we were the beacon of light in a sorry excuse for a school we got pretty much nothing. In year 10 the top 10 bussiness students (including me) got treated to a trip to London including a nice meal, a ride along the river, small bit of site seeing and a trip to Canary Wharf and the underground shopping complex. So it wasn't like we didn't get anything, but in the last 6 months leading up to our GCSE exams we didn't have a maths teacher, apart from sorry substitutes who were clueless. This was because he got punched in the face by some fat girl in my class who thought she was gangsta.

 

But yeh the lower sets always were getting treated to trips to flamingo land, alton towers and go-karting. Everytime OFSTED visited, the worst offendors got taken to Mcdonalds, I kid you not. The people who actually try and work always have the last laugh though because they actually have a future, whereas the others will either be on benefits or doing some dead end job on minimum wage.

[d00d]

One thing I've noticed is that all the responses in this thread are school related, and that's fine. However they're also all from the UK. Is the US system not as broken?

[Zyo]

Now while I dont think exactly that society puts the stupid on a pedestal, I am however very much disconcerted about how much "the stupid" affect the modern world for the rest of us. Looking at the recent trend of legislating to the lowest common denominator , I'm annoyed. $1,000,000 for spilling coffee on yourself, or suing because you found an olive stone in a sandwich are both classic examples. Similar things seem to take place throughout society, as well as in the school system.

 

An example I would like to discuss is that I live in a country where gambling is illegal. Why? Because a tiny tiny fraction, of the fraction of the population that chose to gamble were susceptible to developing gambling problems or addiction So the government just decided to eliminate that right for everyone. Now the question is, why should gambling be made illegal because of a stupid minority? I don't gamble a lot, but i occasionaly like to lay small bets on events like a horse at the Grand National or on England not winning the world cup . Now I think that there a probably people who shouldn't gamble, just like there are people who probably shouldn't drink. But I am sick of having things I do occasionally, ruined for me by idiots.

Edited July 6, 2011 by zyonig

[GTA_stu]

One thing I've noticed is that all the responses in this thread are school related, and that's fine. However they're also all from the UK. Is the US system not as broken?

Well I guess in a broader sense you could say that society does put them on a pedestal. Shows like the only way is essex, jersey shore, big brother and the like. They promote the image that you don't have to work hard to succeed, you just need a boob job and to act looser than a bucket of fishing worms.

 

I suppose it's because (this is going to sound so condescending) the majority of people are dumb, sorry but it's true. The Sun is the most popular newspaper in the UK, and it's full of garbage, the same with Fox news in the US. Society doesn't really like smart people, because they can't relate to them. In school you get teased for being nerdy and trying, but applauded for making stupid noises at the teacher, strange world we live in.

[Zyo]

This is a good point.

 

 

Shows like the only way is essex, jersey shore, big brother and the like. They promote the image that you don't have to work hard to succeed, you just need a boob job and to act looser than a bucket of fishing worms.

 

People do look at society and try to reflect what they see around them in themselves. When they see stupidity, they will act stupidly. Especially these days when the rewards are so great.

[Robinski]

 

One thing I've noticed is that all the responses in this thread are school related, and that's fine. However they're also all from the UK. Is the US system not as broken?

Well I guess in a broader sense you could say that society does put them on a pedestal. Shows like the only way is essex, jersey shore, big brother and the like. They promote the image that you don't have to work hard to succeed, you just need a boob job and to act looser than a bucket of fishing worms.

Most people I know watch these shows out of a "Look at these idiots" rather than "OMG I want to be like this". I watch both Big Brother and Geordie Shore because the people on them both are so far removed from my walk of life that it's really interesting and entertaining. So yeah, a lot of the time it's more of a laughing at them rather than along with them, but different people interpret it differently, so there definitely will be people who aspire to the life just not all of them.

[Straznicy]

I'm actually at the point of losing faith in humanity because of sh*t like this.

 

My school experience was pretty similar to what you guys have described so far. The area I live in is, for want of a better word, a sh*tehole. Obviously this is reflected in the school - it was an achievement for my school if they managed to get most kids into school in the morning, keep them there and stop them fighting. I've always appreciated the value of school, it's something I'm very grateful to my dad for instilling in me. In high school I was top of the class in everything (except f*cking maths, which I failed at Higher:P) and while I received praise from individual teachers, I never saw anything in the ways of iPods or trips, or whatever.

 

And that was fine, because my attitude to doing well in school was that it was to improve my prospects, not for short-term material gain. But by around the time I was in my third year, I started to get fairly bitter and cynical about some of the rewards I was seeing dished out. There was a bunch of kids we called the "Techie Crew" - so ill-inclined for academics that the school recognised there was no point trying. So they taught them stuff for their future jobs(assuming they bother to get one) like, y'know, how to push a button. They also lavished this mob in gifts - one year they went on two trips abroad, when normally my school could barely afford one trip for one year group. And why were they receiving these gifts, exactly? Resisting the urge to stab each other? They could hardly have made much progress with many of them, two of guys in it from my year are now imprisoned for murder.

 

And yeah, television has become even more of a mindrot these days. Bread and circuses though, isn't it? People give more of a f*ck about who's a bigger bitch on Whateverthef*ck Shore than they do about, for example, the drought in East Africa, or fact Afghanistan has effectively turned into Vietnam v.2 or even the spending cuts. They might be aware of these things, but they either won't care, don't really understand them, or both. I used to tell myself that people don't buy into the kind of lifestyle presented on TV, but they really seem to. The whole, your job doesn't really matter as long as you can get f*cked up at weekends, shag people you've just met and buy some novelty crap you don't need. Not that I'm saying a job is the most important thing in the world, but you know what I mean. There's very few aspirations encouraged outside these sort of things. I was getting a smoke with my mates a few randomers last night, and someone asked the rest of us who we were inspired by. I name-dropped a few people; Chomsky, Chavez, Guevara. Most of the randomers had a confused sort of look on their face - my mates know by now that they won't know what the f*ck I'm on about most of the time so they just go with it. I then couldn't help but laugh out loud as a girl cited some creature from one of those reality TV shows.

 

In short, I believe we are well and truly f*cked when the Martians invade.

 

 

[sivispacem]

The problem, as far as I can see it, is that too much emphasis is placed on "equality" between candidates, be that in school or the workplace. The idea of "equality of opportunity" is a fantastic idea in theory, but it usually fails to materialise in practice, simply because by giving those who have been disadvantaged in the past (or have been tarred with the "disadvantaged" brush despite not deserving it- for instance, in the cases of those with separated parents, one with a high income and one with a low income) are given a leg-up over potentially better candidates for no reason other than in the sake of "fairness". Life isn't fair.

[d00d]

I'm going to make quite a jump from where we are now, its a few steps ahead and it might totally miss the mark.

 

This thread has had unanimous agreement that society does place what has been classified in this thread as "stupid" people in an advantageous, more rewarding position in some cases. There may be clarification on a few points, but its been pretty much agreed.

 

Is it fair to say then that everyone in this thread are people who feel somewhat hard-done-by in school? Not blaming the school for all their shortcomings, but feel they could have done better in life and fulfilled more of their potential had there been equal support, instead of efforts at making everyone equal?

 

Interesting how we all seem to have congregated on one forum, out of all the sites on the internet.

[sivispacem]

I'm going to make quite a jump from where we are now, its a few steps ahead and it might totally miss the mark.

 

This thread has had unanimous agreement that society does place what has been classified in this thread as "stupid" people in an advantageous, more rewarding position in some cases. There may be clarification on a few points, but its been pretty much agreed.

 

Is it fair to say then that everyone in this thread are people who feel somewhat hard-done-by in school? Not blaming the school for all their shortcomings, but feel they could have done better in life and fulfilled more of their potential had there been equal support, instead of efforts at making everyone equal?

 

Interesting how we all seem to have congregated on one forum, out of all the sites on the internet.

I think, for the most part, many posters stay out of the Debates and Discussion section of the forum- most of the posters in this thread are regulars around here. Besides my moderating duties, I don't post in threads here that I don't have a cohesive point of view on. I think that, in a forum with upwards of 300,000 members, a group is likely to form of people sharing the same opinion.

[Robinski]

I don't feel hard done by by the school system, but by the target-setting culture in government. On paper, yeah setting numerical targets is a quick and easy way to measure improvement and a good way of deciding who to dole out money to. But in reality, with government funded anything you have people who always need more funding, and as such the system gets gamed, understandably I think.

 

I alluded to it in my first post, but I hold nothing against any of the staff at my school for the way resources were allocated among the students. They were simply looking at the bigger picture than one year group. Getting the A*-C pass numbers up by mostly helping the D level students would, eventually result in more funding and assistance for the school as a whole, and in turn increase all the available resources for all students. So maybe a few years down the line the D students are still the ones being focussed on, but thanks to previous years of doing so, the top and bottom students are also getting a little bit more help too.

 

It's nowhere near a good system, and it should be thrown out as soon as viable, more flexible targets for schools can be implemented than "Did x amount of students get higher than a D in x, y and z subjects?". But do I blame my teachers? Nah, they were, on the whole, good people trying to do the best job they could for all their students with what they had available. I blame most of my shortcomings in my work/school drives on personal weaknesses rather than a lack of support earlier in life.

[Adler]

 

Is it fair to say then that everyone in this thread are people who feel somewhat hard-done-by in school? Not blaming the school for all their shortcomings, but feel they could have done better in life and fulfilled more of their potential had there been equal support, instead of efforts at making everyone equal?

I think it's a difference in work ethic that keeps everybody going the way they currently are. The ones that care about their future will strive for that future and work hard for it whereas the "stupid" need a push towards the short-term goal of achieving praise.

 

My school is segregated by the classes that the students pick so the students that work hard (the ones taking more challenging classes) will not often observe the methods of instruction of the students in regular classes. We're used to the mindset that "we will be successful if we work hard" so we continue to follow the goal of a successful future regardless of the lack of "praise."

[Otter]

I don't really find it interesting, or odd really, that a group of people who aim to discuss things intelligently would agree that they are burdened by the rest of the idiots in the world, no. In fact it's quite the opposite.

 

I do not, however, agree with the argument in this thread. I think that, yes, there are a lot of backwards initiatives that aim to falsely inflate the status of idiots. No Child Left Behind, for instance. But I do believe that these programs are a good idea at heart, if also horribly misguided and managed.

 

Stupid, my friends, is a curable malady. It is in our best interest to cure it. It will not be cured by neglect or segregation. It is not about evening the playing field so everyone gets a fair shake. Rather, everyone must be able to play on the field so we collectively have a fair shake.

[GTA_stu]

Lets say you have child A, and Child B:

 

- Child A is a hard worker, they show promise and want to learn because they value what they are being taught, they are generally pleasant and well mannered and are achievers.

- Child B is disruptive to the class, they show contempt for the teachers and get in the way of their fellow pupils education, they are rude, have behavioural issues and are falling behind in their studies.

 

As far as I'm concerned child B has dug his own grave, as long as they have the bare bones of an education like being able to read and write and do simple arithmetic, then they shouldn't be pandered to. Let then wallow in their own ignorance, they can still be of value to society. You don't need to know much to be able to pick up a mop or carry some materials, so it's not like they have 0 options.

 

Child A however has earned the right to receive postive reward in the form of a more focused and specialised environment in which they can continue to learn and develop important skills which will give them a head start in life.

 

I don't see why at a certain age, maybe around 13 or 14 those who are clearly lost causes aren't just left behind. They don't want to be in school so send them off to some place where they can learn trades or manual labour or something. If they don't like it tough. Doesn't seem to unfair to me. Obviously there are exceptions, people with learning disabilities, regular disabilities for that matter, maybe some people are just slower to learn than others. But why should others have to suffer at the expense of some ungrateful undeserving know nothing imbecile?

 

 

[Otter]

Let's say, 30 years later, Child A's daughter is raped by Child B.

 

I mean, as long as we're playing hypotheticals. Because Child B is left to wallow in his own social idiocy, he never becomes a productive member of society or learns to properly function. But the argument is preposterous - never is the disruptive, unruly, asshole child celebrated more than the class superstar. Take if from a former member of the "unruly" camp.

 

Listen - public education is for the public. At large. That's where the tax money comes from, that's where it goes back to. It's how it's supposed to work.

 

There's always the private option if one feels so inclined. Too poor? There's social programs to help with that. Especially for smart kids.

[Adler]

 

But why should others have to suffer at the expense of some ungrateful undeserving know nothing imbecile?

Not really suffering... just not babied. I'd rather give Child B the benefit of the doubt and allow him/her a second chance. Why should they be judged when there is no apparent crime committed by them... yet?

[Zyo]

 

Is it fair to say then that everyone in this thread are people who feel somewhat hard-done-by in school?

 

No not at all. Though I should mention I graduated high school about 15 years ago. Seems things have changed a little since then.

 

I don't feel hard-done by, as where I went to school there was little in the way of an incentive/reward system. So I don't feel like I missed out on anything, and I probably wouldn't have done anything different If there was. There may have been one or two that might have benefited from such a system, but had that been an investement in time, effort and expense, that would have been detrimental to other (better) students then I probably wouldn't be very happy about it.

[bobgtafan]

 

However they're also all from the UK. Is the US system not as broken?

Is it broken? Hell it's a pile of sh*t on a plate full of maggots. A lot of the problems with the High School and even Middle School I went to had to do with No child left behind. The incentive system it created really f*cked over our system even more than it already was. The major problem was due to 2 facts.

A. It was based off of how many students met a national goal in your school. So if the test target was 200 and 50 percent didn't met that you're screwed. Well first of all what if the school takes a bunch of 100's and raises them up to 199. Then what? We still don't get more funding because even though they improved by 99 points they couldn't met the national rate. This really f*cked us over because our school is majority black and poor. Considering statistically speaking those two groups do worse on these test, we were f*cked. My district could of had it worse like some of the real inner cities that were taken over by the state (instead of kept local) but still.

B. This meant a lot of time must be spent on the failing kids because now the ones who always make the cut don't need the attention for funding. They're going to make the damn grade anyway. Local standards fall, school morale drops,...ahh well f*ck school.

[d00d]

I'm glad you've chimed in with a different opinion, Otter. Unfortunately its gone midnight here and I'm totally whacked so I'll read your response properly tomorrow, and go from there.

[d00d]

Here goes - sorry for the double post.

 

Looks to me as though Otter's argument and sivispacem's are polar opposites - and I'm leaning more towards the latter. I think to a certain point, a child should be held responsible for their own education. You don't go to school just to learn about topics, you're supposed to learn how to socialise and become a person of good habit.

 

I also think the line between fairness and equal opportunity is being blurred, here. It isn't fair that some people earn £200,000 a year and some £20,000 a year, but thats life. As sivaspacem said, life isn't fair. But the important thing is that we should make the opportunity for success equal to everyone. While any adult knows that isn't the case in a working life, for kids in school it is. If you choose to throw the opportunity, I'm not saying you should be left to the dogs but you shouldn't expect teachers to chase you.

 

We've veered off a bit from the original post but its still good.

[sivispacem]

In relation to the above, you're absolutely right that people should be masters of their own destiny and responsible for their own learning. Far too much emphasis is placed on "levelling the playing field" with regards to education, employment and the suchlike. But by doing so, what impression are we giving? That it's okay not to really try? Take, for example, the university system in the UK. Much used to be made of the low proportion of students from disadvantaged backgrounds in the higher education system in the UK. Okay, fair enough, but what happens when these organisations are forced by legislation to be less exacting in their standards? The quality of UK universities compares to those elsewhere in the world drops dramatically. There's nothing wrong with being selective.

 

Being "stupid" does not deny someone the opportunity to be a functional member of society. There are many roles in life in which intelligence does not appear to be a prerequisite. NHS middle-management, for example. Or many vocational roles, such as being a mechanic. A lack of intelligence cannot be equated with a lack of of social or moral understanding- the former can, to some degree, be corrected. The latter is much more challenging to deal with once the person in question reaches adulthood.

[friendly luggage]

I can relate to that, I was in your shoes. Can't really say this without sounding like a twat but I was scoring top in every class.

 

I'm not talking as general as grades though, I'm referring to the troublemakers and the people that actively pursued disruption, too. Any slight improvement in behaviour is showered with reward. I know there's a proven link of rewarding positive behaviour being followed by more positive behaviour, but is it fair to base it on the same scale that everyone else is on?

Ok my grammar isn't the best so there may be a few mistakes.

I agree with the "ooh he's answered a question correctley in maths, lets give him an Amazon voucher!"

 

Although academicly I've never been the best, I struggled with maths and have been put in bottom sets with all the trouble makers but in the last two years my school life improved. At the start of year 10 I found I was in middle set maths, top set English and Science. With a new teacher and no disruptive pupils, my maths improved greatly from an E to a C. My English aswell with no disruptive pupils was great, I enjoyed school where as before I felt looked down on by smart students. My most favourite subject however was science, in top set with a great teacher and good students was really good. In mock tests both multiple choice and written I was getting B's to A's. I was actually doing well. I even got into something called triple science where I can get an extra GCSE. However in the options I took, it wasn't all good. One of my options was Design Technology and four of the boys in the class were disruptive and extremely rude to classmates and the teacher. Oh and guess what, one of them "accidently" smashed a window and wasn't even excluded. In that Design Technology class we got no work done because the teacher was constantly interupted and he eventually quit (I don't blame him). That's one GCSE lost then... I shall find out my results in August so I'll report back

Oh and I'm glad with the friends I've made at secondary school. They're a bit like you guys because they've been in the top set classes. I was with them in year 7, 10 and 11. We all act mature (well most of the time) and they also feel a bit annoyed how the kids who usually ruin lessons do one good thing are rewarded with a play on the wii etc. Although its seems like they're being rewarded like a dog, if they sit they get a treat although unlike the dog they don't sit consistantly. They don't learn.

Edited July 27, 2011 by illegal_luggage

[Otter]

To refine my opinion; when we allow people to become losers, we find ourselves inundated with losers. This is why terms like "level playing field" are frightening; because our lowest f*cking denominator is low.

 

 

Edited July 27, 2011 by Otter

[Saggy]

I think there's a pretty big difference between intelligence and getting good grades, and on top of that a lot of the "under achievers" when I went to school were not really unruly malcontents so the idea that they were ruining anything for anyone else is silly. In contrast, a lot of the people that just tuned out were actually pretty smart and uninterested in the curriculum. Yeah I know that story gets old, "Oh, he's just so smart, he's bored," but seriously the curriculum in our schools were so remedial and emphasized on passing standardized testing so much that for the most part every three years we'd just review basic English and Math skills (nouns, adjectives, adverbs or multiplication and division respectively), and the literacy rates were so low most kids in the 6th grade read at a 3rd or 4th grade reading level for the rest of their academic careers. So what you had was a lot of curriculum that was just incredibly rudimentary or constantly repeating itself, meanwhile the only way to truly get good grades was to be there every day and do all your assigned homework, and so a lot of the people who would fall behind and get bad grades were not even unintelligent at all. A lot of the times they had various attitude problems or maybe their home life sucked ass, there's always reasons that they didn't just go, "Well, okay, I'll keep my head down and do what I'm told and I'll be successful." In fact, a kid could ace all the tests and perform extremely well on his assigned work, but if he missed more than five consecutive days of school then he automatically failed the class so sometimes it came down to some technicality like that.

 

So all you really had was work ethic being celebrated, whereas actual intelligence was just a secondary benefit if it happened to be there at all. Each set of kids realized this, and each got their various "rewards" that they knew were bullsh*t and some students would get both. They would get parties for being on the "honor roll", yet in the next month they would also get one for improving their 4th grade reading level to a 5th grade reading level. Most of them saw the contradiction and just took advantage of it, because hey, free parties... On the other hand, a lot of kids like me didn't really enjoy being required to go to school everyday when we weren't really learning anything we didn't already know, we were already literate, etc. I mean, half of the kids you would think were "stupid" based on their grades would just slack off in class but most of the time instead of being obnoxious or disrupting the class, would do something you seldom saw any of the good-grade-students do: Read a book. At the time I was trying to learn computer programming and would often finish the assigned class work in a couple of minutes, then crack open the book to read while my teacher asked, "Why don't you take this time to do the homework."

 

I think it was mostly a mixed bag in my school, because like I said, they did give honor roll students parties, but they also gave people parties when they advanced from one remedial reading level to the next. Granted I think there was some pretty stark difference between the "smart" kids and the kids that got good grades, and always saw it as a way to promote good work ethic instead of actually educate kids. However, I don't know if that's necessarily a bad thing... A lot of the "smarter" kids that just slacked off and dropped out aren't doing sh*t with their lives even if they are smart, because they never really learned to eat bullsh*t and succeed. On the other hand, a lot of the "over achievers" that I know who were dumb as rocks are now working high paying jobs--and are just as dumb. Yet they take home bigger salaries... So what's more important really, high intelligence or a good work ethic? I'm just saying, some of the stupidest people I know are responsible for millions of dollars worth of equipment at some of the jobs they work, meanwhile some of the "smartest" people I know are really skilled at flipping burgers.

 

So long story short, I don't think it has anything to do with intelligence, at least not here. It's all about weeding out the ones that will eat sh*t and the ones who won't, and guess which ones get further in life faster. I think there is a level of diminishing returns though... While on the one hand the "lazy ones" might spend the majority of their early 20s unemployed, they might work their way into college later on and wind up getting a degree and a high paying job. Meanwhile the ones that were great at eating sh*t and got the fast track into a management career, usually just wind up with a slightly higher pay grade begging for benefits while they manage a new generation of sh*t-eaters and try to weed out the "good workers" from "bad workers". Long story short, I don't think a lot of the straight A students I grew up with are very likely to ever enter a field that demands a really high level of intelligence, but if on the other hand a person that is very intelligent never learns the value of good work ethic, they probably won't ever advance far enough to make it into those careers either.

 

When it comes down to rewarding the under-achievers when they do make an improvement though, I think that is kind of important for a lot of them. I mean, maybe that's just a difference in methodology between now days and the old days though. Can you imagine a kid having to wear a dunce cap? Now days there's all sorts of people that suggest that is more likely to make a child withdraw and not want to participate in school, whereas celebrating their accomplishments is supposed to have some big effect on self-esteem and ambition. I think there are merits to both systems, but I think in today's society where parents are increasingly next-to-absent in their child's education, it would probably be very important not to make a child feel stupid and withdraw, because then when you couple that with the lack of parental involvement you wind up with the kids that don't participate in the part of school that does build work ethic and perhaps other social factors. I think the whole idea of rewarding them for any slight improvement is just another instance of filling a role that parents are supposed to be doing, but the basic idea is that without motivation from a positive source they're not going to do any better.