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Young Students Hiding Academic Talent To Avoid Bullying
jones_supa writes "The recent anti-bullying survey conducted by ABA brings up some interesting findings. According to it, more than 90% of the 1,000 11-16 year-olds surveyed said they had been bullied or seen someone bullied for being too intelligent or talented. Almost half of children and young people (49.5%) have played down a talent for fear of being bullied, rising to 53% among girls. One in 10 (12%) said they had played down their ability in science and almost one in five girls (18.8%) and more than one in 10 boys (11.4%) are deliberately underachieving in maths – to evade bullying. Worryingly, this means our children and young people are shying away from academic achievement for fear of victimization."
That people feel they need to hide their abilities because they would do better than others.
It was like this when I was in school back in the 60's and 70's. I realize the study is from the UK, but anti-intellectualism is a long tradition here in the good ol' USA - witness the support for creationism and denial of climate change, etc, etc.
Have you read my blog lately?
I waited nearly forty years for someone to recognize the existence and pervasiveness of this behavior!
even in college i felt like an asshole for knowing more than everyone but then again i was cheap and went to a state college to save money so maybe at a more expensive school it's better...
Ma bring me my shotgun. Theres another of them their intlectuls on the front grass.
I'm the most modest child there is, please dont bully me!
How is this news? I would wager that humans have been acting like this for many thousands of years. The only people who should find this surprising are people who grew up somewhere away from all human contact,.
I don't respond to AC's.
All the kids hated and insulted me
So, I made friends with the teachers and school administration
Concentrated totally on academic excellence
Totally ignored the other kids
You're a fat paste eater! Why don't you kill yourself?
There, I said it.
The place you go where no one cares about you.
The place you go to get bullied into mediocrity.
The place you go to be counted, so bureaucrats get their check for your attendance, regardless of whether you learned anything.
Which was unusual in that the person doing the bullying was the fucking teacher. (First grade believe it or not. Turns out she hated the smart kids. I'm fairly glad my mind won't let me remember what she did but I at least know she was cruel, nasty bitch.) Every grade after that I way under-performed.
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
When I was in school I was too smart for my peer group, so I was ostracized because I didn't settle for underperforming. Being average is normal, and when you're not normal it frightens people. Especially younger kids who don't understand that it's okay to know someone smarter than you.
Indeed:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Socrates
Palm trees and 8
This was standard behaviour in many schools in Australia in the 60's and 70's. I personally experienced it and witnessed it. Toughen up. The world is not all sugar plums and rainbows.
A few things...
:)
Talent schools do exist, a lot of them are private though.
Being in the top 10% of your math class doesn't make you a math prodigy.
Smart people who act "cool" tend to get applause for their "talents" , not bullied
Lifting weights never killed anyone in this age group (at least I don't think)
Where the f' are the parents in all this?
In life in general, sometimes it's better to fit in than be the nail that gets hammered
If the kids actually cared about excelling in their subject of choice, they wouldn't care about being bullied, I can think of a chess person, and a chem person who are testaments to this from back in HS
Last, but not least, AP Calc has yet to help me in life, AP chem... kind of
In a work environment, just as in school, you get along by pretending to be like everyone else, and as dumb as everyone else, particularly your managers. Lip service is always given to tolerance, but lip service is all it is.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
ever so much Conservatives and Republicans for you constant berating and demonizing of anything intellectual.
If you are then you think too much.
-- Billy Joel, 1980.
Same old shit, different generation (note that it was B. Joel saying that in the song, but his peers)
In Asia, overachievers and well-studying kids are looked up to. While that still doesn't make them the 'cool' kids, they do just fine socially and have no such problems as TFA.
I suggest North American culture change its stigma of nerds, geeks, and intelligence, or face vastly deteriorating social values and social/scientific progress.
The Election is Over, and the Math Geeks Won.
Obama's data geeks have made Karl Rove and Dick Morris obsolete
The Real Election-Day Winner? Math Geeks.
Math nerds score big wins with superstorm Sandy, Obama victory
A library datebase, not just for science nerds
This is only from recent events, but the same type of headlines are repeated all the time. Why the hell would any child want to be good at something that puts them into a category that is openly disdained in our culture?
More often than not, the bullies had well-paying union jobs lined up for them as soon as they reached the age of legal drop-out or barely graduated.For those who got screwed out of college and had to "avail himself of American opportunities", life was made much harder.
This happens at all ages. I'm a bit of a polymath and hyperactice, in that I've done many things successfully in life, including athletic, artistic, political and intellectual tasks. If I mention every time that is pertinent that I've done that people soon label you a know it all, so you just learn to zip it up.
"Merit is, itself, offensive."
Showing talent intimidates the talentless. They defend themselves against the feeling of deficiency by attacking those with talent. It is basic human psychology.
Don't want your kid bullied? Don't send him/her to a public school.
I prefer to think of it as hiding my secret identity.
Have gnu, will travel.
It was not until I left school that I had the freedom to show my true abilities and interest. In school, being good at something and God forbid, having it displayed by the teacher, was one of the asking.for.it criteria.
No, that didn't stop me from being bullied entirely, but did take the edge off. Even getting chewed out over my report card when my parents knew my potential was a better result than the constant torment. And yah, some of the "popular teachers" knew how to be popular, some of the teachers picked on me too and I had no recourse because nobody believed me.
It took 35 years to get over the bitterness, and learn to trust people.
Socrates' last words:
"I drank what?"
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
made things a lot worse. When my oldest (who is actually good at math) went to school, he never got in trouble because he'd get some A's, a few B's and occasionally he'd even get an F... by now, math and other subjects are so dumbed down that any reasonably smart person gets straight A's - and suddenly you're being punished for being too smart... In the end, we need kids to fail more in every way.
Peter.
Dearies, when I was growing up in India, I was very good in academics. Yes I was good in a number of extra curricular activities too, but acads were stellar. I was fit, but except for some recreational table-tennis, I was not much into competitive sports. Oh btw, I was a small kid in stature compared to others. Anyway, I was actually respected, especially because of the acads. And thankfully the culture has not changed much at all. Kids who are talented in sciences and acads, or other stuff, get respect, and are considered cool enough to hang out with - it's not the losers who sit around and are bulky that are considered cool (well, India being India, if the losers start getting physical, rest assured there are external contractors whom your parents can hire to take care of the matter quickly - and the losers know that too).
Anyway - this is good news for India and china. At least their brainy kids would not be beaten up and turned away from studies by the idiots. No immediate worries of ending up as an idiocracy. I guess future generations of Indian and chinese kids will thank the prolific US 'cool' football and basketball stars for beating up the brainy ones and damaging them permanently.
Good show USA.
This has been going on for a long time, and no, it isn't just public schools.
George Orwell mentioned getting mocked -- by the headmaster's wife, for cripes sake -- for being part of a group that collected insects. ("Such, Such Were the Joys.")
But the OA made me think of this Freeman Dyson quote:
"So it happened that I belonged to a small minority of boys who were lacking in physical strength and athletic prowess, interested in other things besides football, and squeezed between the twin oppressions of whip and sandpaper. We hated the headmaster with his Latin grammar and we hated even more the boys with their empty football heads. So what could the poor helpless minority of intellectuals, later and in another country to be known as nerds, do to defend ourselves? We found our refuge in a territory that was equally inaccessible to our Latin-obsessed headmaster and our football-obsessed schoolmates. We found our refuge in science. With no help from the school authorities, we founded a science society. As a persecuted minority, we kept a low profile. We held our meetings quietly and inconspicuously. We could do no real experiments. All we could do was share books and explain to each other what we didn't understand. But we learned a lot. Above all, we learned those lessons that can never be taught by formal courses of instruction; that science is a conspiracy of brains against ignorance, that science is a revenge of victims against oppressors, that science is a territory of freedom and friendship in the midst of tyranny and hatred."
-- From "To Teach or Not to Teach," 1990
from Herodotus, he called it Tall Poppy Syndrome. But hey no one on /. reads the classics anymore right?
I suffered the same fate, right up until about grade 8. Some little asshole pushed me to the edge and i stuck a pencil through his hand. Never had a problem after that. I found the only way to deal with these fools was to return their crualty 7 fold. and i dont mean stamp your feet and cry like a baby. or play push me shove you. Stand up, look them in the eye, Smile, and stab the fucker with sumthing sharp. Now i know there will be so many out there (especially these days) who will sya turn the pther cheek, dont be violent etc. etc. but the truth is the world is a violent place, and no matter how fake you want to be, how thick your rose coloured glases are this will still be the case in another 100 years. So simple. Use your brains and augment your existing inteligence with a pari of testicles. You will find soon you wont be worth bothering anymore. I used to attend boarding school, I remember building a stun gun form a motor start cap, mains charged. that soon stoped them in thier tracks. There is only so many times you can run to a teacher and still stand tall as you own man. dont sucumb to the sheeple way of life, where its always someone elses responsibilty to protect you. The Police dont care, The teachers dont care. hell i dont care. Getting a little roughed up at school builds character. and teaches you to defend yourself in the real world.
To a nerd, acquiring social skills merely means learning that he can never mention anything he really cares about, and that he must learn to politely endure other people's boring rants without showing it. And then people wonder why he dislikes socializing.
People don't get bullied for being good at soccer or for being good at art.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
One in 10 (12%)
Hmmm...
Discussion of the bully issue usually avoids the fact that some kids are more prone to being bullied because they're sensitive, easily offended, or cannot handle self-deprecating humor.
It all starts when you're five years old and a kid at school yells at you "I see your underpants. Ha ha!" If you react or protest or cry or run away, then the other kids will smell your fear and attack you like a pack of wolves. If you keep your cool or joke at it, then other kids show you respect. It all comes down to how you handle yourself in those moments.
Anti-bullying crusaders dismiss anything that sounds like "blaming the victim". Instead they consider bullied kids as innocent bystanders, and focus only on the mean, misguided nature bullies, and how parents and teachers should to control them. But to fix the problem you really should look at each kid who gets bullied and show them what they're doing wrong.
There was a girl in my class in middle school who was first rate at figure skating, and never got picked on at all. There were kids who were good at art and other things ... no hassles. Precious athletes, for the most part, exempt from the social tax on excellence.
There was a girl hideously deformed in the jaw and neck who showed up one day. No one said a word for two months, then the dam burst. I'd been in a children's hospital down the hall from a burn unit. I wasn't having any of it. Most of the adults who came to visit were so green around the gills to step onto that ward you almost needed a bucket in the hallway.
Sam Harris says we grant religious beliefs too much automatic deference. I think this also extends to our little rotters. There's something terribly vicious in young children that we neither discuss nor study to the extent warranted by their appalling capacity for social cruelty.
Not my little angel! Well, I suspect your little angel has become adept at emulating attitudes learned at home.
The social violence of little angels should be news. Today and every day. Do people think it just goes away, or does it merely mutate into more mature forms? I'm not trying to stamp out scorn or derision. That's a fact of life, man. But I do think that the use of "gay" as a generic adjective of derision should get the little rotters shuffled onto a short bus for the social learning disabled.
High time "gay" went the way of DUI, where nearly everyone looks at you funny, like you're charting a life course for a wall-mounted chrome toilet with no lid.
This problem eventually goes away as people are sorted into classes based on their achievement.
It is caused because schools are a "melting pot" for people from various social strata, personalities and intellectual levels.
As people go through life, they tend to segregate and associate with similar people.So bullying based on intelligence diminishes or goes away entirely. I mean, you're not going to be bullied by your peers for being smart if you're a grad student in engineering physics.
The fix is to identify the talented and smart kids as early as possible and whisk them off to separate schools, where they not only benefit from being away from the bullies, but also benefit from a more advanced, accelerated curriculum.
...that was bothered by them referring to 12% as "one in 10"? It's closer to one in eight (12.5%) or one in nine (11.11...%) than one in ten (10%).
Maybe if they had spent less time writing about non-newsworthy topics that have remained unchanged for decades and more time studying their math while not caring what other people said about their intelligence they'd have not made a mistake like that.
I suppose it might help if efforts were made to promote some team competition or even team grading in academic subjects. Competitions like that "It's Academic" show held in class would make it nice to have the smart kid on your team sometimes. I'm sure some people would object that it would hurt the feelings of the kids who don't do as well, but we have competitions for soccer, football, basketball, and other physical activities all the time and the results are quite visible. The only time we worry about the results hurting people's feelings are in academics. It seems to me that a little more visibility would help everyone. People would know when they need to improve. Not everyone knows.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
What the hell happened to being #1 in confidence?
Last, but not least, AP Calc has yet to help me in life
Don't knock AP Calculus.
It's a lot cheaper to take the class in high school and pay for the AP test than to pay college tuition later.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
An anti bullying organization does a study and finds alarming rates of anti-academic bullying. Oh the surprise!
I went through the UK school system in a steelworks-and-mining area. Being academically successful was not a problem. I had friends up and down the academic scale. There was a palpable mutual dislike between the sports types (rugby mostly) and the academic types. But that was not a 'problem' academically. The teachers were divided along similar lines.
It probably goes on, but 90% is a nonsense number, borne of methodological bias, which is inevitable given who was doing the survey.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
And go around breaking the legs of those that make fun of smarts. It's time for a nerd uprising with violence. Hair trigger nerd rage violence.....
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
They killed him for speaking English?
Ezekiel 23:20
Save your money, send your children to private schools. My daughter is going to the one I went to where 100% graduate, 100% go on to college and being smart is the norm. Put your kids in with low achieving uncivilized morons and it's not only going to hurt their academic development, it will also hurt their emotional development. Who would consider sending their kids to a public school except those that were previously the moron bullies in the problem we are discussing?
Sorry but this is bullshit at least from my experience here in the states. I was widely considered to be one of the smarter people in my classes(whether this was actually the case is arguable) all this usually amounted to was people asking me lots of questions. I was never particularly popular wasn't in any sports(was on the debate team). Never once in the entirety of my time in school elementary to highschool can I recall I ever felt I was bullied. Nor do I remember anything ever happening in school except (call me racist) the black girls(or the one white girl who was in their clique) aways fighting and screaming with each other and getting dragged away by the police or someone. I was always in suburban schools so maybe its a gangsta/hillbilly thing that happens everywhere else.
I went through this shit... Teachers are awful. Half the time the teachers would join in. Fuck them. I remember in 7th grade my science teacher telling the class that one day we wouldn't have our pinky toe anymore because we don't need it anymore and evolution would take care of it. I raised my hand and pointed out that evolution didn't work that way. She got mad and told me I was wrong. The next day I brought in a book on evolution from the library to prove my point. I failed that class... and not because I failed any tests.
If there's bullying going on in a classroom, it's the teachers fault. Period. I've always said it's a sad truth that your children are safer in a bar than they are at school. If the shit that went down in your local high-school happened anywhere else people would go to jail.
No zero tolerance bullcrap. All that does is protect bullies. If somebody shoves your student, give them every right to give the aggressor a black eye.
Join the Slashcott! Stay away entirely Feb 10 thru Feb 17! Close all tabs to prevent autorefresh!
I saw this when I went to school in the late 60s and early 70s, but the popular culture then included things like the race to the Moon and such. Today's popular culture has turned far more offensive towards the "nerds" and straight-A students. Can you think of one popular song in the last 20 years that extolled the benefits of being smart or getting good grades? How about the opposite, popular music that suggests that it is not good to be smart or get good grades?
While being smart has always been somewhat of a social deficit, I think it is worse today than it was when I was young.
Another item that I think is interesting is when I was in High School, around 1973 or so there was a girl there that was obviously very smart. Mary Kate was rather attractive in a nerdy sort of way but she wasn't terribly popular especially with the more cliquish set. A year later she clearly made a decision that was better to be popular than smart, so she started fitting in more with others, studying was less important than going out, and clearly her grades suffered - but she was much more socially accepted. Mary Kate also traded in the glasses for contacts and wore her hair more stylishly. Yes, I was insufferably taken with Mary Kate but I was suddenly in the old nerdy group that she didn't want to be reminded of. I think pushing young people into making those kinds of decisions is not a good thing at all and the result was probably very short term social benefits but over the longer term it probably didn't help her get a better job or anything else. She probably gave up a really good chance a scholarship to be popular for a while in High School.
Wish I had kept more in touch with Mary Kate...
Don't worry scro'! There are plenty of 'tards out there living really kick ass lives.
Anti-intellectualism has been carted around by the knuckle draggers for centuries, even if they lack the vocabulary to discuss it in these terms.
Just be glad that parents aren't contributing to the bullying to the same degree as we've seen in the past. How many fathers in the 50s, 60s and 70s wanted their sons to grow up to be sport stars, only to be disappointed when Junior has an aptitude for mathematics or a young boy's interest in entomology? This sort of family dynamic has been parodied numerous times in movies, but it was (and is) still quite real.
It's one thing to have your peers plot against you and torment you. It's another when your mentors and family join in the abuse. Although saying "it could be worse" doesn't really help the kids getting bullied. Perspective is not really all that valuable when you need an immediate solution to end your torment. But maybe the people who are trying to solve the situation need to realize they are trying to solve a very old social problem. I would even venture to call it a disease, or perhaps a blight.
Love it. When I tell people that my kids will be home-schooled they usually say "but school is where you learn to socialize." No. School is where you learn submission to authority, to muscle and to bullies. Also, teachers try very hard to prevent socialization in the classroom. Socialization can happen in sport activities or extra-scholar activity, but learning does not require bullies and crowded classes.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
What's so surprising is that the current crop of intelligent people have actually succumbed to the bullies by the inferiority complex sufferers.
I too, and many like me in my generation, and those before me, had gone through the gauntlet of taunts and shovings and beatings, just because we think differently.
Those that bullied us bullied us because they felt inferior. They INSTINCTIVELY KNEW that they are inferior, but their ego just won't that happened.
It's their internal struggles - ego versus instinct - that promoted some of them to act out in violence.
As I said, I too got beaten up just because I ain't one of them, but so what?
Why should I hide my own self just because someone else don't like who I am?
Hey, I am born into this world not because I am destined to follow dumbasses. I am born into this world to do what I must do - that is, to be myself.
Yes, I got beaten up, but that didn't affect my determination to be my own self, not even a bit.
I hold my head high because I know that I am not guilty of anything. The guilty party is THEM, not me.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
That SOOO explains all my liberal democrat friends.
I'll have to tell them all to stop hiding their intelligence, the bullies are all gone.
This may not be the most politically correct solution (or even legal), but how about we take all the bullies and otherwise just shitty students (you know, the ones that make it an absolute nightmare for those with actual talent to learn) out of regular classes, and put them in some school-work program that emphasizes career paths that are a better fit for them. Why keep leading them on like they have potential when the harsh reality is a lot of these types of students are not capable of anything other than menial work and only disrupt others around them during school. Holding them to a higher standard that they're just not mentally capable of just makes it terrible for everyone involved.
Because you know how to work them numberz? I gona beat those numberz outa you! you think you all that yo? You ain't shit! you stoopid! no body carez you can reed them joodie bloom bookz. They's for fagitz like you! me an my posie gon wait for you after scool and shove them books and pensiles and watnot up yore ass yo. then i gona beat you ho mommas ass too fo makin such a ho like you. then I gon kick it wit my man wile you cryin, byatch!!!
It happened to me. I got beat up repeatedly for "fucking up the curve" in high school, but mostly for being the lone "cracker" in a sea of brown students.
I ended up dropping out of high school because the administrators wouldn't do anything about it. I don't regret it, as it probably saved my life.
Intelligence and / or academics are not looked upon favorably within the United States. You could have multiple doctorates, cure cancer, and broker peace on Earth and you would STILL rank behind, both in compensation and popularity ( insert the currently popular celebrity, or professional athlete here ).
:D
While not so much bullying once you become an adult, ( pissing off the people who fix your computer is on par with pissing off the folks who fix your food ) it does make for a damned annoying work environment. ( Unless you work for a company who employs extremely intelligent folks. Think Google. )
The snide comments from those who know your little secret are never ending I assure you.
This was actually brought up in the Mensa forums once upon a time about folks who hide their membership and why. Many related stories very similar in nature to my own experiences. Folks get turned down for jobs for being " too " smart, employee hostility, managements forever go to guy, etc.
With few exceptions, if you DO fall into the category of higher than average intellect, I would highly suggest you put forth the extra effort to keep that information away from fellow employee ears lest you add some misery to your life. That, or remind them how tragic it would be to find their corporate system loaded with animal porn, clown fetish images and draft emails to the boss about your desire to smear yourself with Jello and run naked through the streets with nothing but an inflatable horse around your waist for clothing during the next security audit
Bullying is mostly an expression of homophobia...which violent dogma is indoctrinated by parents, schools and churches at an early age. There is more than our share of homophobia in the hacker world too, including right here at "/.". How many times has someone posted words like "fagg*t," "c*cksucker," and the like, when expressing disdain for the MAFIAA and other anti-freedom groups? There should be ZERO TOLERANCE for homophobic slurs here, and in every other progressive/intelligent group. Just as there is for "n*gger". So, to you hackers and hacker wannabes who think you're "all that," because you are anti-gay: Do you /really/ want to have a civil war on your hands? Bring it on you breeder morons: I don't care if you really are a talented hacker, 'cause you're really just a piece of sh*t that pollutes everything good around it, including the air, the water, and any chance for a bright future.
Game over (you sorry excuse for a) man!
The only way to deal with them is bash them. Sorry of that's not PC New York Times and soccer mommy friendly enough for you but that, fellow geeks and nerds is what you have to do.
Someone bullies you, break their arm. If they and their thug friends come back at you break their heads. If their mommies and daddies complain tell them everyone can live in a new house after their burns to the ground.
They're not human, they're animals and this is what you do with animals. You beat them until they stop.
Our society rewards bullies* and punishes those who try to defend themselves against them.
*Look at who gets the highest positions in their occupations. The bully who pushes hardest for it. The alphas.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
don't hide on a sports team as they have there own type of bullying.
It's hard to tell the difference between those who deliberately underachieve to avoid being bullied, and those who need an excuse for bad grades so they won't lose their television privileges.
So, to put back in the implied words, we have:
"Almost half of children and young people (49.5%) have claimed to have played down a talent for fear of being bullied,"
Details at 11.
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
Nerds tease jocks for being stupid and denigrate the value of physical prowess. Jocks tease nerds for their intelligence and denigrate the value of intellect. Bimbos vs uggos, white v black, young v old: it's all the same. Everyone wants their talents to be considered the most valuable. This "survey" is just one group tyring to win the social status war via the "bullying" trojan horse.
Parents were too selfish to work more jobs to pay for private school for me. Life was all about them until they had to move in with children as is the case with my mother who lives with her daughter.
Residing in the top 10% of math class usually means alcohol metabolism issues and everyone here knows what that means: A*S*I*A*N!
Smart people who tried acting cool were further brutalized. These were called faggots.
66 Lifting weights never killed anyone in this age group (at least I don't think) 99
At the risk of blowing my cover, I posited the following equation in high school: WB + IQ = C (weight benched plus IQ equals a constant). Weights and books are mutually exclusive. It's how the universe is, like where is the anti-matter?
Parents were further punishment. Parents bullied kids for not fighting back. Remember, this was the age before Pat Benatar sang about child abuse in "Hell is for Children". Only then did child abuse leap into existence and rise to legitimate societal attention.
I still don't believe how I did it, but I aced the Calculus final exam in senior year, blowing the curve and causing a number of people to fail the course. I had at least three things against me: white, Christian, and male. It was possible then, but it is impossible now.
I can understand the "chem person", and that is why I took College Chemistry as soon as I could. It provided me the means by which I solved my bully problem. I ate pork then and I still eat pork, so no I am not one of those.
As for young people who play chess, it's their way of serving notice on society that they are plotting and planning and generally up to no good.
As for life in general, Obama will "do the right thing" in arm-twisting the H of R to ramp up the expatriation tax to discourage assholes who come here, make a fortune, and run back and live like gods in their native lands. I know of a number of classmates that have planned this since they could not help to brag about it under the influence of alcohol at the last High School Reunion.
As for being hammered, don't be a nail, be an ANVIL.
Picked on for being smart? Not where I'm from.
I graduated in the early 2000's, and no one ever cared about any one else's grades or smarts. The people who got low grades didn't care about grades, or just joked about how low they could get their GPA. Those with a high GPA never caught flak for it. The low achievers didn't care; they were focused on their own little world.
Not to say no one ever got picked on. I distinctly remember the guy who almost lit me on fire with a zippo on the school bus, but that was because I was a small and easy target.
Ummmm *checks the list*
'This is not funny. This is bullying. This is wrong.'
This is an especially large problem within the African American community. Students who perform well in school are teased for being "white."
We should now give the jobs to those smart enough to have achieved not-that-high grades.
hint : they also happen to be well connected
Cue every single high school movie from the last 30 years, where there's a group of nerds suffering some form of bullying. That's right, your kids watched this shit and now they think they need to emulate it.
1) It is news because it provides scientific evidence of casual observation. That is very valuable.
2) It is also news because the fact that it is confirmed in the UK means that it can be tested elsewhere in the world. I suspect that this happens much less in Asian cultures. Perhaps the study should be conducted there too?
The only thing I find surprising is that someone in power actually cares enough to measure this sort of thing. They've known about this for decades.
I call bullshit.
Any group of individuals will eventually find someone to bully or repress for one reason or another. Even the so called "smart kids."
In the 1970's era of grand social and educational experiments, I was part of an experimental group that was segregated into an accelerated academic program. This was a forerunner of today's "Gifted & Talented" program. We called it 7th & 1/2 grade for lack of a better term.
The class was constantly told that they were the cream of the academic crop and many of the kids developed an attitude reflecting their status. When sneering and mocking the less-gifted kids in the regular 7th grade classes grew tiresome, they directed their attention inwards toward their peers.
Who knows why I was singled out—I was always popular and well-liked previously at school through grade 6—but I became the whipping boy for their bad behavior.
There were just too many of them to deal with. My life became a living hell. I refused to go to school for weeks at a time. My usual straight "A"s became "D"s and "F"s. I suspect the only reason I was passed to 8th grade was that it would have been an embarrassment to the accelerated program to keep back one of the overachievers.
The events of that year influenced the rest of my academic career. I avoided taking advanced or AP classes in high school to avoid my tormentors. Without those classes, high grades and credits, I couldn't realistically hope to be accepted to any of the first tier schools that my former tormentors attended.
I am a determined autodidact, so I taught myself everything I needed to succeed in life and do quite well as a self-employed consultant. But I do sometimes wonder how different things would be if I'd had a "normal" 7th grade.
But I have to say that when I was in school, the fact that I did pretty well academically is always something that earned me respect. I run ins with my fair share of bullies and shitheads but really it didn't seem to have much to do with my intellect. Stupid kids got bullied just as much.
I have to wonder if this whole concept of "nerd persecution" is concocted by nerds who don't want to admit that maybe they have obnoxious personalities and kind of had it coming.
Actually, Socrates knew exactly what he was doing. His students had bribed the guards and planned an escape for him, but instead he decided to sit around talking about how he didn't think death was all that bad, and drink the hemlock. According to Plato, Socrates' actual last words were:
"Crito, I owe a rooster to Asclepius, will you remember to pay the debt?" (Benjamin Jowett translation)
I am officially gone from
If we believe the dunning Kruger effect, that would imply that the self assessed intelligent people are in fact those whom are dumb and vice versa which greatly changes the meaning of these results. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
One classic sf writer went to a private school and discovered that getting someone expelled who is bringing the school tuition checks is even harder than it is in a public school.
In traditional societies, people who outperformed not only in warfare but also in council rhetoric got chosen as leaders.
Why are you a hater? Yeah, there are idiots who blindly revile evolution and climate change.
But why do you blindly reject everyone who disagrees with you on the subject? They're not all militant ignoramuses, just a few of the more visible ones. So why do you blindly hate? Is it because you're filled with propaganda, and just can't bring yourself to face your own prejudices?
As the GP said, this is off topic. We're discussing bullying, not irrational politics (on EITHER side).
She and her friends learned pretty early on that they couldn't go to the restroom in less than a group of three. Not their fault, and not even related to "I see your underpants!" teasing.
the "adults" who enable them by taking no action when someone is set on fire. (Having trouble finding the citation).
When I was young I was talented, and one of my talents included martial arts :) No one really bullied me for it though.
You should have guessed that the Jocks would try to come back FTW!
Grandparent post is an Idiocracy quote, for all those apparently missing the joke. The protagonist, Joe, the "most average man in the military" and all-around ordinary guy, wakes up from an experiment 500 years in the future, and sees Dr. Lexus, MD, whose diagnosis of Joe's condition is this thread's title, but who gives him the assurance quoted in GPP's post.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Where the f' are the parents in all this?
That is a fantastic question. But... Whose parents? Note that the victims parents can't teach the bully that he's misbehaving.
When I was in junior high, I was bullied frequently and mercilessly. My parents did get involved. They were told by the school councilor that I just had a self-esteem problem (I didn't) which somehow made myself a target (blame the victim, anyone?). They were told by teachers that there was nothing they could do (not true). They were told by administrators that everything was fine. They weren't permitted to contact the other students' parents. I blame the school system (primarily) for permitting bullying.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
There are a LOT of smart people out there that nobody hates. Perhaps it says more about you and your ego, than about "society" that they don't like you.
I had a chat after a Cub Scout outing once, with one kid who was crying that "all the other kids hate me because I'm so much smarter than them".
Obviously, I couldn't say it to the kid, who just needed a sympathetic shoulder at the moment, but the fact is: any kid whose parents have taught him that he's such a special snowflake that he could even HAVE such an egotistical, obnoxious thought, is in for trouble.
And it's NOT because "he's so much smarter than everyone else". Not by a long shot.
-Styopa
because of the lack of attention paid to how politics such as office politics and plutocracy usurped meritocracy it trickles down to where kids act it out in its most basic form bullying which the first reinforcement is, "get used to it, that's life"
Like many recent scientific studies, the appropriate response is "well, duh!"
Alternatives: http://www.educationrevolution.org/
From John Taylor Gatto's The Underground History of American Education: http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/prologue.htm
====
Our problem in understanding forced schooling stems from an inconvenient fact: that the wrong it does from a human perspective is right from a systems perspective. You can see this in the case of six-year-old Bianca, who came to my attention because an assistant principal screamed at her in front of an assembly, "BIANCA, YOU ANIMAL, SHUT UP!" Like the wail of a banshee, this sang the school doom of Bianca. Even though her body continued to shuffle around, the voodoo had poisoned her.
Do I make too much of this simple act of putting a little girl in her place? It must happen thousands of times every day in schools all over. I've seen it many times, and if I were painfully honest I'd admit to doing it many times. Schools are supposed to teach kids their place. That's why we have age-graded classes. In any case, it wasn't your own little Janey or mine.
Most of us tacitly accept the pragmatic terms of public school which allow every kind of psychic violence to be inflicted on Bianca in order to fulfill the prime directive of the system: putting children in their place. It's called "social efficiency." But I get this precognition, this flash-forward to a moment far in the future when your little girl Jane, having left her comfortable home, wakes up to a world where Bianca is her enraged meter maid, or the passport clerk Jane counts on for her emergency ticket out of the country, or the strange lady who lives next door.
I picture this animal Bianca grown large and mean, the same Bianca who didn't go to school for a month after her little friends took to whispering, "Bianca is an animal, Bianca is an animal," while Bianca, only seconds earlier a human being like themselves, sat choking back tears, struggling her way through a reading selection by guessing what the words meant.
In my dream I see Bianca as a fiend manufactured by schooling who now regards Janey as a vehicle for vengeance. In a transport of passion she:
1. Gives Jane's car a ticket before the meter runs out.
2. Throws away Jane's passport application after Jane leaves the office.
3. Plays heavy metal music through the thin partition which separates Bianca's apartment from Jane's while Jane pounds frantically on the wall for relief.
4. All the above.
You aren't compelled to loan your car to anyone who wants it, but you are compelled to surrender your school-age child to strangers who process children for a livelihood, even though one in every nine schoolchildren is terrified of physical harm happening to them in school, terrified with good cause; about thirty-three are murdered there every year. From 1992 through 1999, 262 children were murdered in school in the United States. Your great-great-grandmother didn't have to surrender her children. What happened?
If I demanded you give up your television to an anonymous, itinerant repairman who needed work you'd think I was crazy; if I came with a policeman who forced you to pay that repairman even after he broke your set, you would be outraged. Why are you so docile when you give up your child to a government agent called a schoolteacher?
I want to open up concealed aspects of modern schooling such as the deterioration it forces in the morality of parenting. You have no say at all in choosing your teachers. You know nothing about their backgrounds or families. And the state knows little more than you do. This is as radical a piece of social engineering as the human imagination can conceive. What does it mean?
One thing you do know is how unlikely it will be for any teacher to understand the personality of your particular child or anything significant about yo
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Sue
A word has been invented and used to label what is essentially assault, simply because it is minors assaulting minors. Can we PLEASE call it what it is and DEAL WITH IT as ASSAULT? As in, treat it as a CRIMINAL OFFENCE instead of just saying "kids will be kids" ::rolleyes::? Let's make examples of these so-called "bullies", criminalise their activities and maybe the incidence will go DOWN.
I wasn't "bullied" at school. I was ASSAULTED. My overachievement in all fields of study suffered, so by the time I got to college age I just couldn't be arsed any more. I went from straight-A to C/D/E/F in my GCSEs, and scraped by in A-level physics and biology and completely failed advanced math. Fortunately I managed to beat that stigma and went on to run several successful businesses, all of which I parted company with reputation intact and no creditors.
As an aside, schools don't like it when you send them Cease & Desist notices to get them to address problems of targetted assaults on their students which they're doing nothing about. They like it even less when you pull your own kids from their institutions citing "multiple assaults by students and teaching staff" with dates and times. They go all out to perjure themselves in sudden and unexpected parallel care proceedings when you file suit against the local education authority for failure to perform to expectations as Corporate Parents in ensuring student safety.
So it's not just a culture of "bullying" that schools are neglecting until it's thrown into the limelight by pissed off parents who are having to take their kids to the hospital every two weeks, it's a culture of perpetuation of the problem on the part of the institutions, whose staff themselves are PART OF THE PROBLEM. Let's have this all out in the open so we can DEAL WITH IT, before more kids die at the hands of these "bullies" through terminal attacks or suicides!
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Happens in business too. I know many people that have been "pushed" out because they have more skills or do better than their managers.
http://bullies2buddies.com/
http://bullies2buddies.com/Free-Manuals/enjoy-our-free-resources.html
"How to Stop Being Teased and Bullied Without Really Trying.
This manual will teach kids why they are being picked on and how to make it stop without anyone's help and without getting anyone in trouble!"
It doesn't matter if kids are smarter, dumber, shorter, taller, fatter, thinner, darker, lighter, or whatever -- any noticeable difference (or even none at all except being on the other side of the room) is something someone else can try to make fun of. Most bullying situations can be handled by following Izzy Kalman's advice which teaches the vitim how to break a cycle of social behavior by just not responding in old ways that give the aggressor rewards, and he points out the few percent of bullying situations which can't. He suggests most current anti-bullying laws often just make the probem worse because they ignore the underlying social system dynamics. Serious violence rarely comes out of nowhere. There is a pattern of escalation, and Izzy Kalman's ideas, based on "The Golden Rule" and "Love Your Bullies" are ways out of that escalation.
See also this other author, Alfie Kohn, for a different vision of success than the competetive one celebrated by so many in the USA:
http://www.shareintl.org/archives/cooperation/co_nocontest.htm
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
I have been in GATE classes since kindergarten, honors classes in intermediate school, and AP classes in high school. I could drink, fight, and fuck with the best of them. Of course that is the reason I can't brag about any college accomplishments....
The post you're replying to was an oblique reference to the movie _Real Genius_ where Val Kilmer's character invents a Socrates quote for the sake of comedy.
It is less likely to be the teacher who is the bully.
90% were bullied for being too intelligent? How can *everybody* be overly intelligent? Was the survey was conducted in Lake Wobegon, by any chance?
"What about socialization?"
P.S. before you jump in an reply, make sure you know the difference between socializing and socialization.
If 50% of people have got something, it's not talent.
It sounds like yet another confirmation of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
If you believe this. Then I have a virtual ruby I'll sell to you for $10 million dollars...
It was the same in the 70s, why should it change? Be a jock, it's more fun.
Really.
The only people who should find this surprising are people who grew up somewhere away from all human contact,.
Sounds like the perfect story for most of us /.ers.
It is not all bad tho, because it is more then likely that those studies are conducted there studies at home or else where. I am not sure if this study asked the students if they in fact continue to study and keep advancing there skills away from school.
While they may intentionally dummy themselves down in school, they more then likely will continue to be ahead of there grades and this could be seen in there college studies or what ever advanced schooling they decide to choose.
I find it hard to believe from this study that is what students get bullied over. I have heard of students getting shunned by classmates for being talented, because those students have a stereo type notion that a talented student thinks they are of royalty, or they are to good to be around anyone else that is not as talented. Is this really bullying or has the media and these study groups just trying to make shit up and label it as bullying.
The headline and subject of this article brings to mind the Democratic party. Democrats espouse the concepts of the lower, middle class (aka lower, middle achievers). And they want to punish the high achievers, vilifying them for being more successful in life (or in this case academics). Maybe I am biased since I belong to the 1% (barely) but I work insane hours and am oncall all the time. So having my earnings be taxed for not only the less fortunate but also the lazy, the undocumented, the un-educated really gets me mad.
We all acknowledge that the government is in-efficient but in this case we want to give it more power to tax individuals. Insane thinking...
" ... recent anti-bullying survey conducted by ABA ... "
Before taking the ABA's (anti-bullyingalliance) 'survey' as the final word;
consider the survey of the CBA's (Conscientious Bully's Alliance) survey:
"87.2% (91% of girls) of bullies felt deeply hurt by subtle intimidation by smarter students whose facial expressions and body language seemed to suggest some sort of superiority. Most of these otherwise ethical bullies were unable to describe the offending behavior due to lack of language and observational skills.
"Though many of these bullies try to observe the CBA code of conduct, they were unable to resist the compulsion to respond to this intimidation with physical and verbal enthusiasm. 41% of males who used physical violence and 32% of females who were somewhat less physical expressed regret for their uncontrollable outbursts. A common statement was "I couldn't help myself, I just wanted to crush that cockroach!"
"The CBA and its members, donors, affiliates and friends wish to remind all that bullying is a condition that needs more study and understanding. Your donation and continued research will help to understand the causes and minimize the insulting triggers perpetrated by smart kids and adults."
...omphaloskepsis often...
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.
Hey, I got bullied in a math class of all places. So, I really hit the books and started wrecking the curve. By the end of the year I could have gotten a 30 on the final and still gotten an A+.
Felt damn good too, for all the crap I took in that class.
This was my whole middle school life and only now people care?
Because being bullied doesn't always occur from fellow students. As an individual does better in school, the parents have a tendency to expect TOO much of their kids, and start going apesh*t when they don't perform to their own expectations. Sometimes it's not so much the other people at the school as much as it is the people at home. School seems to just be the place where the frustrations at home just end up getting vented.
The Pope is Catholic, bears shit in the woods, and kids are mean to each other. Also, American teachers and principals turn a blind eye to bullying. It's seen as a necessary process of determining the social pecking order. So what if, every now and then, some sensitive artist or nerdy engineer kid commits suicide?
Is this news to people? The kid that raised his hand and answered questions has always gotten picked on, this is nothing new. I was that kid, I still am, people still hate me for being as smart as I am. I stopped letting it bother me a long time ago.
Yeah, that's the ticket. I've been less than triumphant in my career because I was hiding my talent under a bushel.
After reading these comments, I can't help but to believe that USA is the scariest developed country in the world.
I'm not planning to have kids, but if I ever had, USA would be the last place I would like to see them grow up.
I grown up in Portugal at a time where we were even poorer than we are right now and attended to public schools.
Funny fact is that in my high school when I was 15, I would have people with 20-21 on it. Needless is to say that I would be considered a genius compared to them. Truth is, they loved me. They even would protect me if needed. I guess I just knew how to fit in? I mean I did liked to play football (soccer) or any other sport on the breaks with them.
Does that mean I was playing dumb? Because I never felt dumb while doing it. I actually had lots of fun. I think being smart and intelligent can go hand by hand with being physical activity.
Being good on one doesn't make you bad on the other. Maybe I was just lucky?
Bully's didn't pick on me because they were jealous that I was smarter than them, like some here suggest is always the case. No, they didn't give a shit about their grades, so what difference would the height of my grades make. Instead, they picked on me because I was different than the majority. Once I figured that out, I adjusted my behaviours to be more normal, and they stopped once they forgot who I used to be.
Asclepius was, of course, the god of medicine, which has led some people to think that perhaps Socrates accepted the death sentence (he could have avoided it by going into exile, which is was in fact the expected response in such cases) because he was terminally ill.
we needed a study to confirm this???
I had the highest SAT scores in the history of my school and was the most bullied in my school, my grades were in the bottom third of my class.
Provided they eventually find their way to an environment where they can safely shine (college, trade school, etc.) they'll do okay. Yeah they won't be going to Harvard on bad grades, but they probably weren't going anyway due to socio-economic issues that must be present for this situation to exist in the first place.
This has been going on a very very long time. It was around when I was in school (which was a long time ago), and it certainly predates me. I am not saying that something should not be done about it, only that this is an old problem. It has some new twists with new technology as we have seen in the last few years. However the physical stuff is pretty much the same. I imagine the problem is the same now as it was when I was in school, teachers couldn't do a whole hell of a lot unless it was blatent enough of being done right in front of them. In many cases, they are powerless to do anything, or are fearful of getting sued or fired for taking action. I learned pretty early to fight back, bullies don't like that, particulary every now and then when you actually hurt them back. Perfect example was where I was getting cronically bullied, and then one day during one such session, I managed to kick him in the balls as hard as I could. The only reprimand I got from teachers was "I shouldn't kick a guy there" (no suspension or anything), but they all knew what was going on, and I got the impression that they looked the other way a little bit in my benefit (inaction can go both ways). The bully was out of school for several days. Anyway it isn't for everyone, but sooner or later you have to stand up for yourself and defend yourself, you can always depend on someone else to arbitrate it away. In a perfect world kids wouldn't have to worry about that stuff, but we live in anything but, we should take reasonable measures to minimize this activity, but I doubt you will ever be rid of it. Certainly enabling teachers with some legal protection might be a good first step, as that seems to a common thread.
One of the more significant differences is the schools' ability to deal with troublemakers. In a public school, it's hard not to accept students, and they have to cause a fairly high degree of trouble before you hit expulsion level (and if the parents challenge it... it's a very political process).
In a private school, it's simpler to permanently expel a problem student (bullies, etc).
However, if your school administration doesn't give a crap... well then neither one is great.
if they stopped treating bright children so differently in our education system. I remember some of my peers in elementary school intentionally failing out of "advanced" classes to rejoin the herd back in the classroom. If you create a special class of kid and it's by definition a small section those children will inevitably be picked on. Allow the smart kids to enlighten the rest and maybe they won't be a special case anymore...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_system_in_India
Casteism
My ex is a high school teacher here in central South Carolina. Many years ago when she started teaching she'd come home and tell me about some kid in one of her classes who acted "too cool for school" but really excelled on tests. After observing this several times, she realized that in certain.... uhh.... "urban" cultures, being smart is considered being "too white" and will not be tolerated. She came up with an analogy of crabs pulling each other back into a pot.
I didn't have this problem in school, and neither did any other kids while I was around. Why? I'm a huge nerd, but I also overproduce testosterone. Sure I always won first place in the science fair, but I was also an offensive lineman. I was president of the NHS, but I could also grow a beard at 13. Bullies didn't dare out the nerds because doing so would have put them at odds with me. Besides that, the 'popular' kids at my school were pretty receptive to odd-ducks. Quirkiness was encouraged. We realized that we were all kinda dorks; no use in singling out one group or another. Granted, I went to a very small school, so I'm sure my HS experience was the exception rather than the norm. However, it seems our school was a pretty good model. Pop culture is moving somewhat in the right direction with nerd culture becoming more accepted and Zooey Deschanel popping up everywhere. Just add a sprinkling of nerds on roids and the problem should fix itself within a few years.
This is not new. It was the same when I was a kid. I was small and skinny and late hitting puberty. I also had perfect scores on most exams, at a time when they were literally announced over the PA system! That was supposed to shame kids who didn't do well into trying harder. All it did was make me a target. I ended up making friends with one of the most dangerous guys in my school and getting him to put out the word that if anyone touched me, he'd make them regret it. It was self-preservation.
Egalitarianism is misguided and naive, and leads to this sort of bullying.
Fact: You can redistribute wealth, you can redistribute false self-esteem, but you can't redistribute smarts. The bell curve forever divides the intellectual haves and have nots. And those who haven't got brains are more likely to use their fists.
We need to rebuild a school system that rewards excellence, that challenges smart kids to be all they can be. The current system not only holds them back, but subjects them to bullying by their intellectual inferiors. But the current system is scared to death of even a hint of elitism. It's not elitism to reward achievement and develop gifted kids. It's just common sense. But this is utterly lost on the radical egalitarians.
And I am 60. I was at the top of my class for first few years of primary, and I suddenly quit getting good grades. Pretty sure for that reason. I'd rather face the wrath of the nuns who were teaching and my parents than be singled out for bullying because I was smart.
When I was in school, I was incredibly academically talented, and marginally athletically talented, and skinny. Very, very skinny. And socially underdeveloped. And initially, I got a lot of unwanted, negative attention.
But here's the thing - I realized I was doing some things to earn that attention.
Think, for example, about joining the football team as someone who is not athletically talented. It's going to be embarrassing. You're not going to be able to catch the ball. You're not going to be able to throw the ball. You're going to look embarrassingly inferior to everyone else who is playing and is athletically talented. The coach is going to give all his attention to the best players. Someone is going to take the ball, knock you on your ass, score the touch down and, well, you're not going to feel so good about it.
So, what happens? Well, you DON'T JOIN THE FOOTBALL TEAM! Problem solved, embarrassment avoided.
Now, let's turn this around. Let's say you're not academically talented. You go to class, but you just don't get it. Every time the teacher calls on you you're not sure of the answer, and there's this other kid that's raising his hand all the time answering all the questions right. He does well on all the tests, gets all the recognition from the teacher, and is having a good time while you struggle.
So, what happens? Well, you HAVE to go to class, so there's no escape. Day in and day out this kid is rubbing your face in the fact that he's smarter than you. And there's no escape. It would be like a nerd being forced to play football every day.
I think we all understand that bullies are usually acting out of a place where they feel bad about themselves. So the first step, if you find yourself on the receiving end of a bully, is asking yourself, "Am I behaving in a way that makes others feel bad about themselves?" If so, stop doing that, and you might find your situation improve. I know it did for me.
I'm not saying you have to stop being smart, but you should make sure you're not "spiking the ball" as it were. Don't answer every single question in class. Don't show off your test results to people who didn't do as well. Be nice when people ask you for help. Recognize other people's achievements - even if they are not in areas YOU think are important. Tell somebody they played a good game or whatever.
A lot of "nerds" don't realize that all the behavior they resent the "jocks" exhibiting on them about sports or what not, we often do the EXACT SAME THING back, just different things. If you don't want people to treat you like you're different, then you can't make them feel like you think they're different - or at least not inferior.
So, if someone you know finds themselves being bullied, make sure you check that it's not just because they're being a pretentious ass to others who are not talented in the same areas that they are.
paintball
Avoid bullying... Create special schools for the smart kids. German schools has three group for kids. School for smart kids, school for average kids, and school for hands-on vocational for kids.
I know for sure when I was younger I played dumb. It eventually leaked out when they were harassing me for not doing homework but taking tests and getting perfect scores. I only went there to be with friends because everything else was too boring, no stimulation in what has been one of the less worthy school districts in the country. I eventually wound up quitting high school to stop wasting time, got my GED and went to college.
Here's a wild idea: why not have seperate schools for gifted, well behaved students where they can learn to their hearts content without bullying. there is no need for high IQ students to put up with this bullying crap.
My daughter goes to Colorado School of Mines, a school for geeks. She is a senior with a 4.0 GPA. None of her classmates or roommates know that. She keeps quiet because it's easier to get along.
Her roommates are all chemical engineering majors. One of them got a 100 on a test last week and it was tense after that in the house.
I'm not sure what the exact definition of bullying is.
Sad and disgraceful for the human race though this may be, it's not news. Talented and bright kids have been disguising their talents to fly under bully radar since time immemorial.
I have an uncle now in his 80's who dumbed himself down in high school in the 1940's to avoid bullying. And this was in small town Midwest. Podunk USA if there ever was. This man was intelligent enough to take on the most challenging academic path there was but he didn't want to appear overly smart to his peers for fear of getting picked on and beat up. Nothing new under the sun here.
My experience in high school (just graduated last year) was that intelligence and high performance on tests was something to be coveted. I went to a public high school, and sure there would be the off-comment about nerdiness or bookworming or what have you, but those who aced the SATs and had all A's were seen as 'going somewhere'.
Kids did get bullied, but none of them were academically brighter than anyone else. It was because they stood out as vulnerable, and that's why they were targeted.
If you're academically bright, then it's up to you alone to reach your potential. No one is going to harass you for pursuing your goals unless you let them know they can. So performing below your potential for fear of harassment is a cop-out.