Slashdot Mirror
Hope In The Hellmouth: Looking Ahead
There was bad and good news from the Hellmouth last week. The national hunt for oddballs did, in fact, become a hysteria. Many journalists, parents, educators and politicians chose to blame the Net and computer games rather than face the much more complex and unwelcome messages coming from Littleton.
Things turned increasingly ugly, for geeks and oddballs, as teachers, administrators, reporters and peers sometimes made them feel like potential murderers.
Kids by the hundreds were sent home, ordered into counseling, sent to special classes, lectured, suspended, expelled and ostracized for thinking differently and being different. Many of these messages are harrowing.
" My school has locked down," e-mailed Josh late last night from Colorado. "The four days that I wasn't too depressed to go to school I was patted down by the police and was taunted by the "jocks" and faculty! The morale of my friends and I were so low that you couldn't get a worm to crawl under it. The counselor called me to her office. She asked me If I had ever played Doom or Grand Theft Auto, and I told her that I had. Then I was sent home. Crazy man, this just shouldn't be happening to a normal nerd like me."
It was happening to lots of normal nerds.
But there was good news from the Hellmouth, too.
The Web suddenly became a place, not just for software and start-ups, but for testimony. Educators and pundits kept telling us that schools are fine, that the real problem was violence online, on TV and film, in games. But geeks used the Internet for the first time to speak over the heads of institutions in a powerful, unfiltered way. Their stories were irrefutable.
On the usually diverse and quarrelsome Internet, there was something approaching unity and a sometimes enthralling sense of community.
One reporter asked me if I had any messages for parents. I didn't, but the thousands of kids and former kids e-mailing me did: instead of blocking computer games or the Net, support your kids and their culture, and work to make your local school more humane, creative and responsive to the many students who chose individualism.
Oddballs, nerds, Goths, geeks and other so-called misfits seemed to ground one another after Littleton. They told and traded stories and seemed to take some comfort in the realization that they were a new kind of nation.
And while most mainstream media continued to bombard the country with disturbing images of grief juxtaposed with wildly irresponsible finger-pointing, and to disseminate the most thoughtless and inaccurate stereotypes about computing, gaming, the Net and the Web, and Goths, a growing number of journalists showed that it's also simple-minded to stereotype all reporters as hostile and clueless.
My apologies to those reporters -- especially some working for National Public Radio, the San Jose Mercury, the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the Chicago Tribune, Charlotte Observer, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post and the San Francisco Chronicle - who looked beyond the hysteria. They worked hard and rooted out and exposed some of the worst excesses of "geek profiling" going on all over the country.
Defying conventional wisdom and sometimes risking their editors? wrath, these reporters - many of whom were young and are online -- gave voice to geek kids under siege. In dribs and drabs, the other side of the story began to trickle out, filtering not only through the press but through the stunning, rapidly evolving connective power of the Web itself. Your stories made their way into homes, schools and media offices all over the country.
So congratulations to those of you who had the courage and good will to post messages to me and the site, and to begin writing a new history for geeks and nerds and for the Net.
Some of these stories from Slashdot.org ultimately were broadcast via MSNBC.com, ABCnews.com and Cnn.com and NPR and are being quoted in influential newspapers; they continue to circulate. Sunday, the San Jose Mercury reprinted "Voices From the Hellmouth" on the front page of its opinion section. You were heard. You did some good.
I heard from dozens of teachers and school administrators whose students asked them to read your (and my) Slashdot writings. Some parents were surprised as well.
"What a stunning experience," e-mailed Kathy, "to read these very painful messages on Slashdot - my son gave me your columns to read -- and to suddenly really that one of them was from him. May he forgive me... I knew how unhappy he was, but on some level, I guess I just didn't want to face it. I bought the notion that it's just part of life in high school. What a strange new world that I should get this awareness from a website. Monday, I have an appointment with his principal. It's time for somebody aside from Jason to feel the heat."
"These kids are heroes for speaking out," wrote Mr. H, a school principal in San Diego, California. "For what it's worth, I passed these columns and the responses out at a faculty meeting. The teachers were shocked, but they also - unanimously - agreed they were reading some painful truths and were determined to respond. We all went home and got on our own or our kids? computers to read these stories from the Hellmouth ourselves. Speaking as one school administrator, I want to say lots of us got into this business to help, not hurt kids. I hope you can make that point.
"We have work to do.
"But some of us hear you, loud and clear. Kids, if you have suggestions, make them. The good administrators and teachers will hear them, even if they don't seem to. The bad ones'well, you'll be no worse off."
By this weekend, my personal e-mail had probably topped 6,000 e-mail messages chronicling a tide of misery, alienation and exclusion in the country's schools. Slashdot received several thousand more messages, many of which were posted on different threads, but the site had to cut off some posts each day due to the volume.
Meanwhile, scores of sites popped up where geek students and survivors could tell their own stories. The tales could go on forever, here and elsewhere, but they've made their point.
While horror stories continue to pour in, a number of these messages were positive, helpful and forward looking, evoking a world beyond the Hellmouth:
From "Youth Cry", from Lord Kinbote:
?I have decided to start a Campaign towards fighting for the youth to be heard in the world as individuals:
Youth Cry.
Every day I go to school wishing for it to be different. Wanting a place for hope, a place to learn, a place without hate, and a place where being different isn't so wrong. But instead I find myself trapped in a prison of conformity. They tell me how I should be just like everybody else, how I should play their sports, how I should join their clubs, and how I should give up everything I have to be like them.
?it's time to let our ideas run free in the world and not be scared of the ridicule of being different. I ask you to stand up and shout your cry now, the cry you've held in all your life, but never let out because you were too afraid. Wear this ribbon on your sites around the world to help put out the blaze...
(The banner may be obtained from http://innerspace.hypermart.net/youthcry.html for use on pages.)
The Church of Geeks, from Mark:
Surely if [you] founded the ?Church of Geekdom, geeks in schools will be protected by the existing laws? Hardly practical but maybe another stick to beat the administration with, and a way to underline the fact that it's a (peaceful) way of life.
Call To Arms, from Bojay:
With all the commentary and what-not surrounding the whole debate, I think the time might be right to issue some kind of call to arms for geeks. Most of us are pretty, well, non-political about issues. I think if we're going to be running this country's infrastructure, and building communications world-wide, we ought to have a say. Which brings me to my second point - why can't we form a special-interest group? Over 1500 people have commented (some fiercely) about this. 99% of them think school was hell. Why not form a SIG to address "geek rights"? If you have any pointers, or some people you know who think like-minded, let me know. I'd like to start working on something that /will/ make a difference, not just a stir.
I'm Going To Speak Up, from JD:
There's a school board meeting next Wednesday, and you can bet that I'm going to be there, speaking on this very subject'I wish they had the Web when I was a little younger. A community is a good thing.
From Turned In:
I can understand where a lot of people are coming from on this. I am a 'freak' and 'goth'. I don't even know how I got the Goth label since I never wear black (I usually wear colorful outfits), don't like Marylyn Manson, and am an overall happy person. People seem to think I'm weird because I listen to Bjork and like Linux. Also, people (wrestlers, so I don't give them much credit) think I'm going to blow up the school. Why, you might ask? Well, because I am taking French, I dyed my hair, and (here's the clincher) I have a unibrow! So now unibrow = unabomber. Everyone watch out for that extra hair, it could be the difference between normal and serial killer?
Again, thanks for giving 'freaks' a place to be heard.
Fight Back With Jedi Mind-Tricks, from Geek Girl:
I am one of the misfits- a Girl Geek, if there was such a person. I got abused horribly by the jocks like the guys did, but it was worse in some ways as a woman because of the sexual element. ... I never considered doing violence to my tormentors- although my desire to defeat them led me in a roundabout way to the study of the occult- where I learned instead to rule myself. (Yes, there is a good side to the occult, if you can get past all the BS.)
Now, I understand how Jedi Mind Tricks really work, and when I have to have a run-in with a jock sort (they live in a time warp, growing potbellies and kids, but never truly maturing) I remember how weak-minded they are, and whop them with a bit of good old verbal and mental Aikido.
I AM ALONE, by Robert Sterling:
I am alone
beholden to no one
I need no one
I do not care
if I or anyone else
exists
Nor do I care what
others think
what they want or
how they feel
I am alone
And now I can laugh
and that is good
for I was not
previously
programmed
to do so
Copyright 1999 Robert Sterling
Queen of Peace seeks Doom Club Competitors:
Hey guy,
Queen of Peace HS in North Arlington, NJ, already has a DOOM club - they can't find anyone else out there to compete against. Are there any others? (do they dare announce at this time?), the contact name is QphsCrocco@aol.com ( Ms. Crocco at Queen of Peace )
Don't Go Back, by Janus:
I'm a freshman at a California high school, and a geek, and a Goth, and I don't have to tell anybody reading this what a Hell-week this has been for me - to the principal's office three times, and my parents have grounded me for the rest of my sad life, taken Doom, confiscated my Marilyn Manson CD's?oh well, no point in complaining. I will never quit or be beaten. I narrowly escaped counseling by bringing in a note from my minister.
I just want to say to all of you that for all of that, this has been one of the worst weeks of my life, but also one of the best weeks of my life, because for the first time in my four-year career as a creative and hard-working geek, I felt I had some help out there, that there were people I could go to. And there were actually stories and columns about me and people like me. I thought for sure nobody cared. So that was awesome!
Geeks will always fight, because it's their nature, but please don't go right back to all the flaming and arguing only... For me, and for all of the young geeks out there, how about it? This could really make a big difference in my life, and while I'm writing this, five wretched geek friends are standing right behind me while I type this in... Okay?
I Want to Listen, From a Teacher:I am a teacher of high school; seniors in San Jose at Santa Teresa High School. Many students seek my time as a listener who makes no judgements. My age [68] may be a factor. Perhaps they look on me as a surrogate grandfather. When they seem to feel the need of someone to talk to in confidence, they ask, I listen.
I am worse than novice on The Net. I guess its a hangover from big telephone bills. However, if you think I can be of listening assistance for the loners, I will volunteer through you.
I want to be a listener for these kids. Please let me know if I can assist. calwest@gaird.com
The Quiet Revolution, from JD in Chicago:
I feel strangely optimistic about this week, as a veteran misfit with many ribbons and scars. If I hadn't learned how to stand firm while avoiding confrontation, they might have driven me crazy too. We are making a quiet revolution, the geeks. You can call it open source or open music or open whatever'it's unstoppable. All we have to do is not quit, and eventually, time will come around to us. Or maybe, a better way of putting it, is our time is coming. Then all of the things we've suffered won't be in vain.
Was it my imagination, or is the new story that things are looking up in the Hellmouth even, as Janus suggests, when they seem to have been worse than ever?
Because "Doom" is a game that is well known to parents/teachers since its been around longer.
Personally if i was the game industry, i'd sue for media harrassment. I'd also have all major owners in internetbackbone sue the media as well for harrassment.
That'd be the only way they'd stop fucking around and concentrate on real issues
We're seeing how much beating a dead horse can take.
/. is having trouble fitting it in with all the other services.
Seriously though, it appears that people need to talk about this and I'm not going to begrudge them that. I am beginning to think this could use a permanent page of its own, seeing as how even the super-powerful
we can already guess at your next book. so stop pushing this crap on us already. you've already overdone the subject. by now the dead horse is nothing more than a stain in the grass.
geeks get singled out at school. WOW shocking revelation. just like every other clique out there that gets singled out at school. i'm amazed at how perceptive you are to the youth of america.
you do realize that you're only feeding the media on the subject matter. Kosovo is old, nothing new and exciting out there, so HEY, let's milk this high school angst crap for all it's worth. it's already at the point of over-analyzing, katz. and no one seems to have analyzed it correctly. so for now it's time to just drop it all, let the next one step up to the plate, mow down a bunch of students and teachers, so that way we can all sit back, AGAIN, and analyze what's wrong with the world, and finding no answer, milk the subject matter so that laws get passed, tv stations get ratings, and kids are still living a fucked up life down in the school system. being used by the cockroaches of society called the media. and yes katz, you are the media.
m0r0n
I have heard the media spout off about DOOM numerous times now over the past couple of weeks, and I'm really wondering why I haven't heard a single mention about Quake.
That's because the name 'DOOM' sounds more violent than the name 'Quake' - some non-computer people would hear 'Quake' and think "You mean like those Quaker people that make the oatmeal? Aren't they non-violent or something?" And the horror that sells papers wouldn't hit them. Meanwhile, they can hold up a name like 'DOOM' and it has more impact on the people who don't know what it is. It's a relative of the easiest scapegoat problem you mentioned.
It's funny, the only id game I have is Quake2, but my wife thinks I play DOOM because she heard about it in the newspapers. She says, "I read all about it - you go through caves and find different weapons to kill different monsters - that's that game YOU PLAY! You've been playing DOOM! You're not secretly planning to kill everyone at your office, are you?"
When I tell her that the game I have isn't DOOM but a more recent game by the same people, she won't believe me.
My wife listens to me in general, she just has no interest in computers and thinks that games are pretty juvenile (and seeing that I'm a 38 year old husband, father, and physician, she may have a point there ;-).
My point was just that people really do latch onto the name "DOOM" because it seems so evil and ominous.
Going to Murrow helped keep me from possible suicide or some other personal ruin I think (my neighborhood school was Canarsie High School, which is even worse now than it was a decade ago).
>Thank god I'm a university student now, where
>everybody is judged to their ability and not to
>their appearance.
hahahahaha! Oh, you were serious... I'm a university student, and the situation is, in many ways, identical to high school. Don't get me wrong -- college is great; college is to high school what high school was to junior high, only more so.
Generally speaking, people are always going to judge you based upon your appearance -- such is human nature. The nice thing about college is that frat boys (or jocks or whatever) can more easily be ignored since there is FAR more acceptance of social diversity.
Now if there were only more acceptance of a diversity of ideas, we'd be getting somewhere. But since that leads us to the hoary brink of the nether-realm of "off-topic-ness," I'll leave that for another day.
Cheers,
Being different isn't a bad thing. It's all about your morals and your core values. And, it's not about societal norms, it's about a respect for others and a responsibility for your own actions. Somewhere in America, these are being corrupted. It's not the media's fault, it's not a computer's fault, nor is it online gaming, Dungeons and Dragons, or any other outside influence. People need to stop blaming society and take responsiblity for raising their kids. And why doesn't anyone realize this starts out early? If you haven't instilled a set of values in someone by the time they reach high school, I'm sorry, but you're not going to do it then, no matter how much time and money you throw at it.
Willis, Arnold, and what was that girl's game? They were all Diff'rent. We KNOW what happened to them. Steve Jobs is a different sort of guy (Think Apple!) and the jury's still out on him... but I recently heard on TV how he admitted to making calls that were looped around the US several times to a payphone that was right next to him. He would should on one phone and hear it on the other 53 seconds later. Hmmmmm.... FUD for thought.
You have a good idea, possibly even a GREAT idea.
You just have to fix it up a little bit with your group. Come up with a plan to convince the local politician/bigwig/pastor that what you do isn't all that bad. Just make a canned demo like every sales critter does.
Agree in advance with your entire group of a list of games you can play on that day that look good. Instead of TFC, choose something like Ages of Empires. And instead of conquest mode, choose a nice, peaceful ending goal like building a wonder. Then agree in advance to set up your game so you are all allies and work together. There's a lot of networked games out there that don't look like doom. Practice on some of them a weekend before you try this.
And for heavens sake, don't have any copies of doom/quake/TFC lying around. If you get asked about them, tell the politico that you have tried them, and they were boring/too bloody/antiquated and that most of the geeks LIKE playing simCity 3000.
Then the clueless ones will go away with a slightly distorted view of networked gaming, but its no more distorted than what the media is blasting them with.
for bonus points, no one should wear trenchcoats or all black. Tell them its just a fashion statement for when you go outdoor or to school, but that even the most extreme geeks are just normal kids with an extra dose of creativity. Pile on the bullshit.
All the newsworthy stuff seems to be taking place in Colorado...
Do you want to go a Microsoft supported school?
Indeed. The inmates have many concerns. Ask any parent. They are not being addressed. Ask any inmate.
Nothing ever changes.
If the Slashdot Channel is not available in your area, call your cable provider and request SC: TV for Nerds.
When I read this and saw the enumeration of the causes of the problems, it appeared that the school systems were looking to everyone and everything including the influence of the Internet but excepting themselves as the cause.
As an ex-substitute teacher while I lived in Southern California my job was a mixture of fight-refereeing and babysitting.
Besides the expunging of God from our schools decades ago I attribute the causes of violence in the schools to two further reasons:
1. The implicit but incorrect understanding that a public education is a right and not a priviledge.
2. The mandates from the government which dictate the rules for school attendance, dicipline, and other non-local interference and incentives for keeping those in school who have little or no desire to learn.
Let me explain.
There were many situations during my years of substitute teaching that I would attempt to remove disruptive students from my classes only to have the school principals send the students right back. Once I was even admonished by one of these principals for sending a very disruptive student to his office as if it was my fault that the student was misbehaving. Perhaps other substitute teachers were just putting up with it but I was actually trying to follow the lesson plan and teach which is difficult to do when some students (back then) would talk back and disrupt the class as if it were an episode of Welcome Back Kotter (excuse me if I mispelled that).
Schools are not safe. Students are rude and not polite. There must be a mechanism where rude, threatening, and destructive students are removed from these schools. (I also substituted at some "continuation schools" where some bad ones actually ended up... same situation but worse.)
Students who threaten other students and teachers (yes I was threatened on occasion) should lose the privilege of attending free public school.
But it doesn't work this way because public schools and the NEA are BIG business. The more butts fill those seats every day the more funds flow into the schools.
When I was growing up I was sent to Catholic school. My parents worked hard to pay the tuition and to pay taxes for the public school kids. In Catholic school, public school was the place where bad kids kicked out of Catholic school went. I remember reading years ago that per student much less money is spent on a Catholic school education than on public school students but parents who can afford it send their children to Catholic, Lutheran, and other Christian schools. Attendence there is not a right, it's a privilege that can be lost... for good. The parents understand that and somehow the message gets conveyed to their children. Most kids got the message.
I know parents who, though non-Catholic, wish to send their children to Catholic schools because "they'll get a better education". Hmmmm... EDUCATION! That's what it should be about!
So whenever I hear of the current administration calling for lower class sizes I laugh. It's not about class sizes stupid! It's not about money spent per student. It's about discipline and providing a place for children to learn who wish to learn and expelling children who don't wish to learn from our schools. I think Catholic and other Christian schools who insist on students wearing a uniform exercise a wisdom that provides an environment where one is not judged based upon the clothes they wear.
For some parents, even the private schools don't cut it anymore. The bending of our religious organizations to the melting pot of American culture to be accepted has caused a slackening of standards even at these formerly pristine examples of education, discipline and virtue.
Thus I don't even send my children to Catholic schools anymore. That's mostly because one of my son's teachers was teaching heresy but the "Am-Church" Catholic dilemna is an issue for a different forum.
My children are now homeschooled. They each have access to computers with many educational programs as well as manual assignments. I can guarantee that my children are 100% drug free and that obscenities don't spew from them like I used to hear in public school or even on the Catholic school playgrounds. Personally I think that homeschooling supplemented by computers and the Internet will be the primary means of education by the mid twenty-first century. Unfortunately there will be a big battle. The one-world planners want women to work. (It lowers the birthrate.) The NEA does not want to lose their power and influence (which evidently means more than the best interests of the children... witness the outcries against homeschooling and taxpayer choice when it comes to tuition vouchers used at private schools...) All those who feed at the trough of "it's for the children" will not want to give up their grasp of tax dollars... money extracted with the proverbial gun-to-our-taxpaying-heads.
Unfortunately there's no freedom of choice in this supposedly free mobocracy for parents who cannot afford to send their children to private schools or who cannot homeschool. So each generation of public school children, raised in a godless environment becomes more and more violent, rude and disrespectful. They end up learning less and demanding more from society. They become the drug users, welfare cheats, workmen's compensation cheats, and deadbeats that we all end up paying for. Thank the societal planners of 40+ years ago. The Goals 2000 type of social engineers. Their vision has succeeded. America is ripe for the conquering.
> In the same way, not all lifestyle choices are equal, as I stated in another post, I grew up in the 80s, and
> had several friends who became "non conformists", and ended up destroying their lives with drugs,
> alcohol, crime, etc. I believe that there are definatly negative lifestyle choices, and I think anyone who is
> intellectually honest will have to agree with this statement.
Y'know, I also grew up in the 80s, and I had several friends who _weren't_ non-conformists, who
ended up destroying their lives with alcohol, drugs, crime, etc. I don't think you can assume that because
your friends were nonconformists and they destroyed their lives, that the two were connected.
And I certainly don't think you can generalize from your personal experience. Just because you
know some non-conformists who ruined their lives doesn't mean that non-conformists are more likely
to ruin their lives than conformists. So while there are destructive lifestyle choices, choice of
clothing doesn't necessarily tell you whether a particular person has made them.
The same has always been said about TV. Before that it was said about radio and comic books.
Before that, it was books that were dangerous. Even the Bible has been considered something that ordinary people couldn't cope with.
Blaming something you don't like for causing violence has always been a favorite method for people who want censorship for one reason or the other....
I was waiting for someone else to think of this song...probably the most definitive line is:
"...we won't use guns, we won't use bombs, we'll use the one thing we've got more of, that's our minds."
I would have to agree. The massive ego-trip that all these supposed 'non-conformists' are enjoying is kind of sad. "Hey! I'm so rebellious and different, I get persecuted by my peers on a regular basis! I even got kicked out of school!".
Give me a break. Its too bad you are being singled out for being 'different', but, gosh, how would they be able to do it if you didn't already fit their pretty well-definded stereotypical image of 'different'. Hmmm, maybe you aren't that unique after all.
There's a simple solution to this particular problem in American high schools. Inter-school athletics should be banned entirely from the high schools. High schools could still have physical education, weight rooms, pools, and athletic fields, but the dimension of "school spirit" and school fundraising would be eliminated. Valuable educational time currently used for pep rallies could be eliminated.
We could still have sporting events in our small towns by encouraging the growth of a club system (I think this is used for developing soccer players in Europe, for instance, and is still partially preserved in baseball) in which towns would have their own teams, and then players who do well could move to teams in larger towns, and this would feed into professional athletics.
In the short term, while this solution is brought into place, I think we should work on the problem right away. Anyone who comes to school wearing sports jerseys or other "jock" paraphenalia should be brought into the office and told to change clothes immediately.
Forming a new church that isn't orthodox-Xtianity-intensive is a good way to be murdered by the authorities. Their Crusades never really ended.
Sure, a bunch of people are dead. A few unbalanced nuts took their school by storm and made a big mess of the place - now I can't escape the images of this inconsequential town and the idiots who populate it. Every major media outlet has done their part to exploit and manipulate the general conscience of the nation in order to sell more advertising time, and it's freakin' unavoidable.
I'm not trying to make these geeks scapegoats - God knows there were times I felt an urge to do some physical harm to these idiot jocks and other assorted fools.
I didn't mention anything about the "geek profiling" because that wasn't the point of my post. My concern is in their self-involved "I'm so indivdualistic" stances they post here on Slashdot - they're fooling themselves, looking for some kind of self-satisfaction from a corporate product. "Geek profiling" and harassment are things I've dealt with it my entire life. I've also had to deal with self-involved losers so desperate for validation they cling to whatever the popular notion of a subculture is. So I say fuck them. Hoist up the popular ones. Shave them bald.
These "geeks" have real choices, but they've chosen to remain ignorant.
And remember, "if voting changed anything, they would make it illegal." -- Jello Biafra. (No, I don't have a mohawk.)
"In a context separate"? What pseudointellectual BS. This is akin to telling rape victims to lie back and think of England. There are people out there who irreparably damage others, who are alive simply because it is illegal to kill them.
indeed, I was thinking the same thing this weekend.
The Wall is what let me survive my last couple of years of high school (though I'm now probably dating myself).
Certainly the alienation of youth is nothing new: what is new is that the ramifications of that alienation can be far worse to both society and the kids.
When I was in HS I played Space Invaders and used to pretend they were Jocks. Just kidding, this whole video game thing is being blown way out of context.
Heh, you really think Manson has taken cues from GG Allin? Have you ever seen GG Allin? I have, and it wasn't pretty.
> So, all of you "geeks" who think you're
> breaking the spell of conformity because you
> use Linux, dye your hair, listen to bad
> melodramtic joke-metal, or don't play sports:
> GROW UP. YOUR "DISSENT" IS NOTHING BUT A
> COMMODITY. You are sheep - a different breed
> of sheep, but sheep nonetheless.
Absolutely. "Non-conformity" is a cop-out.
What is the value of a disgruntled misfit? The
real challenge of life is to be happy, healthy,
productive, content and well-integrated. True
courage -- as opposed to this silliness -- is
having the guts to fit in, and at the same time
the strength of character and serenity to walk
one's one path. This is the stuff leaders are
made of. Many or most truly succesful people
have overcome tremendous opposition in their
rise to prominence. Whiners and cry-babies do
not end up in history books -- except by virtue
of ruining others' lives.
Gimmie a friggin' break, buddy. All of this is a result of someone attempting to involve themselves inside a certain social structure and failing. It's not BS, it's a way of life.
Rape is another story altogether, and drawing the two together is the real BS. Rape is a physical violation, and something this society takes much too lightly. Being an "outcast" is something entirely different, because the "geek" can choose whether or not to involve him/herself in those situations, and a rape victim cannot. Frankly, I'm fucking offended, being the brother of a rape victim.
Rape has traces much deeper and much more serious than "geeks vs. straights." It deals with fundamental issues of power, sexual and otherwise, while all of the whining here on Slashdot is self-created because these people grant relevance to stuff that has none.
We do need to get the word out. We do need to get those problems fixed, in the same way that ethnic minorities fought for their equality of rights and were heard eventually. Let's not give up until we've won that battle
Uhh, then again, *you're* assuming that there exists motivation in mainstream corporate culture beyond that of profit. Look in the mission statement of any major corporation and you'll see a line akin to "We seek to attain profit for our shareholders." The root of this may be a love for a certain artform (be it music, software, carpenter's nails, or what-have-you) but the end goal is maximum profit, and in order to attain maximum profit the "art" must be marginalized.
Also, you're assuming that markets naturally exist; again I ask you to look at the history of the modern "capitalist" and tell me where market coercion doesn't exist.
Some might see it as a front for scientology. Indeed, clams have been seen trawling the "Littleton Co, Rage-Rant-Rave" site for some fresh meat. Sickening.
Hey, lots of tragedies are happening in this world. This is very sad, but unfortunately, we don't live long enough to address them all one at a time.
On average, I would have to honestly say I saw more confomists that destroyed themselves than non-comformists. Cheerleaders getting pregnant and droppping out of school, Athletes getting in drunken brawls. Frat boys getting alcohol poisoning and falling off of buildings. Sorority chicks getting so drunk that they can't imagine HOW they could have gotten pregnant. All of these groups are considered to be conformist and acceptable memebers of high school and college, yet I would say that there is a disproporionate amount of self desruction in these facets of society than in the facets that YOU label as nonconformist and different - the goths, geeks, nerds, metalheads, etc.
You point fingers, you're part of the problem too. And that includes the Geeks here
Geeks generally don't persecute mainstream people on a daily basis (and don't have social power to do so anyway). Geeks generally have no desire to prevent people from thinking and behaving intelligently.
4/20 really stands for 42, and not for that other thing that the media made it out to be. Their honor has been restored: they were no nazis, but merely Douglas Adams fans!
>Go back to the top of the thread, and follow along, if you please.
This thread starts with the assertion that geeks are geeks because they like Doom, Bjork and Marylin Manson, and use Linux. A bold assertion, as many of the testimonials of ex-highschoolers in this forum show: back when those people went to highschool, neither Doom, nor Marylin Manson, nor Linux existed yet. But geeky people were still being outcast for being different. So far for that theory.
I bet the author of the post that started this thread was just one of those sorry jocks, who is now feeling uncomfortable about the open discussion about this formerly taboo subject
>Why is it so hard to get you to address one problem?
Because I don't want to leave the zillion other problems unanswered
Are you saying that someone who has been ridiculed and put down all their life during school to the point where they really HATE going to it and their grades have suffered because of it are less intelligent than the nerds who got straight A's? That's one thing that always bothered me... I certainly hated school and the programmed atmosphere of "lecture, homework, quiz, test, test, test." Am I an idiot because I never wanted to study for their tests and jump through their hoops resulting in a rather average GPA? I suppose so. I guess I was an idiot for spending all of my time pursuing my true passion of computing rather than reading yet another book by a long dead writer. Hmph.
It's excellent!
If You're A Reporter And You're Stupid And You Know It Click Here.
as far as a "geek church",that came about years ago with the "Church of the SubGenius".
different != good
different != bad
Associating with people who have the same interests as yourself does not mean you're conforming.
Conforming is when you act like something you're not, out of some misguided desire to be considered "normal."
-- Dirt Road
Well, looking back on my own primary school and early high school time, this doesn't seem to sound right. Back then, I didn't buy any stuff on my own, period. I didn't dress any particular way (my parents bought my clothes), and hadn't developped a particular taste in music yet. And computers were only in James Bond movies, not in kids' bedrooms. But there were still "popular" and "outcast" kids.
The "you are what you buy" theory may be true today in the US, but this was certainly not the case always nor everywhere.
Kids can get outcast by merely being more shy or more awkward than their peers. And they certainly don't chose to be that way.
If you feel that your ego is big enough already, you're free to skip the "hellmouth" stories, and move on to the other interesting items that Slashdot carries
just install the drivers for a postcript printer (you don't have to actually have one), make that your target printer in PM and make the pdf
No, I didn't assert that geeks are geeks because they like Doom, Bjork, or Marylin Manson - an entire gaggle of self-proclaimed "geeks" did, and I was complaining about it. Read the post again. The subject isn't taboo, it's just common sense.
And no, I wasn't a jock either. I was heavily into science and theatre, and I now make a living as a recording engineer in my own studio, as well as some CGI programming on the side (mainly for friends).
I have, there are at least 5 of me floating around the USA.
It's scarry.
It almost caused me to believe in alien cloning.
Freaked me out!
Scared me half to death.
I'm used to it now.
One is a prof @ harvard.
One lives in maryland.
One is a grad. student at Texas A&M.
There are several others, but I don't know them personaly.
There. You're doing it. You're STEREOTYPING. This is the whole thing that made the problem.
Singling out the "different" kids makes the presumption that there is (likely) something wrong with them. Why not single out the jocks? Don't they have, as a group, a far greater likelihood of binge drinking than the rest of the student body? Why not focus all the attention on THEM, so that THEY can have fingers pointed at them when they walk down the hall and be snickered at behind their backs?
Oh, that doesn't fit with your stereotype. Sorry to have mistaken you for a thinking being. And I'm afraid that I have absolutely zero confidence that the run-of-the-mill school counselor has even one more functioning synapse than you do.
As for me, I survived high school and I currently pull down an hourly rate that makes lots of people turn green with envy. Once you're in the real world, being a geek is great even if not chic.
Shhhh! Be Vewy Quiet! etlay ethay arentalpay unitsway aketay ethay oldway amesgay. eythay ellfay orfay ourway icktway. heheheheheheh.
/. now!
Remember, they're even quoting
Rape is another story altogether, and drawing the two together is the real BS. Rape is a physical violation, and something this society takes much too lightly. Being an "outcast" is something entirely different, because the "geek" can choose whether or not to involve him/herself in those situations, and a rape victim cannot. Frankly, I'm fucking offended, being the brother of a rape victim.
You are very naive to assume that geeks can choose whether or not to involve themselves in potentially damaging situations. In 99% of my experiences this was never the case. This has all to do with fundamental issues of power. People fear those who are smarter than themselves because they feel a threat in their power base, whether it's a group of high school jocks or middle eastern dictators. I think you would find that many of the same behaviors found in rape victims could also be found among the more traumatized of us geeks. I will state that as a hypothesis since I have found no studies to back it up.
BTW, I was physically violated many times in school, because I was a geek.
ITS JUST BAIT TO BRING THE DOOM GEEKS OUT OF THE WOODWORK AND THEN *BAM*!!! THEY HAUL YOU AWAY TO THEIR DORK CONCENTRATION CAMPS! JUST THINK OF THE WEDGIES THEY'LL INFLICT ONCE YOU'RE HERE! (*cringe*)
Seriously, how many doom clubs do you think high schools are permitting on their jockstrewn grounds at this point?
And don't fall for that old man either!
Don't eat the green pills! They're made from humans beings! (*sobbing*) Soylent green is made from humans...
(And hell, don't take the red pill either!)
I am a non-conformist.
I hate manson.
I like linux and MacOS.
I am smart and get good grades.
I study more than I need to get an a.
I study stuff outside of school.
I own a black trenchcoat.
I don't like DOOM, but I really like starcraft.
These things have nothing to do with non-conformity.
I'm a non-conformist, because I think for myself.
It doesn't matter what teachers/parents/media/peers/strangers/polls/ "/.'ers" say!!!
I will always think for my self!!!!
----------------
Geeks of the World Unite
---------------
I feel you. It took me a month of practice 2 hours a day to learn to tie my shoes.
------------------
geeks of the world unite
The ramifications are no different. Just made more clear when someone freaks out in a school than, say, in a subway.
Those oatmeal people sure aren't nonviolent. The entirety of downtown Cedar Rapids, IA reeks of rotting oats.
Except it is "normal" (as in like most other people) to be born heterosexual. Therefore it is natural to question why someone is not "normal".
Watch what you call normal here. There are a couple hundred species of mammals and birds which have exhibited homosexual behavior.
Check out this Salon magazine story about a new research book. I think you'll find it interesting and it most likely will make you question the "choice vs. genetics" debate all over again.
Good thing you said good hardware, SGI software isn't exactly "good".
I very, very, very strongly disagree. Not that the strength of my disagreement should have any impact, but hopefully my very straightforward argument will.
I spent the vast majority of my time in school waiting for classes to end. I couldn't use the time in school to learn, because the teachers either went over material I already knew, or spent days explaining things that took me 5 minutes to understand. Whenever I was given the opportunity to learn with students of equal intelligence and a teacher that had a great understanding of the subject, I gained a lot and felt good about the school for a short time. But that was extremely rare.
The smarter students shouldn't be punished because of the laziness or stupidity of others. They should be separated. If any of the normals think they can handle it, let them try. The vast majority won't want to.
Let's have a million geek march on washington, don't forget bring linux cd's and throw them in Clinton's face (that stupid hick).
Watch what you call normal here. There are a couple hundred species of mammals and birds which have exhibited homosexual behavior.
Yes, of course. I'm aware of such studies.
However, it should have been clear that I was using the word "normal" in the statistical sense -- that's why I quoted it -- and not as a pejorative.
I know of no species where homosexual behavior is more prevelant than heterosexual behavior. Thus, it makes sense to call heterosexual behavior "normal". This does not mean that homosexual behavior is deviant, or somehow wrong.
It does mean, however, that it is natural to be curious about the reasons for non-"normal" behavior. Many theories are advanced and unfortunately some of these reflect a hidden agenda.
I'm sorry if anyone took offense at my use of a statistical term.
By referring sarcastically, negativley, what-ever, to the "jocks" who picked on you, taunted you, and made your life miserable and labeling them as "jocks" you are commiting the same "social injustice" which you are complaining about.
If you are ready to draw lines, define sides, and go to war than say so. If what you are looking for is universal acceptance, than you are not furthering your cause.
Try and step back for a minute and think about it, or as I expect, flame me for my differing opinion and spin the wheel of hate faster.
The choice is yours.
controld@hotmail.com
Posted by Macunaima on April 30, 1999 at 02:11:30:
/why/ high school football and other sports were such a big deal. Why did these supposedly intelligent administrators and teachers reward behavior that, in the final analysis, was absolutely antithetical to the school's scholastic goals? I couldn't figure it out...
/real/ purpose wasn't to educate us. Rather, its primary mission was to turn us all into flag-waving, good citizen-consumers. Any knowledge we picked up on the side was just peachy, but of secondary importance. After I left HS and learned more about the American public education "system", my suspicion gradually hardened into certainty.
/they/ are what it's supposed to produce. This is public HS' stated goal: "building model citizens". Take a look at the nation around you people: what exactly is a "model citizen" in the US? I would submit to you that it's an individual who puts up (taxes) and shuts up.
/we/ think is important; follow the agenda /we/ define". I smile, now, when I recall that one of the put-downs commonly heard among teenagers in my HS days was "get with the program" - a parroting of our teachers' favorite authoritarian cut of any individually originated activity.
/known/ what was going on and yet had done nothing. The vice-principal told my mom that I was frequently the target of "jokes" that "occaisionally overstepped the bounds of humor" and that I "seemed to have trouble relating to other students, aside from a small group of friends who had the same interests as me." (Odd, that, considering my group included the only openly gay guy in the school, the school 'whore', the school computer geek, the school alternative music wierdo, etc, etc. In fact, the only "common interest" we had was a determination to not go through school alone).
/entire week/ in HS without anybody talking to her. The dear woman just couldn't comprehend the qualitative difference between a week's worth of snubs and years worth of constant brutality.
/and individualistic/ bunch of people on the face of this planet than the Brazilians. The match worked: in college I swung another scholarship to Brazil and I've been here ever since. As a thirty-one year old father whose child is on the verge of adolesence, I'm happy to be here, despite all the problems my foster country has.
/there/ to make your child's life OK. In fact, their primary goal isn't even teaching your child. In any run in with your school district's supposed authorites, remember that to a large degree, their mission statement can be best described as "turning children into homogenous drones." Now there may be individual teachers and administrators who are the exception to this rule. There may even be entire, rare, schools which break the mold. But by and large, treating your child's school as a giant ant farm is the safe way to go. Do /not/ let them set themselves up as some sort of "authority" regarding your child. For God's sake, do not let them drug or institutionalize your kid. Fight for your kid's right to exercise a free mind in a safe environment. In the final analysis, your child has the only authority regarding their life. If that authority needs to be suspended due to immaturity, severe depression, drug or alchohol abuse or whatever, only you - the parent - have this power. Use it wisely if you have to but never give that power away to strangers whose only major interest is how quite they can make your son or daughter.
-Long-
I live in Brazil, though I grew up in the States. I've lived here for ten years and plan on staying in this country for the rest of my life. To a great degree, I'm here because of all the crap I had to put up with in the North American school system.
I used to think of life in my small-town public school as "the death of a thousand cuts". As many people have noted here and in other Littleton-related comments, school seemed perversely geared towards rewarding the drones, the jocks and the fools while making sure any expression of real creativity or intelligence died aborning. For the life of me, I couldn't understand
But my problems with HS went deeper than that: I knew history. Many of you have claimed "geek-dom" due to your computer use. I was a history geek. Third period free hour would inevitably find me curled up in the libary hidden behind a copy of "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" or Fuller's "Military History of the West". (God. I wonder what would happen to me if I was in HS today? Would I be sent to the counselor as having potential Nazi or militarist sympathies?) I had a certain sensitivity as to how patriotism has historically been used to get people to perform (and more importantly, support) mindless acts of terror in the name of the state. The more I looked at HS, the more I suspected that the American educational system's
I'm suprised than in all the discussion I've read here about this topic, nobody (that I've read at least) has criticized American HS in this way. Many people have complained that school teaches them nothing useful. Well, that's really not its purpose. American high school glorifies the jocks, the cheerleaders and the preps because
Not only is the above the declared ideology of American schools, American administrators and teachers have a powerful psychological incentive to carry these production goals through. Most authority figures will value, primarily, the subordinate who's unexceptional, who doesn't make waves; he makes their job easier. The bright student, the troubled student, the student with non-traditional interests: these are all to a certain degree troublemakers in the eyes of the HS society, whatever the odd individual teacher might feel.
Take my case for an example: I maintained a 4.0 GPA throughout HS and eventually became the class valedictorian. I was also a national merit scholar and a National Council of Teachers of English competition finalist. Nevertheless, I was not allowed to be a member of the school's honor society. When I asked why, I was told that I was not "involved with the community". When I responded that I was a volunteer youth councelor at the YMCA, a producer for local community television, the founder and president of our school's strategy game club, as well as being a member of both AFS and our school's model UN, I was told that none of that counted - I needed to be "a team player."
What these well-meaning teachers meant to say was "put up and shut up. Participate in what
All the above doesn't even touch upon the 4 delightful years I spent following the hallowed geek contact sport tradition: being beaten, thrown into lockers, burnt, spit upon and generally running for my life from gangs of my more testosterone enhanced peers. All under the benevolent eyes of the school's teachers and administrators.
By the time my junior year had rolled around, I was an emotional wreck. After a particularly brutal and public incident, I finally decided I couldn't stand it anymore and I swallowed two bottles of pills in the school's computer lab. Luckily (for me), I wussed out a half hour later and told the lab monitor what I did. To that woman's everlasting credit, she believed me and immediately went for help.
In the ensuing "Oh my GOD, how could this happen?" fest three things stuck in my mind...
First of all, the school had
Secondly, my mom, an ex-cheerleader and prom-queen, trying to come to terms with my world, held my hand and told me how she understood what I was feeling because once she had to go through an
Finally, the adults in my life reached a consensus that everything would turn out OK if I were to just try to fit in a little harder. After being offered this little pearl of wisdom by my high school guidance counselor, I remember, quite clearly, staring at the ceiling and thinking to myself "I'm stuck in a Kafka novel and I'm getting out of here, no matter what the cost. There are three possible roads I can see: 1) get into an exchange program and spend my senior year abroad; 2) go to college a year early; 3) kill myself and do it right this time. I guess I'll start at the top and work my way down..."
Luckily, option one panned out. I got a scholarship and was sent off to Brazil. I had a fantastic year there. I learned Portuguese, became involved in real politics, hung around with poets and radicals, visited the Amazon, smoked pot for the first time... and more importantly, learned that the US was not the only culture going on the planet. Though Brazil has many immense problems, there is not a more friendly, outgoing, hospitable
Looking back on my high school experience in the light of the Littleton massacre, all I can do is shudder with a certain sense of "There but for the grace of God go I." I never had violent, mass murder fantasies. I sure had fantasies of killing myself, though. And I was working my way up towards the final act itself when I finally finagled a lifeline out of (as Krantz so aptly puts it) the Hellmouth. As long as I absorbed it all, like a punching bag, everything was "fine" and "normal" in the eyes of my parents and teachers. And this is the key for me: they knew what was going on. Unfortunately, their HS experience was the exact opposite of mine. For better or for worse, their memories of the "golden years of high school" blocked any empathy of the hell I was going through.
So I guess I'll finish this story with this bit of advice to all you parental units out there: when your kids try to tell you what's going on in their lives - believe them. Those "professionals" at the school? They're not
just hope they never hear about dungeon keeper just think of the fun they would have over that one a game where it says evil is good so keep quite (well it was a big game in the U.K)
:-o)
oh and one other thing being an Ex-Member of the Armed Forces (groundpounder) and a geek and working for ISP i really get pissed when people try to blame the internet, games(computer), dressing in black, trenchcoats, games(roleplay).
oops done em all, now i can say as a trained killer (as i have been called in the past)
that games such as doom and quake DO NOT MAKE ME WANT TO SHOOT PEOPLE now thats off my chest i feel better some of you may not think that i am not a geek but i can still empty a room with one of my explainations
soz for the Anonymous posting but waiting for my password to come (nick will be detreus)
so be kind to me pls
The point missed here is that while "evil and violent" does imply "different", the converse, that "different"
implies "evil and violent" is not necessarily true. Unfortunately, the powers that be apparantly never took a
course in logic.
Of course, this is not always the case. Sometimes "evil and violent" defines normality --people are funny that way. See, for instance, nazi Germany, slave holding United States, and more recently any of a number of not so civil civil wars.
doing your best to keep these worthless, 2.5gpa punks at a safe distance doesn't seem quite like a fair deal for everyone.
No, it isn't. But having people interested in learning being bullied isn't fair either!
There is such a thing as choosing the lesser evil.
A perfect school is possible but way too expensive. You would have to keep an eye on alot of people to avoid the bullying for starters. And then you could hire lots of extra instructors to help the slow ones, and so on.
You don't "date" yourself by saying this. A good friend of mine owns the two-CD set of The Wall, probably for the same reasons..
I'm a geek a I live in Cupertino, suburb of San Jose. I've never been attacked at school by atheletes and my school requires 2.0 GPA to be an athelete, so many of them actually have a brain. There are some people who kinda pick on me, but it's very minor and I just put them into "faggots" category and ignore whatever they say. Everyone in our school played Doom. There are Goths there too (if I'm right about who's a Goth). There are still some schools with the Hicksville organization system (Atheletes + Cheerleads (without female atheletes) -> people who don't care about athletics or academics -> geeks (--> represents picking on)) and I know a person who went to one of those school and had a though of killing some of the shitheads there, I know that people in our area are not emotionally ass-backwards and such a shooting will not happen.
A poster made a distinction between geeks and overachievers. Is the term "nerd" merely a synonym for "geek" or does it more closely describe the overachievers?
My experience was that the overachievers were just as socially isolated as the geeks, and perhaps more so because they tended not even to associate with one another. On the other hand, they were subject to less abuse because though they didn't dress fashionably, their nerdy dress and quiet, complient manner didn't attract attention like the more flamboyant dress of the geeks. In fact, if the geeks' isolation was caused by the derision of the jocks and the in-crowd, the overachievers' was caused because everyone just flat ignored them.
Is it still that way? What do the geeks think of the overachievers?
As an ex(?)-overachiever, I see the geeks and think to myself, "It's admirable to be independent and to value intellegence over personal charm or athletic prowess, but why draw attention to yourself that way? Why the hell are they putting themselves at risk?" So why are they?
PocketProtector
You know. They ran an artical in our town paper saying how our town was just like the colorado town. I thought FOR SURE the school would freak out. I must admit, they handled it very well.
I got to talking with a school consolor about the issue, and she agreed that Games, TV Violence, and the internet arent to blame.
My school distirect is pretty screwed up, but It humbles me to see how well they are handling it. But it saddens me to see how poorly others are.
I think anybody that has been screwed over by either there parents, or the school should show them the slashdot stories. It could open some minds onto whats REALLY going on.
You know, I was just wondering....I have heard the media spout off about DOOM numerous times now over the past couple of weeks, and I'm really wondering why I haven't heard a single mention about Quake. I know that's a sidenote, but anyways. I think it is terrible how there is no longer such a thing as personal responibility in our society, and until that changes, those who are easiest to scapegoat will continue to be scapegoats. Sadly, us geeks fit into that category. All I can say is that we should all fight the good fight, and that they'll get my DOOM over my dead body.
Great idea!
It shouldn't be too hard to make one of these and get a handful printed out. Just make sure you destroy all other evidence of doing it before you go out and post it.
Then go out and put a few of these around your school. See if it sparks any debate. If it doesn't, then start to worry.
If I had the time, I'd make each of those categories also reflect groups of other students, such as "hangs out with other students with similar tastes".
As one of the "over 40" regular /. readers, I've
found the Katz articles and reader responses quite
refreshing compared to the majority of mainstream
press coverage. Thus far school administrators
seem far more content to externalize the
conditions that lead to such erruptions as
Littleton. Externalizing the causes deflects any
consideration of how the subtleties of school
policies and administrative decisions impact
students.
Having spent 7 years on a local school committee
in one of Boston's "better" suburbs, I can not
begin to adequately articulate how personally
frustrating it is trying to talk about ideas for
change and improving quality of school life with
administrators who don't even understand why your
bringing up such topics never mind act upon them.
Public schools, with their eyes focused backwards,
wedded to traditions of the past, and protected
from real change by unions, are terribly insulated
from the real world.
My hope for what emerges from the ashes of such
tragedies is that people don't let things "return
to the 'normal' routines." Doing so will only
prevent learning and true systemic change. We all
need to use this time as an opportunity for real
change in our communities that extends beyond the
rhetoric.
Enough, it is too much for too long now!
I am a serious geek, always have been. I'm 36 now and a successful computer entrepreneur. My high school experience was NOT hell, despite being a non-sports-liking, non-popular, way smart sci-fi-loving nerd.
I think the reason for this was my high school itself (Nottingham High School in Syracuse, NY) and the really sensitive teachers there. Although it's a regular public school, there were always plenty of things to do even for outcasts like me. The school set up a computer club for us nerds to hang out together in (with its own room -- of course in those days it was modems to the mainframe, not PCs). We did science projects instead of having to go to senior physics -- we already knew all that stuff anyway and the teachers knew it.
The school also had an excellent theater program which gave lots of nerds an outlet: lighting, sound design, sets, and so on gave us a great community where we could be ourselves, have fun, and even get some recognition. In short, there were lots of ways for kids of all kinds to meet those similarly inclined and share their experiences.
Yep, I got beat up a couple of times. I got the usual taunts. But I had a supportive if small community of fellow-nerds and we more than consoled each other.
Perhaps if these kids (not just the killers but also many of the other posters here) could have these kinds of outlets they might have felt a little less left out?
Really, the next time someone writes in to say they're a nonconformist, I think I'm gonna have a freakin' embellism. Marilyn Manson? Bjork? DOOM? Are these the tools of the revolution? If so I fear for the true nonconformists of this world.
All of these manifestations of your so-called "individualism" and "nonconformity" are nothing but corporate tools of profit and those that stand by them as an individuality-defining apparatus are just as lost as the jocks. The only difference is you're fooling yourself into thinking you're actually an individual, but you're merely conforming to a manufactured, processed, and produced "lifestyle."
So, all of you "geeks" who think you're breaking the spell of conformity because you use Linux, dye your hair, listen to bad melodramtic joke-metal, or don't play sports: GROW UP. YOUR "DISSENT" IS NOTHING BUT A COMMODITY. You are sheep - a different breed of sheep, but sheep nonetheless.
Define your own damned existence. Wake up in the morning and appreciate the life you've been given and quit granting relevance to all of the bullshit externalities of high school and mainstream culture. All of the whining and complaining that has come of this is a result of your own inability to allow yourself to live your life in a context seperate from everyone else.
I used to have respect for Jon Katz - besides having the namesake of the best show on Television (Dr. Katz on Comedy Central), his leftist leanings provided a fine relief from the kooky Libertarian-wannabes around here. Now he's just flogging a dead horse that was delusional and retarded to begin with.
Just like the J.D.L (Jewish Defence league)
G.D.L. - Goth Defence League
N.D.L. - Nerd Defence League
etc.
all under the auspices of an umbrella org called
F.D.L - Freak Defence League
To lobby, organise, and rebel wherever necessary.
We have the Internet, this could become global.
As a white, long-haired but otherwise normal looking person, who dresses at least decently and drives a decent car, I must say I love profiling. I feel bad for the people that get hassled, but if they stopped profiling and hassled everyone equally, I would catch a lot more of it.
So basically, I feel bad for you, I understand how you feel, but I'm not going to try to help you, because that would be hurting myself.
Why is the attitude around here seem to be that people who deliberatly look and act different are somehow automatically superior to those who don't?
And how is society supposed to prevent future Littleton tragedies if they can't single out people who they suspect may have problems.
---
Where do you get that from? From what I have been reading on here, most people don't feel we are superior. I think most of us feel we just aren't inferior, as others seem to think we are.
While it may be prudent to look into those who may be more prone to do something like what occured in Littleton, it does not excuse the excesses gone to in the last week. People have had police investigations on them because of HOW THEY DRESS! Wearing a trenchcoat, black clothing, etc. is NOT probable cause. It does not warrent searching of ones belongings (or an investigation). If you allow them to do that, just wait till it's "wrong" to wear what you like. Then see how you like it. This is basic civil rights. Even the most vile criminal has rights. If you don't like that, move to China.
The correct response here is to talk with those you may think identify with the killers and find out why this REALLY happened. No, it's not just one thing, but if you talk to enough people you can get a broad base to look at. This isn't something that can be understood in a week, maybe not even a year. It will take some time, but to attack those kids in school now who dress, act, or play differently even more is just plain wrong and could cause another incident. The accounts here on Slashdot are just one part of the story. But it's an important part that needs to be heard.
Overreacting and passing a ton of new laws isn't the answer. There were plenty of laws that were broken leading up to the tragedy at Littleton. Persecuting the geeks isn't going to help either, and could cause more harm. We need to work toward understanding each other, only then can we see the real problems and work to repair the damage.
Hey, I liked the first two articles on this, and it is an interesting issues... but aren't we milking this a little TOO far? If not, why don't we create a nerd in school icon for related stories so they can be filtered? (Or discriminated against!)
So now white geeks are learning what those of us with middle-eastern looks/names/religion have known for years:
... and it also sucks when I get hassled by airlines. :-)
PROFILING IS BAD.
It sucks when black motorists get hassled for DWB (Driving While Black), when black women are subjected to full body
searches at the airport by drug agents with NO evidence (and NO drugs are subsequently found) and when high school deans
and prinicipals start hassling people for dressing in a non-standard manner or for being interested in technology.
Oh yeah
-Punjabi
I've been listening to various officials on this topic. One school administrator said (of going back to school today) that it's time to "Get back on the horse." I always suspected my school administrators of being on SOMETHING, I just didn't know it was horse.
I hate that cliche' and I hope the previous kills it for good.
One administrator said that students WILL be safe and that they'll be there for them. Funny, isn't that what they said BEFORE? Call me a cynic...
One administrator said that they will not make schools a prison. Yeah. At least in prision you can smoke. And wasn't that what the schools were before? That's always what I thought when I was incarcerated. But then, we already knew I was a cynic.
AC's Predictions:
Nothing will change for the better. The system will be more ruled by paranoia than it was before. We'll probably see a few more metal detectors and security guards in the schools for a while, some more restrictive rules on backpacks and clothing and in general a much more oppresive atmosphere than we had a month ago. There will be a lot of talk and a few symptoms will be targetted, but you know what, the actual disease will still be there and it will not be addressed. Bummer.
AC's best bets for survival and keeping your sanity: Get out as soon as you can, get your GED and go to college. The younger memebers of the audience are SOL. Sorry. Pressure your parents into looking into home schooling. It ain't much, maybe someone else can come up with more.
I'm now 25, but I went to school in a very conservative, very small Southeast Texas town. To make matters worse, my parents were not only involved in the school, they worked for it. My stepfather was my principal throughout my high school years. This may sound like a blessing to some, but for me it was a curse.
I too was a bit of an outsider (a popular outsider, but an outsider none the less). I didn't like what everyone else liked, I didn't listen to the same music, I didn't dress the same, I didn't really enjoy school activities. I preferred being on my computer, reading a book, or playing D&D with my friends.
I was a very foward looking person, and I saw right through the illusion that was High School. I knew that short months after graduation, I wouldn't be hanging around with the same people, and the things that I did or that happened to me would be of very small consequence. However, with my parents working in the school system, there was a large pressure to "succeed". I don't mean just academically, that part was easy and came naturally, but I had to put off a good example for all the other kids. I had to belong to all the prestigious school groups, and I had to either be in band or sports, I had to date the right girls, I had to be someone I was not.
Or, rather, I was expected to be. I did my own thing. But, it caused me no end of emotional pain. It seemed that everything I wanted to do or found fun was wrong. I had a lot of emotional issues because I was pushed into a lot of roles that I didn't really fit into. Luckily, I was fairly popular, and people realized that I was a genuinely nice guy, even if I didn't look or act according to the norm. I was fortunate that way. But, while I didn't get harrassment from my peers, I got it at home full force. Everything everyone's been writing about how school was so fascist and demanding and conformist, that's how my home life was as well. All the things I wanted to do were somehow "wrong" or "demonic" or just "deviant". Every month it seemed my mother was confiscating things out of my room that she didn't want me to have, such as computers, CDs, modems, books, you name it. They bought into all the hysteria on everything. Some kid went out and killed his friends, and he just incidentally happened to play dungeons and dragons? There go all my role playing books and dice. That's just a remote isolated instance. My parents never seemed to understand that I knew what was going on and that I had a vision that extended further than the next three days. There were girls I dated not because I loved them or because I wanted to spend forever with them, but just because I found them interesting. It was high school, for christ's sake, but my mother assumed that every girl I brought home was one that was a potential marriage candidate. Everything was all about appearance, not facts. I almost went crazy living that life. Why can't school administrators and parents understand that just because their kids want to be a little different, or experiment with things, it doesn't mean they are a bad kid. Not everyone fits into the societal norm. I really thought I got a warped view on how high school was because my parents were a part of the whole system. I thought that perhaps it was just me and I was the only one that got oppressed on a daily basis.
I still rememeber my parents yelling at me to "get off the computer" or "go outside and do something productive" or "why aren't you in more school activities? You sit around too much on that damn computer". I wonder how they feel knowing that this year I'll be making 20k more than the two of them combined ever did, and I'm doing it on "that damned computer".
Katz has found a medium where he excells, as a passive moderator of an online community. This series on the hellmouth is a great work of moving the ego out of the way, and letting the substance of a community shine through.
I am especially heartened to see all the others who, like me, are giving words of encouragement to those suffering through the hellmouth of school. The messages about it getting better all ring true, high school in America is truly a hellacious place for any type of non-conformism or individuality. It has gotten much, much worse in the 20 years since I was there.
I suffered through all kinds of official torment each time I showed a bit of being "different", once getting expelled for 3 days for playing 'punk music' (talking heads and blondie in 1979) on the school radio. I built the school radio, the transmitter and the studio, and just before graduating I brought many accolades to the school for some of my achievements. The school claimed them as proof of their ability, but I have always chafed at that, since everything I did was against school policy, and still is. Last week they banned Marylyn Manson and all goth music.
So, kids out there, don't despair. You'll make it through school, despite the administration and the cops and the councellors. And when you get out the other side, you will find there are rewards for being "different", and not all of them are financial. When your first art exhibit opens to good reviews, or your first computer game hits the shelves, or you get appointed to a human rights commission, then you will know that being different paid off. Persevere.
I'll kill you in my dreams.
I turn the other cheek during the day.
I'll kill you all.
(I'm so sorry.)
The subculture of my dreams is waiting for me to fall asleep.
I know you're scared; you should be.
I know you're scared.
Hero.
This attic of my mind,
these feelings I can't hide, I can't share
I feel alone.
The subconscious keeps me here.
I fell in love with a balladeer.
I saw your tounge; it licked my heart.
They called you queer.
Hero.
Dreamer.
Hero.
(Leave me alone.)
They called you queer..
They called you queer..
They called you queer..
They called you queer!
- Edward Kowalczyk
Ok, I believe this song is really about the dark side that everyone has (normally expressed in dreams).. But I found it strangely appropriate.
Parenthesis represent lyrics I've heard in concert.
This really frightens me.. I have had problems at school, but the way even *TEACHERS* are reacting to this as a way to get rid of the geeks scares the hell out of me.
Thank god I'm a university student now, where everybody is judged to their ability and not to their appearance.
After all, it does look like Jon is using this as yet another means of self-aggrandizement. This time it's arguably such a worthy cause that he should be doing it, but isn't it true that these are posted unde JonKatz? Therefore there already IS a way to filter it. Turn off Katz and you won't have to be drowned in it.
Filtering Katz is not a statement that you don't care about the youth of today. It's just a way to get the gasbag to shut up, and most people can do more in their own back yards than Katz does with a thousand gassy essays. Self-espression != taking action. All too often it's just windy words (aka 'word, word, word')
Posted by Lord Kano-The Gangster Of Love:
On Sunday, when my network gaming group (the WPNGG) had our last meeting I brought up to the group the possibility of inviting a local politician or two ot see us game and possibly get a better understand of what video gaming is all about.
I was rapidly shot down by people who feared that the person(s) whom we invite might take one aspect of the gaming out of context, one of them said words to the effect of "Yeah, and if they see us playing Team Fortress Classic as soon as they see us trying to take out the president, it'll be all over."
I think that civillians just don't get what we do, and don't get what we are.
Maybe because they're not capable of doing so, maybe because they just don't care, maybe both. Over the years I have developed a sort of contempt for people like that. The "I can't program my VCR!" people, HEY RTFM AND LEARN! These people who expect machines to do what they want instead of what they instruct it to do.
"Why won't this stupid machine print?" Um, because you have to TELL IT TO PRINT! See under the FILE menu? That little thing that says "PRINT", yeah do that!
Sorry about the rant, but you know...
LK
Posted by Brute:
I keep hearing about people who are "different".
Who isn't? I've never met a "same" person yet.
Posted by notamos:
For years, teachers have been fighting for smaller class sizes, more money for programs that allow a creative outlet for students, and a curriculum with enough flexibility to allow students to progress at their own rate of learning.
Year after year these improvements have been proposed, and year after year they have been voted down, shouted down, dismissed and denied. Too expensive. This country revolves around the almighty buck, and nobody wants their taxes to go up, just so a bunch of snot-nosed kids can have a computer lab and a school radio station.
Perhaps it's time to re-examine their position. Perhaps it's time to funnel some of the money we spend on Ethan Allen furniture and dried mushrooms into the millions of young people who wake up every day filled with rage and despair because they are forced to go to a place where they have NO input, NO control, and NO rights.
I'm not talking about the public at large, I'm talking about YOU. Do you have a hundred dollars left over this month? Were you planning on writing a check to the local high school's computer program so that they could buy a new piece of software, or the drama club so that they could maybe buy a new script? I didn't think so.
If there is any single good that can and should come from the Littleton shootings, the McCarthy-esque backlash, and the new sense of community that we are all experiencing as the internet bonds together, it should be this: Take responsibility for ONE thing.
Donate some software. Volunteer to take an afternoon off and lecture the art class about 3-D animation techniques. Pay 70 bucks a month for 50 MB of web space and offer it to the local high school students who want to set up web pages.
The blame-fest has been fun and all, and it may even have been necessary, but it's real easy to sit on your behind and write furious mailings to Slashdot about what's wrong with the high school system, then get up out of your chair, order a pizza, watch some Red Dwarf re-runs.
I'm sorry, but that's lazy, and that's cowardly, and that's what got us into this mess in the first place. So what are you going to do about it?
Posted by D-Rider:
An it harm none, do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law --Aleister Crowley
If you aren't a member of a culture, you can't judge its values. You probably don't understand it enough to label it in that way. But if you want to talk to people with lifestyles that glorify violence, forget the people that look different, start counselling the football players. I live in a college town, and from reading police reports in the paper, I'd say they could use it. Look at how many atheletes are in legal trouble. The last time I caught the sports on the radio (not something I make a point of trying to do), 75% of the stories were about which athletes had been charged with what. So why don't you start counselling the football players, and leave the guys and girls on the chess club alone?
There are any number of groups that have been considered by the public at large to have "unwholesome", "troublesome", even "satanic" views. In many cases, these were outright lies. Ask a Pagan or a Wiccan (yes, a witch, we all know they've gotten lots of bad PR).
By your standards, if the public thinks these things to be true, then the public would be justified in seeking these people out and sending them to counseling, investigating them, etc. After all, the public has to "single out people who they suspect may have problems".
In my opinion, and I think many here would agree, but the distinction hasn't come up, people who look and act differently aren't automatically superior. People who look and act as they want to look and act, and more importantly, think as they want to think, are automatically superior. These are the people with imagination, creativity, and in most cases courage. (If you don't think it takes courage to be different when you know you're going to catch hell for it, you probably never had the courage to try it.) By the way, if someone truly is a natural athlete, and enjoys athletics, and that's who he really is, fine. Be your self. Do what thou wilt. Just let the rest of us do the same.
> What good is "expressing ones individual identity" if everyone else thinks you are a freak, and treats you as such?
What are you without it? I would rather be abused and mistreated and be me, than to be one of them (i.e. anyone but who I am). That is a choice I have made, and a price I have paid. I even tried it. I played sports for a year. Actually, that wasn't bad. Lost weight, got in shape, etc. But I quit because I didn't like the company I was keeping. Primarily because, in order to fit in, I had to be like them, and that included abusing others.
So yes, most of us could fit in if we really tried. But most of us probably just don't consider it worth the price. We also don't consider you, or anyone else, qualified to judge the 'cultural value' of our choices. We shouldn't be made to suffer because our choices are different from yours. And I think it's a pretty safe bet that if there was less suffering, degradation, and humiliation going on in the schools, there'd also be less violence.
He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice. -- Mark Twain
I must admit, I felt that I was persecuted when I was younger. I had silly adolescent dreams of revenge.
I did not understand people well enough to prevent them from hurting me. The school system retarded my progress in gaining this understanding, and for this the system should be faulted.
But now I am older and this childish pain is gone. I took an engineering degree, and now I have great success. I have published. I have a beautiful house, and I bought a Mercedes two months ago.
There is no real profit in revenge. There is nothing to be gained in it.
It is difficult to stoically endure the torture of social ostracism, but it is really the only answer. "How ridiculous not to flee from one's own wickedness, which is possible, yet endeavor to flee from another's which is not."
I plead with you, my oppressed breatheren, do not yield to the temptation of violence. If you are patient, life will yeild to you such joy that will draw the envy of all of your tormenters.
Be patient, my friends. Your time will come.
Don't forget that San Jose is part of the Silicon Valley area. Just because you see something there geared toward geeks doesn't mean it will spread to the rest of the country. The San-Jose Mercury News has always been a bit more technically saavy than your average news rag.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
He won't tell you a damn thing, so I will presume to speak for him until he fesses up. Jon Katz has bills to pay. He has found a nice little motherlode to mine; this topic gives him quite a lucrative talking point for his next book tour. There is little, if any, altruism involved here -- he's simply working his little niche, and doing it quite well. It doesn't matter that this series of articles has all the substance of Springer's Final Thought (or whatever it's called); it only matters that his New Pet Topic has the juice and oomph of Springer's show. He's no better or worse than all the talk-show circuses out there; he's no better or worse than all the pap and pablum that passes for mainstream "journalism". But since we have him in our sights here at /., I will gladly give him a reasoned lambasting ("KATZ SUX", while -- regrettably -- increasingly true, is not a valid argument).
Here's the boldface...
OK, Jon, you bastard! Come on out and explain yourself. Tell me where I'm wrong. Refute my many arguments over the past two weeks. Can you? You have my e-mails, and my /. posts are easily searchable. Why don't you write an article addressing the many complaints about your pimping?
Katz has progressed from Lovable Gasbag to Despicable Pimp in a matter of weeks. Or is it months? Years? When geeks, goths, nerds, etc, are being killed for "who they are" or imprisoned for it, then we can talk. If they're being unfairly treated by authority figures, they have legal recourse -- there no need to really say anything more than "call your family lawyer or a local ACLU branch". Anything beyond that is just Springerville, however classier it may seem than Jerry's show. At least Jerry's honest about it: he'll gladly tell you he has bills to pay, and he foists junk upon an audience that'll gladly lap it up. He is the self-proclaimed "Ringmaster". Let's see Jon attempt to begin to equal that sort of honesty.
--
--
=8^
Hey, lots of tragedies are happening in this world. This is very sad, but unfortunately, we don't live long enough to address them all one at a time.
Go back to the top of the thread, and follow along, if you please. Maybe you'll get the gist of it. If you have the attitude that "we don't live long enough to address them all one at a time", why is that? Why is it so hard to get you to address one problem? I'll not be long-winded here; I've already typed a bunch of words on this subject before.
--
--
=8^
But I find it interesting that by being a non-conformist Devil's Advocate here (and I didn't even have to buy my "difference" at the mall!), I get thwacked by some anonymous moderator. This farce gets more farcical by the minute.
I still await Katz's explanation.
--
--
=8^
Read this, and this, and this; hopefully I didn't botch the links. In light of a big ol' world out there, full of violences in which we ourselves are often the bullies. Katz's message is self-aggrandizing bullshit (however noble his original intentions, it has long passed the level of trite and obscene), and we do little to advance much of anything by being self-congratulatory or all-of-a-sudden "shocked" into "aware"-ness about the plight of a relatively privileged few.
If we remain ignorant of the general violence and suffering out there, while obsessing over this particular Hellmouth, what really have we gained? If we lament the sins without lamenting the sins of omission that this media circus is all about, what really have we gained?--
--
=8^
--
--
=8^
Apathy is not the problem (IMHO); figuring out what to do to help, is an issue to discuss. Which is a question Katz does not seem to have addressed. Is this one of the sources of your hostility toward him?
The hostility comes from exasperation toward the media in general in this whole episode. If I give Katz a hard time, it's because I take the time to read him (and I actually like him, believe it or not), and maybe because I hold him to a higher standard than I hold the people in his old milieux.
To borrow a line from Thomas Merton, one that I think Katz might be familiar with, for all the good that may have come out of all this, Katz fails to hold up the mirror and give any of us the sense of being the "guilty bystander in a turbulent, desperate, cynical and violent world". We all have blood on our hands from Littleton, but no one with the audience to hear such a message will even come close to saying anything like that. The persecuting and harassment of geeks comes from all of us, geeks included. Eric Harris wrote "I am the law, if you don't like it you die. If I don't like you or I don't like what you want me to do, you die"; I maintain that he had lots of hatred and violence in him long before he was ever embroiled in the intramural warfare of the school grounds (IMHO). The society that can bully Yugoslavia by impossible demands at Rambouillet and via smart bombs in the air and by keeping the press on a short leash at home is the society that has lots of violences, large and small, physical, social, and psychological, coursing through its veins. If we can't start dealing with that, then we're all just a bunch of Gasbags here.
--
--
=8^
Eighteen people were murdered by Indonesian troops in the province of Aceh; we won't really know if they were murdered or if the troops were acting in self-defense, since the likes of CNN don't give these things wall-to-wall coverage. I do know that Indonesian governments ("it was self-defense, honest") have had a tendency to be compulsive liars. The people of Aceh are really different (the BBC describes it as "a staunchly Muslim province"); Aceh wants a referendum on independence, much like the one being proposed for East Timor (unfortunately in the latter case, many potential "Yes" voters have been murdered by Indonesian troops -- and their expensive American weaponry -- over the past quarter-century). You want Hellmouth? There's Hellmouth for you. I can grab a bunch of past and current headlines that trump your little Hellmouth, folks. Funnily enough, a lot of you could have banded together to stop them from being Hellmouths. But you're all too busy buying mass-produced products that make you "different". Meanwhile, the blood of Archbishop Romero is on your hands; the bruises and welts on the bodies of countless people -- political prisoners, democracy advocates, union organizers; people who are really different and trying to make a difference -- are on your hands. Some babies in the US have died, because welfare "reform" made it next to impossible to get them the nutrition and health care necessary to live to a ripe young age; some of you may have voted for the pols who made this "reform" a priority.
Where's your outrage? Where was your outrage? Nonexistent, apparently. You really are a bunch of commodity-besotted sheep. You can tell me all sorts of things about Brian Warner, a certain prequel, SPECint readings, polygons, and other corporate-commodity minutiae, but when real shit is going down in the Big Room, you're all amazingly silent. Except for one extremely regrettable and overhyped incident in Colorado. Shame on you, and shame on Katz, who must be hoping the hype will still have some juice when his next Geek Book is published.
--
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=8^
I don't think anyone's trying to say being different automatically makes you better. They're just trying to say it doesn't automatically make you worse.
I believe someone said it best with these words: "We are all born individuals - why is it so many of us die copies?" (paraphrased from memory)
Also, Littleton might not have happened if it weren't for the "conformists" who think you're not worth anything if you don't conform to their idea of what is good and right. Try that on for size.
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
No, they (the US) just like to air out their
hysteria and paranoia in the press. E.g. i
suspect the german way to handle this would be
to quietly keep notes on who to blame the next
time they need someone to jump on.
> Anything Non-conformist: The parents,
> teachers, school administration, etc. are mostly
> of the Baby Boomer era. They were non-conformists.
I don't think so. More likely the non-conformist boomers would have gone on to better things. Note that none of the encouragement messages are telling geeks to persevere, so that they can one day become teachers and principals.
Doesn't matter what the reasons for starting now are. You have to start somewhere, and it rarely is at the first sign of trouble. Maybe since we missed the boat already we should just give up, hmm?
"Hot lesbian witches! It's fucking genius!"
Your mental clutch is slipping.
What good is "conforming" to the norms of society when you're rejected and spat upon anyway.
You can still join the football team, or wear Abercrombie & Finch-wear, and be 2 feet shorter than the rest, or have zits, or talk funny, or just plain not be interested in top-40's music, etc.
Many weirdos just want to be that way, many others TRIED to follow the lame advice you're posing and "fit in", and still were not accepted. So you see, for some there simply IS no choice. But the most important thing is - there SHOULD be a choice. Just because someone dresses, acts, or plays differently, doesn't give any self-rightous conformist the right to tease and cajole.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Bullshit.
Some people ARE born different. Whether they choose to TRY to "fit in" and act normal, or whether they go Goth, or Punk, or Zep-hed, or whatever, is nobody else's free ticket to abuse!
Yes - I do agree that "different" folks DO need counselling. But COMPETENT counselling. Not the kind of counselling I've heard stories about here where they ask you if you play Doom, and suspend you if you say yes. They don't need counselling about their behaviors. They probably need counselling to help them come to grips with the assinine way everyone ELSE is behaving. And THAT is probably what happened to your poor Zep-hed burnout friends. Maybe if you and your wrestling buddies hadn't treated them like such assholes, they might be useful and productive members of society right now. Maybe dress different, maybe fix your email server. . .
Or, you could let them self-destruct, let your email server self-destruct, and go watch the game.
Your choice.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I think that perhaps there IS a choice about homosexuality, and that's whether a gay person chooses to be outwardly so.
A gay person can act "straight", and sure, that's probably how they acted for centuries before society started to accept the "openly" gay.
Whether the trappings of the "openness" are whistling at construction workers, wearing women's clothing, or a swishy walk (or any of the other stereotypes) - again, is not anybody's free ticket to invite abuse.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
You wanna know the difference between schools on one side of that district from the other?
Check the property values of the houses.
I bet a 3-bedroom near the nicer school costs 20% more than a 3-bedroom near the shabby one.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Um. On the subject of heaven. Nowhere in the ten commandments are video games mentioned.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I wouldn't call Manson pretty either - but GG Allin does have some prior art here.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I was an "underachiever" too.
I wonder why a good percentage of "us" were also underachievers. We even got rejected by "the smart kids" - the kids that got good grades.
Actually, the smart kids in my HS that I hung out with the first two years all got sent out to a special school (Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy). That's when the REAL isolation started, because I never got good grades. I still don't understand why.
The other story I've heard that others have related was how teachers would get so MAD at me for getting A's on their tests, though I didn't do any homework. One teacher sat me down and said that though, by my average, I deserved a C, she was going to fail me because "I'll be damned if I'm going to pass a student in my class that has done NO homework, just because they ace all the tests." Bitch.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I'm beginning to wonder if it's gotten worse since I was in high school. Though I may have had a unique experience - in class, I hung out with the "academic overacheivers", and outside of class I hung out with the misfits (rpg'ers, computer gamers, drama club, etc.). I got taunted by the jocks occasionally, but overall I had a good time in high school & would go back. (FYI, I graduated HS in 1989).
Are things really that much worse today? Or was I just very lucky?
"Many journalists, parents, educators and politicians chose to blame the Net and computer games rather than face the much more complex and unwelcome messages coming from Littleton."
Well said.
"Some of these stories from Slashdot.org ultimately were broadcast via MSNBC.com, ABCnews.com and Cnn.com and NPR and are being quoted in influential newspapers; they continue to circulate. Sunday, the San Jose Mercury reprinted "Voices From the Hellmouth" on the front page of its opinion section..."
That's a refreshing change. Shashdot is usually quoting those sources, rather than the other way around. Maybe we'll start to see a shift here as Slashdot slowy starts to become a first tier news outlet. Then again, maybe not. (?)
Anyway, good luck to you geeks that are still in school. Been there, done that.
-Derek
Yes, there's some diversity in opinion (which is wonderful), but there's none of the spite, hate and violence I've seen on other boards discussing the same thing.
Places as different as Salonmagazine and MSNBC's boards are predominantly inhabited by people seriously advocating fixing the violence by being increasingly violent, abusive and discriminating against their own kids and other people's.
Kids learn what they're taught. If a kid is taught that might make right, that if someone disagrees with you that you SHOULD inflict suffering, that anger is best served explosively, then that is the behaviour they are going to show.
If you throw in verbal and physical abuse, isolation, neglect and blaming the victim, you end up with someone with a LOT of pent-up, built-up anger and hate.
Add easy access to weapons & explosives, toss in a pinch of Hollywood shoot-out glamour, throw in some questionably-prescribed drugs that those responsible are all but panic-stricken in their need to deny any possible connection, and there isn't the money in the world that could pay me to walk within a million miles of the place.
Frankly, it terrifies me that so many people WANT their schools, households and kids to be about as stable and secure as nitroglycerine ducks in a shooting gallery.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
(Would you stick a cancer-ridden, dying teacher with an uncontrollable temper and nothing left to fear in absolute control of a class of 30 6 year olds? It was unthinkable to do otherwise, 20 years ago.)
Kidsd have also always been crazy. Suicides amongst kids in primary and secondary schools is very high in many countries, PRIMARILY because of school violence. This has been true, again, AT LEAST the past 20 years, probably longer. In the US, I suspect suicides are slightly lower than in Europe, as the kids can obtain firearms or high explosives and retaliate instead.
A Goth is someone into the whole "gothic" sub-culture. If someone dresses in black, has white make-up, has a depressed outlook, and listens to "Sisters of Mercy" at full volume, there's a good chance the person is at least a little bit gothic.
If kids didn't learn in their households the principles of "trial by combat", "survival of the most sadistic", "might makes right", and "if you disagree with me, I'll beat the living daylights out of you", they probably wouldn't be attracted to games where THEY get to play the Sadistic Ogre.
Why would they? If they'd not had that drummed into them, from day one, games like Doom would rapidly become boring, ho-hum and pointless. They wouldn't have anything to relate to.
I believe you're right that there is a relationship, but I think it's the reverse of the one that's normally drawn, IMHO -- real-life violence and trauma create a market for virtual violence, not the other way round. But that's just my opinion.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Maybe they've been reading the Fortune Cookie one too many times. (Vote Anarchy!)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
>And how is society supposed to prevent future Littleton tragedies if they can't single out people who they suspect may have problems.
Erp! Well, one might start by doing their own parenting, instead of letting the TV raise their children.
I think that TV and movies are to blame only when they're used as a substitute for raising your children.
I beleive that its a parent's responsability to give their children the tools to make the right decisions so that when faced with adversity they can react without turning to violence etc.
When we have a society of people capable of behaving properly, we will all be able to express our individuality without having to worry about being singled out as someone who is going to start shooting up their school.
Millions of people have been listening to wierd music, dressing differently, and playing socialy unacceptable games for many many years. Now that two people that happen to fit that description go psycho, the whole world seems out to get anyone with different tastes.
I think that going against social principals just to be different is kinda dumb, but I also refuse to change my behaviour because its not socially accecptable.
This whole story makes me think about the pink floyd movie the wall alot. The poem up there is a perfect example. They have built up thier wall and are now "comfortably numb". The problem isnt the geeks are listening to the wrong music, everyone else is, they would have realised this would happen if they listened to pink floyd :)
After all who really wants to be just "another brick in the wall."
I am propably going too far with this, but im wondering why you are saying it that way. Read the poem above, it seems like the people picking on that person were bricks in the wall. Also, maybe the people who pick on others, and try to be the same, just use this as thier own wall. If anyone is interested in talking about this stuff contact me (through efnet irc). There is so much in the wall that explains what happened here.
Your followup is better, but...
...but what harm is there in having them talk to a couseler?
To what end? About the only thing a decent counseler can do is make it clear that with choice come repurcusstins: if you choose to be different, then you will alienate many with which you might otherwise wish to associate. If the freedom to be yourself is worth such a price, then there is nothing wrong with you. Some, however, are not quite ready or willing to pay this price for their individuality, and help understanding this consequence is welcome.
However, this i not what many counselers do: they try to force you to fit in. Worse, some may harass you even after you have chosen to be different and accept any resulting alienation.
Kids who are beaten do not need counseling - they need to have the same rights in the security of the person respected as any adult.
The counceler should be competant enough to sort out which kids merely "look different" and which ones are truly disturbed and need help.
And what form should this help take? Learning to fit in? Or, security from battery? You don't need a counseler for that, you need rights and the power to back them up, hopefully vested in a trusted third party. There is no such third party available to many battered kids, and, in such circumstances, using force, deadly if necessary, against their batterers, is perfectly justified. Where there is no law, it is perfectly acceptable to take it into one's own hands (and avoiding this is one of the reasons to have law in the first place). Unfortulately, abuse often leads to misperceptions about who one's abusers are. This does not justify simply countering the dangers of such misperception, but, if anything, is a stronger incentive to counter the abuse in the first place: you can't blame a crazy person for being crazy.
You are born a jew, you are born black, these are not lifestyle choices. One is not born a Goth, one is not born with body-piercings all over ones body, etc.
Ah, the old "nature vs. nurture" debate. Tell me, are some peopleborn gay, or do they become gay? honestly, I don't think we know. But, people are born with the capacity to choose, and the fact that they do should, by itself, not be a reason to deprive them of their rights.
In Liberty, Rene
As someone who was sent to a counselor in grade school for being "too detached", I can say that the counselor did not try to force me to conform, she was more concerned with finding out why I was the way I was.
Then, perhaps your experience was atypical.
It all depends on the choices you make. Just because one has the ability to make choices doesn't guarantee that all choices will be good ones, IE the choice to harm others.
There is a difference between harming others, and dressing differently, or having different interests.
My question to you would be, if a child makes the choice to become a skinhead, and adopts the racist views that go with it, should we as a society say, "Aw look, little Johnny has decided to express his individuality!", or should we attempt to do something?
If the racism is passive, i.e. not wanting to associate with those of a different race, wishing that he could join exclusionary organizations, I say go ahead (build your little enclave, you dumbsh*t). I honestly think that racism would be less of a problem if passive discrimination were legal. Surprisingly, a vast percentage of those that have suffered active racial discrimination that I have met agree with me on this: the dufus standing on a street corner yelling "nigger", "kike", or "honky" isn't a threat (though that tests the limits of what I consider passive). It's the guy who says he doesn't discriminate and then does (defrauding you in the process) that's evil.
Once you get into active racism, hate mongering, and racially motivated violence, you've got another issue.
I've encountered "skinheads" who's racist views run the gamut from passive avoidance to active hatred. You generally can't tell them apart by looking. Furthermore, I've seen the same distribution of racist tendencies in people that look perfectly normal. At least with skinheads, they don't pretend to hide their unpopular views. At some level, I have to respect such honesty.
In Liberty, Rene
Except it is "normal" (as in like most other people) to be born heterosexual. Therefore it is natural to question why someone is not "normal".
Of course, if they aren't harming you, why not leave them alone?
In Liberty, Rene
The point missed here is that while "evil and violent" does imply "different", the converse, that "different" implies "evil and violent" is not necessarily true. Unfortunately, the powers that be apparantly never took a course in logic.
The U.S. was built upon some pretty important principles, one being that one is innocent until proven guilty. Supposedly, before investigating and othewise violating someone's private life, one should have reasonable suspicion or, after the fact, probable cause. There's a reason why the police are supposed to get a search warrant before searching someone's property. Looking different isn't enough.
Your line of thinking is frighteningly close to how Hitler managed to strip Jews of their basic rights, and kill them by the millions -- with the help of Goebels (minister of propaganda), he innundated the population with true stories in the media of Jewish rapists, murderers, thieves. (We tend to do the same thing with non-whites, sadly) To simply be Jewish was now enough reason to "investigate" and act.
In Liberty, Rene
Meaningless? Meaningless? Contrary to your own myopic delusions, this is not over. It likely won't be for quite some time yet. Yes, we're starting to make a difference, but the fact remains that the Geek Profiling Katz is describing is still running rampant through American schools. This is not over, and will not be until the profiling ends.
Believe me, I know what geek profiling is. I put forth a claim to be the first profiled geek, literally years before the Littleton massacre even happened. Combine an apathetic assistant principal, a principal who refused to get involved, and a racist counselor and you get absolute hell, and that's not even counting the other students. I went through abuse of the worst kind. I was in numerous fights, and yet even though both sides acknowledged I acted only in self-defense, six times in one year I was suspended while the aggressor went free. When I tried to appeal the decision, I was met with vicious insults from the counselor of all people. They managed to even gloss it over enough that my parents couldn't see what was going on until the counselor told my mom he didn't have time for "smart little white boys," and yes, that's a direct quote.
As for profiling, they even went so far as to demand I see an outside psychologist. The reason, as stated by the counselor: "I can't help but notice your son smiling when he eats; I wonder what he could be thinking..." (for the record, I didn't even know I smiled when I ate; it was probably just because the food was good). Then there was the time I got suspended because rumors were circulating that I had hit the assistant principal. Of course I hadn't, and the assistant principal even acknowledged that I hadn't, but she suspended me anyway "to save face."
And let's not even go into the gang that started following me home from school every day, even though the administration knew and did nothing to stop it.
No, this isn't over, and it's certainly not meaningless. It's people like you, thinking the fallout from this can be eradicated in one week, who ensure that it won't be over for quite some time.
I've seen a lot of people talk about doing something about this but not much action - I can't do much myself due to the joys of impending finals, but I do have time for one thing - if anyone's interested in a mailing list to discuss all this and plan a movement/church/web site/whatever I'll setup a mailing list (I'm talking peaceful action here folks, not mass murder, just in case that's unclear).
Mail michael@etla.org if you're interested.
What we need is to get back the brighest young women who used to go into teaching. Back before WWII, women became teachers because it was one of the few opportunities available to them. It offered small wages, but great respect.
So paying teachers more will work. I think you're right, but you have to make the system a meritocracy again, were the talented teachers benefit the most, and where teachers aren't indistinguishable from teamsters.
Get back the great teachers might not solve all the problems, but it's working at the cause of the problem rather than attacking the effects.
In the past, one's culture depended to a very large degree on one's physical place. The net is changing this, and allows us to find our own cultures (yes, plural), independent of our geographical location and "real world" culture. Not a global village with a monoculture, but a bazaar of cultures/communities.
This need not necessarily be a good thing (think of suicidal cults), but the Hellmouth discussions show that it can be. The net is a place where we can go beyond the grief this tragedy caused, and where we can force each other to search our souls, not just to ask "What went wrong?" and "Who/what can we blame this on" but also "What can we learn from this?".
I'd like to thank everyone who contributed to the Hellmouth discussions and thereby helped the "real" world show that the net is a home for communities.
'Course... in Space Invaders there's no end; they eventually overwhelm you by sheer number... :)
I apologize for posting this now instead of earlier in the Hellmouth series, but it was terribly long and I didn't want it at the last page of 300 comments where few people travel. Yes, it's really long and just reiterates all the stuff you've heard until you get towards the bottom half.
.org) and while it's been a pain in the butt it's something that I have hope for. I'm doing it in part because I sort of owe my life to Sarah McLachlan and other singing women. It's kind of my outlet and my stress relief to listen to that music rather than rap, R&B, or a group of screaming boys jumping around. I'd like to get a job as an administrator for the summer at least, if not for the next year if someone offers. I'll be happy to take a year off from college. I'd like to be part of Lilith 99. I'd bust my butt for them in exchange for food and a place to sleep for 4-6 hours. Happily. (Okay so I'm weird.)
As an avid Slashdot reader, former high school and now college) student, and self-confessed Geek I feel compelled to give you the my viewpoints. I have been mostly speechless as most of the articles and comments from my fellow Slashdot readers have essentially said most of what I feel. However I must express some of my own viewpoints.
The fallout of the shootings in Littleton have lead many to attempt to find any explanation as to how such an event could occur. Many are blaming anything that they can tie to the killers. Trenchcoats, Quake, Marilyn Manson, the Internet, Hitler, and anything non-conformist all are being blamed. This is very ironic. Let us examine these closely.
Trenchcoats: Now some people would have you believe that wearing a trenchcoat automatically makes you someone who will shoot up anything. This is ironic because if you examine it closely, your officers of the peace and armed forces have trenchcoats as part of the standard uniform. And these are people carrying guns as their job. I don't see them shooting up everything in sight without orders.
Quake: this is the classic "blame violence for causing violence" issue. Does this mean if I watch the news and they show a protest in Israel, fighting in Kosovo, or footage of the civil rights marches of the 1960's that I will go shoot people? I don't think so. Actually, the effect of so much violence being shown by the media leads to the viewers being desensitized.
Marilyn Manson: The same people who listened to rock in the 60's (who are now the parents of the children listening to Mariliyn Manson) are doing the exact thing their parents did to them. They blame the music for their kids being disobedient. How hypocritical.
The Internet: The Internet is at fault for providing the killers with bomb plans? Excuse me. I believe there is another place where you can find everything you need to know about building a bomb. It is your local library. I do believe Abbie Hoffman wrote one book with bomb plans in it, and there is the _Anarchist's Cookbook_ too, along with everything from chemistry books to books on the physics of the atomic bomb. The Internet only makes it faster to find what you are looking for.
Hitler: I believe it was reported by an NBC affiliate that one of the killer's mothers was Jewish, or at least had Jewish roots. Strange. Also, the people who are acting anything like Hitler are the people segregating anyone resembling a profile of the killers and forcing them to be ostracizied. They're rounding them up into internment camps and re-education facilities they call "counseling" and "therapy sessions", or they exile them from school to keep all the other "good" children safe.
Anything Non-conformist: The parents, teachers, school administration, etc. are mostly of the Baby Boomer era. They were non-conformists. They had Woodstock, they experimented with drugs, and they didn't conform to what their parents wanted. Suddenly the people who didn't conform to what their parents wanted expect their children to conform to what they want?
A Geek Life Story
I had a rough time in school from the start. Both my parents worked. My dad worked various shifts, and my mom worked mainly 3p to 11p 5 days a week. We lived in the bad part of the Port Clinton, Ohio. In the Port Clinton area, you can go from a $500,000 view of Lake Erie from a cliff to less than $300 apartments in duplexes built as temporary housing for troops in World War II that were meant to be destroyed after the war. My parents encouraged me to learn. We sacrificed cable TV, good clothes, and everything else for books and educational stuff. We got our first computer in 1990. Things got better for us by misfortune. My father was in three auto accidents, one in 1984 when I was 6, one in 1986 (IIRC), and one in 1989. From the total of the three accidents he is partially paralized, suffers loss of short term memory, has severe muscle spasms, thoracic outlet syndrome, and a host of other ailments. This set the stage for me to grow up with an even bigger division between my classmates and I. I had a father who was working to pay the bills, in constant pain, and unable to do the normal fatherly things like teaching his son how to throw and catch a football or baseball. My mother worked full-time to pay the bills. There were doctor bills, lawyer bills, insurance bills, everything. My parents fought to get the insurance companies to pay on their policies and pay the bills. They finally reached a good settlement which allowed us to move into a good neighborhood, wear good clothes, have a satellite dish, and live the "average" middle-class life depicted in the media and television. "Oh boy!" I thought. I had been a subject of ridicule since about third grade. I was always called "very bright" by teachers. I never fit in with the other students though, because I couldn't play their games (not knowing the rules and how to kick or throw a ball) and I would always get praise from the teacher, causing jealousy and anger in my classmates because it was demonstrated that I was smarter than them. I got ridiculed, but I actually got attention, something I didn't get at home. I seized on it. I became a class clown. They put me into a Talented and Gifted program where I had fun and learned things instead of being bored in class. I didn't get along well with the other people in there because I played class clown. I didn't know how to make friends. People learned my father was handicapped and made fun of him. I couldn't do anything. I was like this until high school, where I finally snapped and started defending myself. I had enough of a certain group of sophomores and older picking on me in gym class. I started poking fun of them when they started taunting me, and one day it came to a head where I saw the group enter the locker room in a mass. I just turned to ignore them, and they came around me and one of them punched me hard right in the back. I jumpped up on the bench and laid into the kid all over the head. His buddies drug me out to the teacher and told her I attacked this kid, and I told her he attacked and I defended myself, and please let's take this down to the principal. It went to the principal where I was told that I would be seeing ten days of out of school suspension. I told the principal that any policy where someone is punished for defending themself was unfair, and that I would gladly take it to the school board and an attorney if I needed to. Needless to say I wasn't punished. As a result of this though, people didn't mess with me as much. We would trade insults but not much else. However I wasn't still in the "in" group because by then I saw the "in" group for what they are: materialistic, superficial people with bad values and morals. I decided that I didn't have to get perfect grades or wear $50 jeans or cheer the school on. During this period I contemplated many different acts of violence against my classmates or my teachers or the administraton, or even myself. I thought regularly about suicide. I attempted it several times. I survived long enough to graduate. I did think about getting a GED; however, the even though you can't be discriminated for having a GED it still carries certain stigmata.
What Happened After High School?
I'm at a university in south-eastern Ohio reknowned for its party and riot reputation, surrounded by more of the same people. I realized that last quarter. I'm not doing too well in my classes either. The difference between the people here and the people in high school is that the people here realized whether I graduate or not, I will likely end up being paid and worth more than they are. They ask me for computer help, they actually try to integrate me into their social activities, and they respect me more than the people in high school did. I am still emotionally scarred from my time in primary and secondary school though. I have been to several counsellors, psychiatrists, and I currently take 20mg of Prozac a day. I had one brief relationship which broke up badly because I did not feel adequate nor was I actually adequate for my significant other, and I had nothing to guide me in the relationship, since I had no experience. I have only a few things in my life that make it tolerable. Right now my father is fighting to keep working, since his employer (an automotive systems coroporation recently made wholly separate from a large US automaker) and the union he is a member of (a union for people in the automobile indusrty) are discriminating against him because he wants a policy of their changed because it is discriminatory. Remind yourself that he is legally handicapped. (You may not like the term, but that's what it says on the blue and white tag that gets him front-row parking in most places.) He now has some idea of what life was like for me. He really wants to continue working there but the people there want him out because he didn't sit down and shut up and conform. If he loses his job, quits his job, or takes disability from them, he effectively can't make enough to help put my sister and I through college, and he doesn't have job skills for the current job market nor can he pass a physical to get a job. He takes his anger out on the rest of the family, and we understand why he does this. We're waiting for more information from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to get back with decisions on how to handle these matters. That's where things are for now.
What's Ahead?
I am doing something that I want to do. I run LilithFair.org (not the official site in case you didn't catch the
What the Heck Should I Get Out of This?
* Some people have it harder than you (I didn't intend this to make a flood of personal hardship stories, but just an example to try to cheer up some people who think they have it bad).
* Maybe sometimes hauling off and decking someone might be a Good Thing (okay this is debatable).
* Find something to have hope in. Find something to put your anger towards. Don't lose hope!
I'm not afraid to stand up and say I'm James Turinsky. If someone has a problem with it that's too bad. Feel free to reduce/recycle/reuse any part of this if you tack my name and my e-mail address general@LilithFair.org on it. Feel free to e-mail me. Feel free to ICQ me at #20441490. I have nothing to be afraid or ashamed of.
I know many Goths who don't do drugs or commit crimes, as well as geeks, freaks, and even jocks! I didn't interpret anything Katz was saying as condoning destructive lifestyles. But, as someone pointed out above, being different does not equate to being destructive.
Conformity is NOT the answer.
Sujal
politics, food, music, life: FatMixx
Not all lifestyle choices are equal == of course not...A lawyer leads a different lifestyle from a social work who leads a different lifestyle from a plumber who leads a different lifestyle from a politican who leads a different lifestyle from a drug dealer -- okay the politican-drug dealer probably wasn't a good example.
Allow me to beat your stereotype.
I'm a nonconformist. I lead a good and clean lifestyle, and I have a good job.
My hair colour might change every few months but it does not make me a bad person.
"All choices are equal" has nothing to do with Littleton. That's where you keep missing the point, these kids were "different" but it wasn't their differences that made them into monsters.
They obviously had other things going on. It wasn't because of how they dressed or the music they listened to or the video games they played that made them pull the trigger.
What if they were jocks or preppie kids? Most of us agree this would be handled different, schools would not point at jocks and preppies as being bad kids and they wouldn't ask them if they watched violent things on television. But because these kids were different, members of society including yourself point at people who are different and think they are bad too.
Just because Hitler was a psycho doesn't make all Germans psycho automatically.
Stereotyping bites us in the "*ss" more than ethical relativism.
Derek
So conformity is a good thing? A one nation world? A one Operating System computing platform?
That is what your arguement is sounding like.
Einstein was "different".
Socrates was "different".
Jimi Hendrix was "different".
Linux Torvaldes is "different". (grin)
The problem with stereotyping the way people act with the way people look is that there will always be people who break the stereotype.
What does conformity accomplish? If everything is the same -- what changes -- where do new trends come from -- where do we evolve mentally and as a society?
There should always be a conflict , someone rocking the boat and changing the norm. Stagnation accomplishes nothing. If it was not for being "different", new ideas would not be as plentiful.
You can't single out "suspects" of who is going to strike next. It could be anyone, it could be an honors student who snapped because he didn't study for a test and failed it and it ruined his GPA. It could be a kid who has mental problems. It could be a teacher whose wife just left him. It could be a principal who just can't take it anymore. Looking for people because of how they look is making the innocent out to be guilty. Last time I checked in the United States the law was "innocent until proven guilty". (I can't speak for other countries)
I see the weak point you are trying to make that if you dress differently then you should expect criticism. And I think the problem here is lack of respect....if I dress differently why should you disrespect me? Because I am different from you? That is no reason to disrespect someone, that just causes more problems and seperation.
The attitude is not "people who look and act differently are superior" no one is claiming superiority, all anyone wants is equality. That's like saying defending women's liberation is being "anti-male and pro-female domination". We should have the right to express ourselves in any manner (which does not hurt others) and not be condemned for it. The attitude is not "we are better"; the attitude is "you are not any better/worse".
Derek
http://www.reject.org/
"It's so easy to defend the status-quo" -nofx
Jon Katz is to be commended. I the recent past I have not always agreed with him, but this time I do. This has gone on long enough. Enough is enough and it's time for a change. A social revolution is at hand. The lurkers from down below have risen to the challenge before them, and are taking a stand at being themselves. Don't be a cardboard cutout of a pattern that was designed by someone. Be yourself and revel in your own accomplishments. After all who really wants to be just "another brick in the wall."
my two and a half cents....
Me!
That darn Slashdot is so cool... Hey did you pay the phone *(#(Q%$#$ NO CARRIER
My family moved to CA, after far too long of this hell, and I went to a school were people were TOLERATED. Had I changed in those short months of the summer? No. But my environment had. No longer was school a living hell. Yes, it took me years to recover, but at least I was able to.
Same here. I was lucky enough to get out for grades 11 & 12, to a sane school. It didn't totally alleviate my problems (I still have a lot of trouble with depression) but if I hadn't gotten out the result would have been ugly...
When in danger or in doubt, run in circles scream and shout.
Actually, Hitler and his fellow Nazis believed in so-called "pure" genetics, as well as the murder of all those that do not conform to their ideals... ...just like the KKK, who all dress alike.
The Heaven's Gate cult encouraged prospective members to conform to their style of dress and worship.
But that's beside the point. That was a blatant troll. A really good one, too, if a little unreasearched. Congratulations.
"cultural value" eh? And just which culture's values are we talking about here?
Do you understand the concepts of chain reaction and critical mass?
I guess I was an idiot for spending all of my time pursuing my true passion of computing rather than reading yet another book by a long dead writer
you can learn quite a bit about people and the human spirit and condition by reading books by "long dead writers". and while you can learn a lot from computers too, that's not what life's about. the point of computers and all technology is to make the lives of people easier or more enjoyable. how can you accomplish this if you don't know what makes people tick, what their passions are, what drives them? this you get from books; books about people and their lives and dreams and fears, not about computers.
don't get me wrong, i enjoy computers as much as anyone else. but I'd get rid of all computers in a heartbeat. life would be so much simpler and laid back without them, and personally, i think i would prefer that.
and started rambling right from the start, sorry. the point is not to make the assumption that all that is not tech is not good. an understanding and appreciation of literature should not ever be construed as bad.
"onward!" cried the copper man, little knowing brass corrupts...
On the one hand, we are all responsible for the world we live - we made it, and we have to live with it.
But your last comment - that outcasts do it to themselves - is exactly the fascist attitude that breeds paranoia and violence. It is backwards logic to assume that people who are maladjusted made it that way on purpose. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.
The shooters in Littleton made their choice. The rest of the wierd world should not be made to suffer for it.
Jesus (if you believe in 'im) was "different". The signers of the Declaration of Independence were "different". Ghandi was "different".
Why is the attitude around here seem to be that people who deliberatly look and act different are somehow automatically superior to those who don't?
I haven't seen that at all. I would say that the "attitude" is that people just want to be left the hell alone, to be themselves. Yes, there is the feeling that "Since I don't persecute and abuse you I'm morally and intellectually superior to you.", but I think that's quite justified, don't you?
What good is "expressing ones individual identity" if everyone else thinks you are a freak, and treats you as such?
Because it gives you your self-respect. It says "I am ME! Not a name, a number, another drone! ME!."
how is society supposed to prevent future Littleton tragedies if they can't single out people who they suspect may have problems.
They could make them wear a yellow, six-pointed star on their chests...
--------------------
Earth first? Oooh, and I was thinking of paying the rent.
The Geeks aint complaining about nobody "in person", they are complaining about what is beeing done to them "in person".
You are a geek, you go to schoolm you are picked on "in person".
You are a "jock", you go to school, you just blend in, it wasn't you who did anything !
What is REALY your point ???
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
"She was later fired for cracking a ruler over some kid's head. "
Fired, but not locked away for 10-15?
Maybe she can still be brought to justice...
What is the statute of
limitations on felonious
assault of a toddler?
I really think that should carry the same penalty
as if a bum at the bus stop broke a piece of wood
over your kids head. Hell, if somebody did me
like that as an adult I would sure as hell press
assault charges. It would not be hard to get
somebody thrown in slamville for it. Poor innocent child, evil psychopathic woman.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Done what to ourselves? Yes, we chose to be different, but we did NOT choose to be abused, harrassed, or beaten. The reaction to our personalities comes soley from the environment. I am living proof of this. I am the same person, to a large degree, as I was in middle school. (except no longer depressed... and that grew from my treatment there) In one school I was made fun of and avoided because I could program, and far worse, I was female. What girl/woman is expected to program, let alone beat the guys at it -- or math or science or anything else? Several YEARS later I found friends -- people, almost exclusively -- who had moved from other states or countries where the rules that prevailed there did not loom so darkly. We weren't beaten like other geeks might have been, but we were humiliated. Luckily for me, they did not hit girls, but that did not prevent them from throwing my books to the ground or stealing my possessions.
Was I asking for any of this? Simply by being intelligent in unexpected areas, I was a misfit and worse.
My family moved to CA, after far too long of this hell, and I went to a school were people were TOLERATED. Had I changed in those short months of the summer? No. But my environment had. No longer was school a living hell. Yes, it took me years to recover, but at least I was able to.
So what did I do wrong? How was I asking for my treatment?
Lea
GEEK Force seeks your assistance with The Hellmouth Campaign.
Visit that link and you'll get the general idea. What we need you to do is send me URLs for geek and/or youth sites relevant to this campaign -- and also URLs to media stories that bother to report on this aspect of it all. The idea, as the page suggests, is to have something of a central link repository for stories and personal tales and sites that we can all use to keep these voice heard online and, perhaps especially, off.
Email b!X with anything you've got that's relevant.
Adolf Hitler was "different".
The people in the KKK dress "different".
The Heaven's Gate cult was "different".
Why is the attitude around here seem to be that people who deliberatly look and act different are somehow automatically superior to those who don't?
What good is "expressing ones individual identity" if everyone else thinks you are a freak, and treats you as such?
And how is society supposed to prevent future Littleton tragedies if they can't single out people who they suspect may have problems.
Of all the comments I've ever posted, this is definately one of them
Yeah,
And if you can't figure out what the problems are, then you are probably part of them
Of all the comments I've ever posted, this is definately one of them
It might pass muster in college philosophy courses, but in the real world such ethical ambiguity gets betrayed for what it really is: toleration of behaviors that no society can safely bear for long without risking self-destruction.
No society that fails to nurture its values in its children can possibly hope to survive for long. It's that simple, and it is the specter of this implosion that the United States presently faces.
DFL
Never send a human to do a machine's job.
Jon, very thought provoking stuff. Enjoyed it immensely.
But I'm particularly amused by the number of people who apparently have not bothered to filter Jon's articles out just because of the joy they get flaming him. Flames are noise, people. Please get the message. Anyone can flame anything, from ham sandwiches to the Taj Mahal. Being infantile is not hard. It's a lot more difficult to deal constructively with people and situations.
There's a wonderful Pulp song that is incredibly relevant to this situation.
"Mis-shapes" from their "Different Class" album.
The lyrics:
http://www.users.globa lnet.co.uk/~inferno/index/19/19353.htm
I think the heart of this Hellmouth series is hardly Katz' writing. Indeed, Katz has been writing as little as possible. What he has said has mostly been superficial, but it's meant to be, because that's not the POINT of these articles.
The hundreds of posts that accompany each of these articles is the point of these articles. Katz is merely sparking a community forum.
I should say that in practical terms, I agree with much of what you say. Surely home schooling is one very promising answer to these problems. And certainly we need to remove disruptive kids from the mainstream so they won't damage the education of others.
There is no doubt that religion has been declining as a force on our society for some time (although they are certainly signs of a revival). If you add religion to your educational mix, I think you risk alienating a lot of people - including many good students who really should be on your side.
I would think that imposing discipline and separating out the bullies would be the best way of dealing with these problems, and that adding religion to the mix might well backfire. (It's also unconstitutional, but I think this is a stronger argument in pragmatic terms).
I think this is a power struggle, not a religion struggle.
D
----
After having read the "Hellmouth" series to date and the related /. discussions, I have to say this has been one of the most positive, refreshing uses of the net I have seen for some time. Aside from bringing back old, forgotten memories of just how difficult and painful high-school was (and thereby improving my own empathy for some of what kids are going through today), I think it has started us down the very necessary path of taking a hard look at some of the real dysfunctional aspects of our society.
/. and taking them to heart. Maybe positive change will come during my lifetime, afterall.
Some additional points (not very organized, but worth saying I think)
* Things must change, else we'll see (much) more of the same. Children do not go mad in a vacuum, clearly something is very wrong, and it is high time we started looking at the causes with something greater than the hitherto superficial calousness and passing interest. Blame games and superfical pop-phychology are simply no longer acceptable.
* The fact that "that's always the way it's been" is no excuse for not initiating change. Until 70 years ago war had always been considered a pretty good way of expanding one nation's influence, power, or wealth at the expense of others. While we still make war even today, very few think of it as anything other than a trajedy. 30 years ago racism was institutionalized in the US at every level, now, while racism still exists, most if not all would be very emberrassed to admit racist attitudes today. Two lessons come from these examples: (1) real progress is possibe and achievable, regardless of the length of history or lack of precedent preceeding it, BUT (2) real progress is almost always slow and painful, as evidenced by just how much work still needs to be done (vis a vis achieving a society in which war is unthinkable, and skin color is of no more, or no less, interest than hair or eye color). This is both a cause for hope and excitement, as well as a cautionary note to not place one's expectations too high, and to not grow too discouraged if ones expectations are not achieved right away.
* The net has often been touted as a tool for social change. The "hellmouth" phenominon looks like the beginning of what could be a very powerful, very positive example of this, especially if it can bridge the communication gap between those of us who have suffered under the system as it currently is, and those who have the power to facilitate change. I find it incredibly reassuring that administrators, parents, and teachers are reading the comments on
* "Open Source, Open Music, Open Thought, Open Minds." (Not my quote, but I'm happy to adopt/pirate it) The scientific paradigm (the open exchange of ideas which are then subject to peer review, discussion, and improvement without -- ideally -- preconcieved bias) is I believe the catalyst for this phenomenon. The net has made this paradigm available, even fundamental, to many outside of scientific circles. Like the printing press bringing literacy to the masses, the changes this will spark are nothing short of staggering. But IMHO the net is simply the medium, it is the "open thought" paradigm, finally given the means to reach a large percentage of humankind, that is the real force driving change.
* Finally, please, please, if you're going to use MS Word, turn off "smart quotes"! Those non-ISO standard characters are displayed as question marks by those of us using non-windoze browsers, and they are really distracting!
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
This is kind of a neat idea. I went to a "Magnet school" when they were called Vocational Trade Schools. now i was not as big into computers as i am now (my first PC was a 486/50 Packard Bell) and i graduated in 94 the year before we had a dozen or so other magnet schools in vegas.
Now the Vo-Tech was looked down on by everyone I talked to out here but it was a great idea for a school to me the only problem is that we didn't have jocks, we had wanna be jocks/preppies. in my opion there was only two good teachers in the whole school that i went to all the other teachers looked down on my because i wore flannels or would think i was cheating on tests cause i never did the homework, kinda funny now that i think about it being graded on if you did the work not if you learned anything. but even in a school of other geeks and rejects i was still one of those people who when i see someone in line at the store they dont look at me they just ring up my smokes and i think it is kind of worth it in my own little sick and twisted way to know that i was a geek/nerd/freak in high school but i can do better because i choose not to poke fun at people.
Zeek T. Morbid
Freak and proud of it.
If I wasn't sick enough of this crap the other two times Katz posted this drivel... well, I guess the ol' preferences will need a tiny change today. Goodbye, Katz.
signal, noise, to me it's all the same.
*LOL*
... no probably not. These stories are popping up now because of the recent events, but probably they'll quite down in a few months ...
ahem
- sigs are for wimps.
Just the other day, right after the mass media attempted to blame the violence in Colorado and the problems with todays youth I recieved a concerned e-mail from my mother.
The fact that this concerned her, the world at large and the fact that people are trying to blame games; get real, games are but a form of entertainment.
There are some people who don't know how to draw the line between game and reality, there are also people who can't draw a line between reality and anything. These people need help no matter what, but don't start ostracizing people for thier choice of entertainment.
I've played games for as long as I can remember, I think we all have, it's part of growing up. No matter what game I've played there has always been some form of violence involved, from cowboys and indians as a young child to Q3A today, the violence is there. From watching Bugs Bunney run Wile E Coyote into a brick wall to controling a virutal avatar smacking the crap out of an unknown opponent with a rocket. It's all violence. Violence is unavoidable as it is part of life and the way we live.
The perception is what matters. Some percieve the violence as an extension of the persons true belief; some percieve it as part of a game. It is the latter. When I'm playing Quake, I'm blowing the snot outta people that I may or may not know IRL. Either way it doesnt matter, they are simply opponents in a virtual combat. The fact that there is a real person on the other end of the keyboard doesn't mean I'm going to go to work and kill everyone, it doesn't mean I'm going to assemble a bomb and deliver it to the local gym. It simply means I'm enjoying myself.
The problem is NOT GAMES, the problem is NOT VIOLENCE. The problem is the way we raise and disciplin and educate our children today. (Here I am talking about education and horribly misspelling things, but I don't claim to be perfect, just human.)
When I was growing up, I learned the difference between right and wrong, I learned that you don't just know in every situation and that sometimes you will make mistakes. The job of parents is to guide their children into life on their own, to give their children the tools that they will need to cope with the real world, to deal with every day life.
To deposit your child in front of a computer and leave them unattended is as bad as handing them a weapon without teaching them that the dangerous bit goes away from them. I get calls on a regular basis of parents wanting "control" software and my recommendation on how to keep their kids out of the nasty bits on the internet. It soon becomes apparent that these parents are simply looking to let their child surf, play games and never look at them again.
This mentality is the cause of todays problems, granted, it's not the only cause, but it's a cause, part of a large multifaceted problem.
Games however, are not. Games like Quake, Ultima Online and Everquest, these are not the issue. The fact that after years of a games release a kid has a web site dedicated to it is odd, but lets get realistic, DOOM has been voted as one of the TOP 100 games of all times over and over, DOOM is a flagship product, a defining product in an industry and a damn good game.
What I'm trying to say here, and I may be rambling (probably), is that it's not the games, it's not the clothes the kids wear, it's not the fact that they know more about finding info on the internet than you, it's what their parents have shown them, it's how they have learned what right and wrong is. These things are all part of growing up, and all too often in todays society the children are left to grow up by sitting them in front of a small box with silicon inside it and a softly glowing CRT near by.
I play games, I play RPG's, I blow things up with rockets and tripmines and I enjoy watching the bloody kibbles bounce down the hallway after doing so. I also work a normal job, have good friends and know right from wrong. Don't try to pin the blame on the game; the game is no more at fault than the gunpowder.
Zanthor
Zanthor
A geek church might not be the way to go because the media would just label it as a cult of some sort. Instead we could have monthly get togethers where we could discuss current issues, trade stories, etc. It would be more like a support group for people who different.
Does this sound like a good idea to anybody? If so email me. ferret@nassau.cv.net
A geek church might not be the way to go because the media would just label it as a cult of some sort. Instead we could have monthly get togethers where we could discuss current issues, trade stories, etc. It would be more like a support group for people who are different.
Does this sound like a good idea to anybody? If so email me. ferret@nassau.cv.net
I am completely non-religious. I heard people talking about forming some form of geek church and that just didn't make sense to me. Geeks hanging out, talking about current issues and partying seems to make more sense to me.
I said forming a church would NOT be the way to go. I suggested a support group type environment.
...but I went to a relatively progressive high school (Murrow in Brooklyn, NY). It's good that the 'Net is providing a sense of community for these kids, because if I see one more kid shooting article or how DOOM is bad I'm going to go live in a cave (with a Linux laptop of course).
"... I declare our city to be a free and independent state to be named Tri-Insula!" --Fernando Wood, Mayor of NYC 1861
There are no words I can offer to geeks, to offer reassurance. I can't say anything you haven't already heard. All I can say is there is hope. :)
And you underestimate your own power!
There are no words I can offer to geeks, to offer reassurance. I can't say anything you haven't already heard. All I can say is there is hope.
:)
And you underestimate your own power!
It's getting to the point where Slashdotters are intent on making schools into geek Utopias instead helping kids get through the hell that, sadly, high school will always be.
Sorry, but I disagree. The school you are describing does seem to have an elitist attitude however this does not neccessarily have to be so. I went to High School in Slovakia (Eastern Europe), where a streamed school system is the norm. The difference there is that the entire system works this way, i.e. you don't have the 80%/20% split (which is IMO a recipe for trouble) you are referring to, the different streams are implemented as separate schools. See here for a lengthier discussion of my experiences (the trouble with time zones is by the time I get around to writing something, the story already has hundreds of comments).
I'm not sure why that reply was attached to my post ... either you have attached it to the wrong place, or misread my comment _completely_.
I've never labelled anyone as a jock, nerd or geek and agree completely that labelling people as if one label describes the whole person is dangerous and divisive. That's why I'm _not_ a nerd or a geek even if I do use MacOS and Linux and post here. I'm so much more than that.
Roy Ward.
The half-truth that I am referring to:
> But I can't help but think that those of us who ever saw ourselves as outcasts have done it to ourselves.
I am possibly taking this to mean something something beyond what the original poster meant, but this could so easily be extended to "outcasts are to blame for their own situation", and there is a point here that needs to be made.
I'll speak from my own case, as that the best way to say this, and I suspect that my case is far from unique:
I was bullied through my whole time at school, not necessarily for being a 'nerd' or a 'geek' but just for being 'different'.
When I look back on it a few years later, I realize the rather unpleasant truth, that in some ways I had myself set up to be bullied. It was like a I created an invisible sign saying 'victim' that everyone else could see and I couldn't (btw, I certainly don't have that sign now). It's difficult to be specific, but there was something that made it obvious that I was a good target - I couldn't/wouldn't effectively hit back. So I can understand the idea that I did some of it to myself.
BUT, and this is where the above is only a half truth, the fact that I was a 'victim' in absolutely no way excuses the victimization, and the system that permitted the victimization to happen for so long. I did not in any way 'deserve' to be bullied. I did in some ways make myself an outcast, but much of that was ways of trying to keep myself safe from further bullying, and the whole mess reinforced itself. I certainly did not intentionally set myself up as a victim, and the times that I was blamed for the situation did me a terrible disservice.
This paragraph might be a little tasteless in the context of the recent shootings, but my one real regret from high school is that I let the bullies get away with it without effectively hitting back. (I suspect that if I said something like that as a student of an American school at the moment, I would be sent home pronto).
I do agree strongly with 'Bucko's point that we need to be careful not to be part of the problem. It's not for being a 'nerd' or 'geek' that people are given a hard time - being different from the norm in whatever way is sufficient. Let's not forget that.
Roy Ward.
Hey, Thanks JonKatz!
Can we name JonKatz the official mascot of geeks world wide?
He rocks my world.
I'm not sure I'd go as far as the Libertarian Party does (in a press release that hasn't shown up on their web site yet), but I do wonder why anyone's surprised that the two main places that breed this antisocial behavior (prisons and schools) are both places that concentrate large numbers of people somewhere they don't want to be.
My Blog. Sela Ward can sell me long distanc
For nearly two weeks now the search for meaning and the search for culprits in this terrible event has led to -
Well, where it's led has depended on who you read. And I find that "interesting" to say the least.
Read Salon, it's the gays who are being blamed. Read the W. Post and it's the Goths, the Marylyn Manson fans and the Hitler Youth who get the blame. And let's not forget gun owners.
Read SlashDot, and it's the Geeks who are blamed, except that they are blaming the jocks.
Yeah, right. Who's kidding whom? You hurt someone, you're part of the problem. You pull the trigger, you're a big part of the problem. You point fingers, you're part of the problem too. And that includes the Geeks here, who don't seem to notice that they're doing-unto-others exactly what they say is being done to them.
Yes, this is one big mess and the e-mails Jon Katz has shown all week us are compelling. But I can't help but think that those of us who ever saw ourselves as outcasts have done it to ourselves.
J.
I agree 100%. Self-defense is a right, whether or not school rules say this or not. No one has the right to demand you put up with abuse.
Try a little boxing, wrestling, contact-oriented martial arts. You'll find that punches don't actually hurt that much once you get used to them and most jocks don't know how to hit really effectively anyway. Even moderate skills will give you an edge over the average schoolyard bully. Take their best shots and give 'em some pain of their own to reflect on later. Better than shooting them. Respect through appreciation wins, but if I can't get that, I'll take respect through fear.
Having some violent skills does not require or justify their use to opress others, nor does it predispose one towards doing so. Nor does Quake predispose you to machinegunning your classmates.
Yes, I class myself as a geek. I topped my class in 3rd and 4th grade, and went to selective classes for intelligent kids thereafter. BTW, not all bright kids are geeks and misfits - many excel at sports and mainstream pursuits. My eccentricities were better accepted by this group than the "proletariat", but I'm not convinced separatism is necessarily better. You have to return to the big wide world eventually.
Got into a few fights, yeah. The only times I felt bad about them or really suffered were times when I'd been the oppressor and deserved what I got back. More self-loathing than actual pain.
To paraphrase Hagbard Celine from "Illuminatus", a geek tome if ever there was one:
"Call me anything you like. If I don't like it, I might punch you in the nose. If there were more bloody noses, there'd be fewer wars."
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
>I feel that most of us, the /. people, are the most american people than most american are, and that's including the people that don't even live in the state. They contributed a bit in the whole discussion that has been going on here.
/. person. I'm not sure whether to be flattered, insulted or totally unaffected by your statement above.
I'm Australian. I hope I can be called a
The Internet IS NOT America! Nor is it the United States thereof!
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
Some people are succsessful at selling these items you despise because of two reasons:
- There are people who enjoy the items
- The people who make the stuff understand the people of enjoy it
Its certainly not impossible that commercial products could be made that genuinely express the views of a culture, rather than create or define the culture. Your argument assumes that is a false statement and does not try to disprove it.Try again.
"Luncheon meats make the sawdust in your stomach explode."
We could use some more people like you, Talisman! Its great to know there are some people with the means and the will to stand up to the jocks at their own game. Unfortunately, not all of us can.
I was fortunate enough to know a couple people who did the same kind of stuff in high school. A real fun bunch! They would've helped me out if I had any jocks bothering me, but I somehow avoided that trouble for the most part. Not sure why -- I'm sometimes called Stickman, and thats an acurate description.
Have fun!
"Luncheon meats make the sawdust in your stomach explode."
I was in a school system (Volusia County, Florida) where the policy was that the intelligent kids should, to some degree, be put in with the kids that don't do as well. The idea is that the intelligent ones will help the others. That couldn't be more wrong since the kids that need the help don't want it. That evil policy kept me from advancing quicker through math, and assured that 7th grade was *really* boring -- it covered nothing I hadn't already learned.
BTW: Volusia county in Florida has a really messed up school system. It seems that one side of the county is favored -- it gets more money and its students can win the science fair. The other side, the Deltona end where I was, is shunned. My science fair projects on a C++ event driven GUI and on VR (complete with power glove & shutter glasses) always lost to a program that only lists data (real basic stuff) thats on a periodic table.
There is a public school in North Carolina that is similar to the one in Toronto. Its a magnet school that houses the students, so only the chosen students attend. Its curiculum is rich on the science and math end of things. The school is in the resarch triangle area, where a lot of money can be found, along with Duke U.
Of course, this won't stop jocks from harasing geeks. I think the only thing that will is strict punishment against them, and anyone else, for harrasing other students. Such a policy can make it difficult to avoid giving punishment to a student who is only defending him/her self.
"Luncheon meats make the sawdust in your stomach explode."
Argh!
.doc, even .html if it isn't too overly complex...
I have Pagemaker 6.0!
Can you repost in 6.0 format, please?
I can try to get it in other formats once I can open it...
.wpd,
No PDFs, sorry.
-AS
*Pikachu*
What is different is perceived to be threatening until proved to be otherwise - though people have varying thresholds for what constitutes different. In my experience, you do not change those thresholds by saying "Look at me! I'm different!" You canot force acceptance on others; this is perceived as an overtly hostile act. I prefer behavior that says "Look at me! I'm just like you!" Differences are superficial and temporary. Looking beyond those differences to find similarity and common experiences is a bit more mature, and IMHO what life is really about. Focusing on differences is stupid.
Tell your friend to learn some empathy for these other teachers. She shouldn't scorn them just because they are different from her (ie not as sensual and frightened by goths). Until she can accept them, I doubt they'll accept her or the "different" students she's identified herself with.
How can it be that education these days is only for those that don't explore?
For any topic you are qualified to teach, you will be trying to teach material you mastered 15-20 years ago for an average teacher. How exciting can that be, to present the same basic information for forty years? Would a person who loved to explore be drawn to that?
P.S. I taught high school for 1 year. I got out because I didn't want to work on an assembly line.
many computer professionals are quite overpaid.
:) But I'll take advantage of it for as long as it lasts, then get another job and not get paid for a hobby anymore. A market economy is a wonderful thing.
Agreed
Teachers aren't THAT horribly underpaid, either. I know; my father is one.
I have a secondary math education degree, and taught for one school year. (I left the field because I didn't want to be part of an assembly line.) I was paid $19,000. If your father is a teacher, and you have (or are thinking about) kids, I'd guess he's been teaching for at least 15 years and has his master's degree. I have about 3.5 years experience in the computer field, and three college computer classes (one of which I failed). He's probably earning about what I am (adjusted for local wages), and I'm earning about $10K below the lowest median figure I saw on the last salary survey for IT professionals in the Midwest (where I am).
If I had continued to teach, I probably would have moved from a small-town school to a suburban, or even an inner city school district (these pay progressively more; rural districts pay the least). I would have lived frugally, saved my money, and bought a smaller house. I don't doubt that I could have provided comfortably for my wife, dog, and 2.5 kids. So I agree, teachers are not horribly underpaid.
HOWEVER, they're not paid that well, considering the training that is required for them, and considering what is expected of them.
Quite frankly, the people who are "in it for the money" are the LAST ones I want anywhere near my children, when I have them.
What a funny attitude. I imagine you don't want them treated by doctors who are in it for the money, or driven by bus drivers who are in it for the money, or watched by baby-sitters who are in it for the money. My personal observation has been that teachers teach for one of two reasons - they are too incompetent in their field of study to do anything else, or they want to teach. The latter group will always be there. The former group is definitely in it for the money. Furthermore, they can actively hate your children and keep their job, if your state has a tenure law (most do).
Disclaimer: I've thought long and hard about these opinions and am not likely to change them. They are the result of five years studying the public education system, one year fighting it (and losing), and four years recovering from the mental and emotional wounds that experience inflicted.
I hate it when I leave off the /I...
What about the brightest young men? The ones who never did go into teaching? The ones who are generally suspected of being child molesters if they teach in an elementary school?
Making education a meritocracy is only marginally related to pay. Granted, pay can be linked to merit, but I think the most important first step would be to GET RID OF TENURE! it is this that permits incompetents to remain in the classroom. IMHO, eliminating incompetence is MUCH more important than getting really good teachers in the classroom. One year of incompetent teaching early on can do psychological damage that takes ten years of superb teaching to undo. I've seen it happen.
I can't say as I agree.
I attended a magnet school for a while in Florida. There were kids who were there because they had applied and were accepted, and those who were there because it happened to be their school district. The kids in the magnet program and the kids in the district were segregated like blacks and whites in the old south-- territories clearly marked, students kept in separate lines-- it was disgusting.
The worst part was that nerds and geeks never got in trouble for what they did. I was part of the geek group, and I saw more injustice than I cared to see.
I remember a geek and a "local" getting into a verbal battle. The local kid was rational, the geek wasn't. Needless to say, the geek took an intellectual whipping. He, however, didn't like losing to somebody "dumber" than him, so he landed a punch right across the non-geek kid's jaw. The non-geek, not wanting a fight, simply pushed the geek to the ground.
The geek was at school the next day. The other kid wasn't at school for another two weeks.
There are more stories I could tell. But why? Obviously, people seem to think that we can recitify the situation by reversing it.
I hate to say it, but being a geek is ALWAYS going to be hard. "Geek" might not be the word the tormentors use, and the kids may just as easily be "greasers", but tormentors and tormentees will always exist in the hellish battle that is high school. The best we can do is to offer support to those who feel like there are little demons running around poking them in the ass with pitchforks. Whether these kids are jocks or nerds or goths or greasers doesn't matter-- we need to be supportive and let them know that it gets better.
It's getting to the point where Slashdotters are intent on making schools into geek Utopias instead helping kids get through the hell that, sadly, high school will always be.
The geeks here are merely expressing their opinions and relating stories of the abuse that they have had to suffer. I don't think you will find a single one of the people who have told their stories here going to school the next day and picking on the people that they revile (and revile for good reasons I might add). Geeks are not doing unto others what has been done to them, they are merely speaking out against vicious, cruel, and unfair treatment.
As for outcasts making themselves outcasts, that is one of the most ignorant things I have ever heard! Most of the people here would love to fit in and have friends. I know I would have when I was in High School. Unfortunately I didn't have the money to always have new, cool clothes or a great car. I also was not athletic or attractive. I also was not willing to deny my interests and hide my intelligence. I knew smart people in High School who did that and it made me sick as well as making them miserable. The fact is that a lot of people out their don't have any choice about being different. And saying that it is their own fault that they are rejected for being poor or ugly or sickly or shy or intelligent is a bunch of crap. I never had the choice to be popular and have friends because I was never given the choice. I did not try to be anti-social, and I was nice to everyone until they failed to be nice to me. I made an effort to get along and was ridiculed for it and had my efforts thrown back in my face.
I am not persecuting the people who did horrible things to me in High School. I am not gloating over the fact that I am now a lot more successful than most of them. I am merely happy to have recovered as well as I have from the torture that I had to endure. Most of the people who have posted here are the same as I am. They are not abusing people, they are condemning them for THEIR ACTIONS!!!! This may sound like a bad thing, but in some way it is just. When we were condemned in High School, it was for nothing more than the perceptions of people who never even tried to find out who we were.
Maybe it is wrong to condemn anyone, but I have to feel that I am a lot more justified in doing it than any of those who did it to me were.
So, the students have returned to school (but to Chatfield High), and this is how they handle things (from Washington Post, May 4): "Two students dressed in black were led out of an assembly, but not before they snatched their backpacks from teachers who had confiscated them." The powers that be in the schools still don't get it.
plays doom. I haven't played doom since 96.. I'm now playing Half Life and I don't think I would go back to the Doom engine..
"Windows 98 Second Edition works and players better than ever." -Microsoft's Home page on Win98SE.
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
I thought geeks were mostly non-religous... But what do I know.. How about some feedback people.
"Windows 98 Second Edition works and players better than ever." -Microsoft's Home page on Win98SE.
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
I would be interested, but I could lose my account if I do, but I feel that I would doing it for the right reason.
If anyone has some IRC server software for 98 give me a shout, cisco-kid@cybermail.net
icq: 1763538
I wont be home till about 6pm tonight, but maybe I might do it, or have some freinds that host an irc net setup a channel specially for this. Give your input!!
"Windows 98 Second Edition works and players better than ever." -Microsoft's Home page on Win98SE.
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
He's nothing more than a show.
If you look at what he has done, he has basically to 2 peoples ideas and sold out on that alone. Jim Rose Circus and G.G. Alan, think about that. The guy is nothing more that a greed lil' sob. I feel sorry for the his 'followers' that think he's 'god'. He's nothing more than an corprate prick, imo, dressed up like a gothic groupie...... These people are far from having their own ideas, they follow their leader. The are just like the nazi's back during WWII. Nothing more than sheep.....
"Windows 98 Second Edition works and players better than ever." -Microsoft's Home page on Win98SE.
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
He's nothing more than a show.
If you look at what he has done, he has basically to 2 peoples ideas and sold out on that alone. Jim Rose Circus and G.G. Alan, think about that. The guy is nothing more that a greed lil' sob. I feel sorry for the his 'followers' that think he's 'god'. He's nothing more than an corprate prick, imo, dressed up like a gothic groupie...... These people are far from having their own ideas, they follow their leader. They are just like the nazi's back during WWII. Nothing more than sheep.....
"Windows 98 Second Edition works and players better than ever." -Microsoft's Home page on Win98SE.
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
I have posted about this numerous times. Been talking about that since before this happened.. But I have posted about it and even emailed my ideas to a local radio station which told me basically, stop blaming people, the only people to blame are the killers.
"Windows 98 Second Edition works and players better than ever." -Microsoft's Home page on Win98SE.
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
Excite's news posting over a new anarcist page.
"Windows 98 Second Edition works and players better than ever." -Microsoft's Home page on Win98SE.
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
Think we should /. this site, the one mentioned in the story?
"Windows 98 Second Edition works and players better than ever." -Microsoft's Home page on Win98SE.
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
I thought 4:20 was a drug term.. hehehe..
"Windows 98 Second Edition works and players better than ever." -Microsoft's Home page on Win98SE.
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
This is the worst.... www.overthrow.com
"Windows 98 Second Edition works and players better than ever." -Microsoft's Home page on Win98SE.
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
"Militant Anti-Government Anarchism At Its Best."
Tell me this, they are originizing a Militant Anti-governement Anarchist group..Kind of fucked up if you ask me.. Anarchy and Orginized do not go together.. That's why I find the site sick..
"Windows 98 Second Edition works and players better than ever." -Microsoft's Home page on Win98SE.
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
I think that Jon has done a great deal to help us get the truth about the whole thing. I think that for once we are being seen and making a radical stand in our society. This is what america is all about. I feel that most of us, the /. people, are the most american people than most american are, and that's including the people that don't even live in the state. They contributed a bit in the whole discussion that has been going on here. Even thou there has been some stuff that could not be agree upon, but after all the arguing that has been going on, we finally came to find out were some of the problems are comming from and all the shit that has been dished out on the current 'non conforming' students and showing the world that this has gone overboard and that we need to take care of these issue. I think that what the school have done recently is insane and quite stupid. I feel that the schools basically fucked them selfs over with all these suspensions and all the punishment they giving the student for exercising their freedoms. It seems that the school administration is reading 'Fahrenheit 451' like an instruction manual. Maybe they will start passing out drugs next? But I feel that we hurt our selfs with the 'witch hunts' and that we will pay for this for awhile. I wonder how many lawsuits against schools will show up about this. ACLU is going to be all over this as we now and big time lawyers will be all over this. It's going to be the next big money scam that is going to hurt our school finnacially, but it will beat something into these so called 'caring'and 'smart' school administrators. Oh well.. I'm just rambling on here.
"Windows 98 Second Edition works and players better than ever." -Microsoft's Home page on Win98SE.
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
When in the course of human events ....
....
....
....
...).
... maybe one day ... we will see the One Great Human Race. Evolution Never Ends, but we could fall as others in the past with a star ... or ride to the stars of our future.
We the People (United Sentients (US))
In order to form a more perfect republic
For, of, and by the People
A Global Inclusive State of Telluria (GIST)
Write the Constitution to Promote and Defend the rights of all Humans, multimix-cultural Advancement, Evolution, and Achievment (Cultural, Science, Art,
I'll sign
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
ok, I made my own poster. It's in pagemaker format (6.5), which no one can read. I tried exporting to pdf, but it complained that I didn't have a postscript driver. Whatever. If someone wants to convert this to PDF, which anyone can read and print out, that'd be cool. I think all of the fonts are generic enough that everyone will have them.
Here is a Pagemaker wanted poster.
Someone (I call notme!) should make a "wanted" poster that kids can post in their schools:
WANTED:
non-conformists
for crimes yet to be
committed!
There are members of our community who are threatening the bland conformity that we have tried so hard to create! Please report anyone matching the following description to your superiors so that these individuals can be "corrected." Remember, opinions you don't agree with are wrong!
Warning signs:
-- odd clothing
-- liking for weird, therefore bad, music
-- heavy internet use
-- high intelligence
-- seeking out others with similar tastes
-- zits
-- dislike for classes, teachers
-- reclusiveness
-- anything else?
not that i don't understand the importance of the issue (which i probably don't), but I am getting a little bit sick of all these nerds/geeks articles.
i don't really consider myself one (nerd/geek), but i suspect that some people might see it in me, as well as I do not get offended if they simply refer to the fact that i program and find wit in s/([^c])ei/$1ie/g;. So I do think that JonKatz writes articles about me as well. But I certainly don't want someone writing article after article proclaiming me normal, different-but-good-different, etc. I already know that. I knew that long before these articles started. I've known that my whole life.
Please reply and tell if anyone else thinks that the subject is mostly finished. JonKatz has raised awareness for the computer age kids, but it is pushed as far as it can probably go.
I was thinking of how to intentionally fail my drug test... It would make a good memoir story someday.
The irony of some of the geek profiling has been enough to make you retch at times. The NYT did a piece on an Arizona high school, outlining the cliques and in particular where they sat at lunch. The jocks and cheerleaders outside at the prime tables, and god help you if you tried to sit there if you weren't of the approved. The regular students inside the cafeteria. And off in the drama building, the drama geeks as well as various other oddballs who had taken refuge with them, because anyone from special ed students to geniuses could hang out there without fear. So let's guess which group was being harrassed last week: the gentle tolerant ones or the assholes who had driven them out.
Yes! Got it in one. They wear *black*, after all, and therefore must be EVIL.
I've got a suggestion for a constructive bit to go with our venting, though: there were two superb replies on one of the earlier Hellmouth threads outlining exactly what rights students had (they can't just suspend you without a hearing, for example) and how to work the rules if they start making arbitrary dress code changes and the like (they ban black? make them specify exactly how much black you can wear. Helpfully report popular students who violate the rules.)
It would be an awfully good idea to put up those sort of useful messages in a permanent, easily accessible area/webpage (Geek Defense, perhaps.)
Laura
I think we as a group of people need to come together and show people who and what we are. For so long we have stayed in our own groups and kept to ourselves because of feer of what would happen if we spoke out. I feel that now is the time that we should raise our voice against today's socitey and point out all the problems in it that create a culture that excludes and persecute us.
We should take a stand and cry out against the injustice that is done to us, and for once stand-up for ourselves. Not through violence like the boys in Littleton, but through peace of words. We must make people see that what they do is wrong and they we are not the bad ones, that they are the ones who would destroy us, not us them. Through our united voice via the Internet, our great tool, should we show people that we are good.
I disagree with you. This is an easy way to go but this is the way of exclusion of everybody thatis different. It remenber me those photos of the America of the sixties where you can see some toilets marked "white" and other marked "colored" or something like that. It reminds me of the ghettos that were made during the second world war to park the jews.
I know that American people generally prefer to use the "salad bowl" model for integrating people but I prefer the "melting pot" model where you melt everybody and don't do a Chinatown, a Little Italy. It's cool to be between people we understand but it only lead to violence when many of these groups meet together (like in LA a few years ago).
I really think that the only possible solution in the long run is to educate people to learn of each others differences.
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
I hate to be a cynic, but I am honestly expecting all of these counselling centers and offers of help and assistance to slowly fade out over the months. People want to help in the immediate wake of the crisis, but how many are truly in it for the long haul?
I point to the case on Slashdot of the guy who was challenging MS because he owned the term "Internet Explorer." When we found out his kid was sick, everybody wanted to send money. People offered to set up accounts. Then within days, when people found out he'd settled, all offers were taken off the table.
This is NOT the first time a school shooting has taken place. Why are people offering to start things now? Why didn't they start them last time it happened, so it wouldn't happen this time?
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
I've been experiencing the repercussions of this event from both sides of the fence. I'm fortunate enough to be a sponsor / leader for the high school youth group at my church, which is urban and Presbyterian. Although we're a little light on "jocks", otherwise we've got a real cross section of the high-school power structure among the group members. (As an example, we recently participated in an interfaith-exchange program, and after seeing our group, the Jewish delegation asked if our church required boys to have long hair. :-)
I deeply know the pain and agony that can be life at highschool, both from the young people in the group and from my own school experience (I won our district's high school *team* programming contest working alone. There wasn't anyone from my school there. 'Nuff said).
However, I've also heard the fear of being bombed or shot from almost every young person in our group. One of our youth talked about the fact that when he walks around now, he always keeps an "escape route" in mind. Another told of a "lock down" because someone brought a gun to class. Yet another was sent outside for a few hours after a bomb threat emptied the building. Yet another was on a "hit list" confiscated from a student who had allegedly been planning a mass-murder. Many were afraid to go to school last friday, which supposedly was the anniversary of Hitler's death. The terror goes on, and on, and on.
The problem is that now, every attention-seeking, disaffected, neglected youth knows how to get immediate attention and action: threaten to shoot something or blow something up. It's very sad that our educational institutions (and parenting!) have fallen to the level that this is necessary. But it is also unacceptable that our young people (most of whom go about their daily business without picking on people) live in fear.
If you've been experiencing the Hellmouth, I sympathize deeply with you. Please find *someone* to talk about it with, whether it's your parents, your church leaders, your friends, or an Internet community.
Please *don't* take out your frustrations by "pushing the limits" and scaring other people, no matter how tempting that may be at times. It just doesn't help, and it will only prolong this backlash.
No offense, but that sounds really elitist. I don't think schools are exactly in perfect condition the way they are now, but separating "superior" students away from the unwashed masses, and doing your best to keep these worthless, 2.5gpa punks at a safe distance doesn't seem quite like a fair deal for everyone.
This is a computer colum at http://www.star-telegram.com/news/doc/1047/1:DRBOM BAY/1:DRBOMBAY042199.html">
"Dear Nightmare: I'd recommend you using it, but not installing it. That's what your good buddy at work is for. You know who I'm talking about: the four-eyed geek in Information Systems who gives "socially dysfunctional" a whole new spin. Sure, you never spoke to him before in your life, but you never really needed to, did you?"
Let these people know that this is insulting.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Lea, I wouldn't take posts stating that geeks "asked for it"/"deserved it"/"just weren't tough enough" too seriously. I see this poster in the same class as those people who say that a woman got raped because "she was asking for it" or "she wanted it" (eg by the way she dressed or something equally lame).
Nobody asks to be a victim of anything ("asked for it"), nobody likes to be victimized, and not everybody is a victim ("it happens to everyone" attitude). But you will always get people who make such claims.
Overall decent post, but I can't say I agree with you where you imply that this is caused by the 'expunging of God from schools'. I went to what I would say was a pretty religous school - in South Africa, kids still wear school uniforms, and up until a year or two ago (after I left school) Christianity was still a large part of the syllabus, and prayer and scripture reading was a daily thing for all students in assembly and "Religious Instruction" periods. Also a fairly large percentage of students (I would guess about 30 to 40 %) were very religious, and were "good Christians", who spent their free time (during breaks (called recess in America) they got together and worshipped God, spent friday nights at Youth groups, etc etc. On top of this, about 99% of students were from "Christian" families, so even the not-so-religious still had Christian upbringings (South Africa is pretty conservative.)
And despite all this, bullying and violence were still rife, as was swearing and so was drug use. And this was in a "decent" middle-class school. I also get the impression that Columbine had a fairly religious atmosphere to it as well.
Many atheists, agnostics (like myself) and other non-Christians have no problem showing respect for others, and understanding what it means to respect others - while many "Christians" seem to have zero tolerance of others and are violent and abusive. Clearly we need to preach *tolerance*, and respect. Many atheists etc are incapable of doing harmful things (such as blowing away fellow students).
I agree with you on most the other points. But I don't think the introduction of God into the school syllabus teaches tolerance and respect. If anything, it teaches disrespect against others who hold different views (eg Muslims, Jews, atheists, agnostics are all sidelined, singled out, taught that they are "wrong" (I was taught that I was "wrong" at school, I was an atheist at the time, and sheez, people looked at me like I was some kinda strange animal when I tried to be vocal about it).)
Morals do not go hand in hand with religion, I am living proof of that - I was raised without religion, but my parents managed to instil in me a greater moral sense than many other people I have met. Some of the biggest pricks I've ever met, on the other hand, called themselves "Christians" (although I'm sure you'll probably agree they werent really) but the point is they had a Christian upbringing.
The Columbine killers were obviously filled with hate and anger, but I don't believe by any means that they were "fundamentally evil". *No* child is born filled with hate and anger (and no child is born "evil") - that has to come from somewhere. You could argue that Christianity, had these kids found it, might have provided some way to dissolve that hatred and anger. But in some cases Christianity fails to do so, I can name examples. Either way, kids need (a) alternative outlets for hate and anger, and (b) a situation that does not foster hate in the first place, eg no school bullying. This seems to be what you advocate.
The "Dear Nightmare" thing sounds like a parody to me, looks like someone 'poking fun' at genuine attitudes entrenched in society.
The scary part is it is so "real" it is barely recognizable as parody. I'm sure most of the people it is parody-ing will read it and say something like "ha ha, yeah, hehe, think i will, thanks, uh, duh, teehee".
goths: ah, I see.
"survival of the most sadistic": Yes, seems to me this is one of the primary lessons kids learn at school.
Reasons for market of virtual violence: agreed.
However, remember: for kids, playing [any games] is a typical method to learn for real live (ok, more for the younger ones).
I, uh, seem to have replied to the wrong message. That last reply (WELL FUCKING SAID!) was supposed to go in the message below this one asking Katz to please spare us from the mind crushing agony of another round of this bullshit self promotion he's engaged in. Sorry 'bout that.
..and that's the level of service you get. I think *some* of the problems in high school and our school system in general could be solved with money, in the right place. I'd like to see a teacher pay raise of roughly 100%, make it a, crazy idea here, highly competitive field to be in, as opposed to something more akin to a fall-back position. I had a some good teachers whose influence is with me still, however I had many more folks just showing up everyday that did absolutely nothing for me. Teaching can be very rewarding, but it's also very difficult/demanding to be done correctly, b/c the industry itself(public teaching) will never generate revenue, that line of work will not be compensated in accodance to its importance.
Forget programs and initiatives and all the crap that won't work without dedicated individuals..and go find those dedicated individuals, and compensate them!
(I'm not a teacher, not even close really)
+&x
I tend to agree with you. I'm getting a little uncomfortable with labels like "geek", "nerd", etc. To me, they are just as restrictive as terms like "jock".
/* Insert the obligatory "my adolescence was Hell because I was different" narrative here. */
One of the great things about being an adult is that you don't have to accept these labels. I work with computers and enjoy it. I do a lot of other things, too. Very few people can be adequately described with a single label and I think it's hurtful to think of yourself as part of a narrowly-defined group.
Maybe the real problem is not persecution of certain groups, but the labeling of people. When Katz was describing examples of students being persecuted for not looking/acting like everyone else, I was all for it. Now, it's starting to sound like, "Rise up, geeks! Fight the power!" and that bothers me.
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
I'm a 24 year old unix geek, grew up wearing the black trenchcoat (still do), watched a lot of violent movies (still do), played a lot of violent video games (still do), played with making bombs (stopped when i was younger), was a recluse, a geek, put down, abused, etc... High school sucked for me, as it did for many people reading this.
...but I'm okay. I put up with their abuse and crap. I'm a productive member of society! really! `8r) I've now sold out to the man, put my past behind me, and forgot about high school. I don't talk to a single person from that period of my life. They didn't understand me then, why would they understand me now?
I think it was said best in Grosse Point Blank where it was said: "Some people say forgive and forget. I disagree. I say forget about forgiving and just get the hell out of town."
--
Gonzo Granzeau
Gonzo Granzeau
"Nothing the god of biomechanics wouldn't let you into heaven for.." -Roy Batty
Just out of curiosity, have their been any repurcussions of the Littleton incident on your school's rifle teams?
I was a member of the rifle team back in high school, and I listened to heavy-metal music, and I can just imagine what sort of backlash I would have had to endure if this event happened during my school days.
99 little bugs in the code, 99 bugs in the code,
fix one bug, compile it again...
I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
With job security and economic growth seemingly becoming mutually exclusive (half the technologies being developed these days is to allow corporations to hire idiots for minimum wage to do jobs that used to have to be done by educated degreed employees.) There's a few markets opening up now. You've got to start playing hardball with the world. I don't mean walk like a consultant, and think like one, but compete.
:).
Just read slashdot and see what technical questions people are asking, questions professional magazine reports do not answer because they were written to sell products not to support.
If you're a geek prove it already
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
The first theme is that replacing one kind of bias with another doesn't solve anything. For years I've been involved in opposing attempts to replace anti-female sexism with anti-male sexism. The account of a "magnet school" where the geeks got preferential treatment over the "locals" seems like the same sort of thing. It just doesn't work.
Secondly, about "shock" behavior. This is oriented more toward the goths than the nerds. Shock has its value in drawing attention to some other quality you have, which might not be seen because of the blind spots everyone tends to have. At one point in my life I had to deal with people who didn't see anything about me but that I was a lot younger than them and I didn't have a degree like them. They thought they knew what that meant, no matter how good my work was. By deliberately getting in a few faces, I forced them to ask "what does that mean" and look at my work for an answer and actually see my work. HOWEVER...shock behavior _by itself_ is not very worthwhile. All package, no contents, like saying "hey, look at this!" and then there's nothing to see. If what you're drawing attention to is your lack of other qualities/skills/whatever, then maybe some of that energy you put into piercings and tattoos and eyeliner should go into developing the content rather than the package.
Lastly, about diversity. I was reading this thing about Ally McBeal's romance with a black character, and how not making an issue of his blackness was a bad thing, and I wanted to puke. Diversity itself is nothing to celebrate; it's the _fruits_ of diversity that matter, the different things that we can _all_ enjoy because we allow different groups to be different and create them. I guess this is actually very similar to my last point. Difference for a purpose is one thing, difference because you can't help it is another, and difference just to get a rise out of people is yet another. I don't see any reason to celebrate or even particularly tolerate the last of these.
Slashdot - News for Herds. Stuff that Splatters.
I have seen Goths ruin their lives with drugs. I have seen jocks ruin their lives with drugs. I have seen hippies ruin their lives with drugs. I've seen 'normal' people fall off track. It can happen to anyone. Everyone has.
The point is, you can't associate self-destructive habits with a particular style of dress or a certain type of music. You can't assume that someone who dresses in black is automatically on the fast track to oblivion. You can't assume anything. You can hide a gun just as easily under one of those puffy Nautilus jackets as a trenchcoat.
By the same token you can't associate destructive habits to a particular culture either. I have known some Goth-types who, honestly, scared the bejeezus out of me. But i've known plenty more jocks who were just as abrasive. The only reason they didn't go out and get themselves an arsenal is because they were stronger than those they tormented.
Someone's exterior is just that, an exterior. Few people actually wear their hearts on their sleeves. Why is it that those who mold themselves to fit one particular image get less harrasment than those who chose another image? Someone who looks like Satan himself may just have a heart of gold, wheras the nice, well dressed gentleman next door may beat his wife every day.
It's easier to judge people on their exterior, but then again, it's also easy to vote for the first candidate on the list. Laziness is no excuse for myopia.
---------
---------
Get back to me when my brain starts working.
This problem isn't going to go away by teachers, parents or students asking jocks, and all the people who push around nerds, to just stop. They know exactly what they're doing, and it takes a LOT to convince them to stop.
... not 100%), they called you for an interview. The interview is where you really get your chance to show them that you deserve to go to this school.
What needs to be done is that nerdy students need to be given a somewhat private enviornment where they can learn together, in peace. This not only protects them from the horrors of school bullies, it also helps them socially, as they can be with people whom they like.
Sound more like a dream than reality? I went to a public high school exactly as described above, in Toronto, Canada. It was a public school, with what they call streamed education. The program was funded by corporate partners (the school board had very little influence). We had everything from SGI Indigo's (Unix in school!) to a national robotics team. How it worked was that students submitted their school records, filled out a form, wrote a couple essays, and sent it off to the school with a $10 registration fee. If they thought you had the brain skills (bascially, you had to have above average grades
The school still had normal kids, who went their because it was in their zone (this includes some jocks). BUt those people were not allowed to enter the special classes, and the school tried their best to keep lunch periods seperate. The result was an enviornment where geeks, nerds and even smart Goths can thrive. 80% of the school belonged to the special program.
I don't know if something like this is available in the US, but it should be. If your school doesn't have something like this, try talking with the board. But more importantly, you need to talk to your school. If you can convince your school, show them the benifets (money, extremly high averages, good enviornment for teachers, etc), then convincing the board won't be too hard when you're backed by an entire school. It doesn't cost anyone much, because it can all be sponsored by corporations who donate money and cool hardware.
In Holland on the 4th of May, we commemorate the many victims that fell during World War II. Although my generation was born long after WWII, the deeper lesson behind this celebration still stands and will always be standing. Millions of Jews, Gypsies, handicapped and homosexuals were murdered because a large group of people acted without thinking.
You should always think. Always look deep into your heart and act upon THAT and not what other people are telling you. NEVER TAKE ANYTHING FOR GRANTED! Even if all the people are telling you X, and your heart thinks Y, do Y. You can be in a group, but you can never belong to a group. You are an INDIVIDUAL.
Listen to others, but act YOURSELF!
Jaap (24)
[I realize that this sounds like a sermon, but at least it's coming from my heart]
I wanted to let you all know that Slashdot is mentioned in today's frontpage of the New York Times in an article on parents and their kids on the net. I have the upmost respect for Cmndr Taco and his work. Even though some of us may bare apathy toward the Times, it is quite a milestone to have your project mentioned on the frontpage and used as a source. Mad props due!
my email's doug@escape.com, drop me a line if you think i am elite.. aoturkey.escape.com rulez
Calling out bogus battery capacity claims.
It's hard to respond to this argument since its wrong on so many levels. Where to begin?...
Hitler is an obvious example of diversity harming people, but what about Martin Luther? Without Martin Luther we would have not had millions of deaths in wars between Protestants and Catholics, the Spanish Inquisition, etc. But without Martin Luther our culture would be unimaginably different; nailing the 47 questions (?) to the church door lead to...
Charles Darwin. Without Darwin we would have still had the theory of evolution (Darwin didn't originate the theory, he just gave compelling evidence of its breath and proposed that *all* variation could be explained by it without divine intervention; contemporaries of Darwin were on the same track and Wallace arguably had the idea and evidence first). But without evolution it would have been far harder to understand the implications of DNA (assuming Watson & Crick still did their work) and we would have none of the recent medical advances.
Then there's Einstein with his silly theories explaining the anomolous precession of Mercury. The researchers at Bell Labs who discovered cosmic background radiation or invented the transistor, laser, and Unix. And let's not forget that crackpot Guttenburg and his ideas for printing with reusuable, movable type instead of woodcuts.
If you think "different is dangerous", go find a cave. Without fire -- fire is dangerous. Or atl-atls -- new technology is dangerous.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
I have been both a geek and a popular jock during high school and college.
;)
Up until my senior year in high school I was an unmitigated geek. I didn't know how to fit in. I didn't understand the mentalities of the people around me and I had a very small circle of friends. Small as in me and one other guy.
I was 6' tall but only 130 pounds. I had bad skin and an overall gangly, dorky look. Big joints and thin limbs. All knees and elbows comin' at ya. I was smarter than most of the people in my school (students and faculty) but I was a chronic underachiever. I NEVER took drugs, yet was viewed as a druggy. I was picked on by almost everyone.
I went to school in a rough section of Miami. Some of the lowlights of my Jr. and Sr. high school years were:
- having students spit in my face while lying in a casket during a school Halloween party. I volunteered to be the corpse because no one else wanted to do it. Good call on their behalves.
- being choked on the PE field by a guy almost twice my size while he was telling me to say that, "I wished I was black."
- having gold chains ripped from my neck TWICE during the same year.
- having a gun pulled on me 3 times between my 8th and 12th grade
And the list really could go on. The number of fights I got in would be impossible to accurately estimate. I'd guess over 30 between 7th and 12th grade.
So, up to my 11th grade year of high school I was a geek. Because I was an underachiever I was even shunned by the other geeks!
My greatest joy during school was to NEVER do classwork or homework and then pull out A's during tests and finals just to rub the noses of the rest of the class in the fact that I didn't need useless busywork to learn.
Anyway, during the summer of my 11th grade year, I matured out of my dorkiness. I got a job as a lifeguard. My frame filled out to a healthy 180 pounds. I grew another inch.
When I returned to high school for my senior year I was 6' 1" 180 pounds. Tanned. Wavy blond hair and blue eyes. Inside I was still a total geek but you could never tell from the outside.
My previous 11 years of geek misery magically vanished as I started dating cheerleaders, hanging out with the 'cool' kids, doing all the things that seemed so fun in high school. And I HAD A BLAST!
The novelty of the situation was having the mind of a geek and the look of a jock. When I went to college it only got better.
I attended UNC at Chapel Hill. By this time I was 6' 1" 220 pounds solid. Built like a damn racehorse. Yet I still played video games, hung out at arcades, and read sci-fi novels. I was in the unique position of being able to act like a total geek but I was big enough to frighten anyone that would dare to comment negatively. I knew this and used it.
I grew my hair out as well as a goatee. I have blond head hair but black facial hair. Here I stood with this wild blond mop on my head and a 5" long black goatee weighting in by this time, thanks to regular work-outs, at around 235. I looked like a Barbarian. I would also wear construction boots when I went out so my height was close to 6' 3". I used to get all liqoured up with my geek friends and then go terrorize jocks and frat boys.
Unfortunately, that high school angst shit doesn't stop in college. I went to a bar called Tammany Hall with my friend Dennis. He was a resident at the UNC hospital. Brilliant human. He was 26 when this happened, I believe. This 26-year-old to-be dental surgeon (he is now) was simply sitting at the corner of the bar drinking a beer. 3 football players come in. Seniors. 22-years-old at most.
One of the three neanderthals decides that he wants the corner bar seat so he approaches Dennis and starts flicking him in the back of his head while his two dumbass buddies stand there giggling.
Flick. Flick. Flick. Flick. Flick. Flick.
Dennis is one of the nicest people I know. He's one of the smartest people I know. He's also one of the smallest people I know. He was about 5' 5" 120 pounds and this linebacker was fucking with him.
I happened to come out of the bathroom right when this began. It took me until about the 10th flick to make my way through the crowd and get to this asshole. I grabbed a handful of shirt near his neck and pulled him backward across the dancefloor and yanked him to the ground where I knelt down on his neck and started flicking him in the forehead.
Then the bouncers came and threw us all out but it was still worth it.
I've been both sides of the coin. I've played the role of a geek and the role of a jock. I wound up as a hybrid of the two. I like being athletic and I also like playing video games. I like looking as if I belong in the WWF while I design and implement networks for a living. I look like a warrior and speak like a poet.
And I wouldn't want it any other way.
Talisman
P.S. Here's a link to a picture taken of me during a video game conference in San Diego, in case anyone was curious. I shaved my head for the event. I've actually thought about entering the WWF/WCW under the name Psycho Geek of some other such name. I think geeks the world over would appreciate a wrestler they could identify with
"Study your math, kids. Key to the universe." -The Archangel Gabriel
I'm sitting at work right now, and I've been reading all these articles about Littleton, nd I really wish I had my own little cubicle because I'm a bit teary-eyed right now. I guess I developed my own little persecution complex during my time in school and so I identify with what many of the kids are going through right now. For a long time, I was a major part of the KJHS and KHS "nerd herd", and it took a few years to learn how to deal with that. Sure, in the end we turned out fine but how many kids never get to that point? I had a distinct advantage: my high school had a well-developed fine arts program, so those of us in drama, music, and the like had a large peer group that was mostly left to its own devices by the more traditional cliques (jocks, preps, etc). It still took some work...who doesn't want to be popular? But you eventually learn that only the opinions that matter are those of people who matter to you, and people whom you matter to. Don't worry about the rest. I know, easier said than done, but it's something to keep in mind.
Why am I telling anyone this? To be honest, I don't really know. I guess I just wanted to offer one more testamonial to the fact that most of us turn out okay. I grew up playing D&D, listening to heavy metal sometimes (even stuff like Slayer and beyond, for a while), playing violent computer games (it's not like they're new...even my old Atari had shoot-em-up games....it's just that back then, people didn't blame crazy shit on them). In school, I got fairly good grades, was a member of many of the school bands (clarinet, sax, and drums), a member of some of the competing teams (JETS, Engineering Design Team, etc), and didn't have a girlfriend until 10th grade. I was picked on, teased, all the regular stuff that we all have come to expect. But you come through on the other end a better person. You learn who you can rely on. You learn to rely on yourself, and those few rare souls that you connect with during those dark years.
Eventually you will see the light at the end of the tunnel. It might be high school, it might be college, it might be when you enter the work force, but the day will come. Just keep trying to make yourself a better person, make youself someone that YOU can be proud of and don't worry about the others.
Yeah, well, that felt mostly pointless. : ) Well at least I got my $0.02 in. Hopefully someone can take something from what I've written.
Cheers...
Hey, how'd you know I was lookin' at you if you weren't lookin' at me?
Because the problem which erupted in violence in Colorado is so widespread in our culture, we need a way to understand it. This calls for a play to be devised that symbolically tells the story.
To begin with, such stories need powerful symbolic metaphors.
Here are my contributions to the story:
Columbine Flowers are what blooms from the Columbine plant.
Columbine is also the name of the High School where the horrific violence occurred in Colorado.
The flower of the Purple Columbine is shaped like a Dove.
The Dove is the symbol of Peace.
Purple is the color of Royalty.
Royalty are people with impeccable manners.
Purple is "Purr Pull." A cat purrs when it wants affection, softly pulls away when it wants more space. Purr Pull is the freedom to choose either way.
The Purple Columbine is a member of the Genus Crowfoot.
Crowfoot is Crow+Foot. To crow is to be proud. Foot is what you stumble with. Thus Crow+Foot maps to Proud+Stumble.
Thus, "Pride goeth before a Fall."
"Goeth" is similar to Goth, the adolescent cultural model for those who suffer Alienation of
Affection, aka Stoners. Their hearts have been turned to stone by vice of alienation of affection.
When the Powers That Be finally figure this out, some will turn purple with shame and regret.
When someone turns purple, they experience an epiphany and discover the importance of loving
even the most outcast member of the community. When that happens, Aslan's Warm Breath softens the Stone Hearts of the Gothic Outcasts, and Peace is restored in the land.
This outline could the foundation for a play that could be mounted to help the culture find its way
back.
What is the name of this play? What's missing from it? Who would like to work on it?
Copyleft 1999, Barsoom Tork Associates. This posting may be freely copied, edited, improved,
enlarged upon, and recirculated.
The Orenda Project -- Community Soul on the Right Path http://www.musenet.org/orenda
Hey all,
...it's true that those who put you down are just too thick to realise the error of their ways... so let's teach that too them... let the media accept that there are different types of people in this world...
...Last summer I got a job that most people would be happy to have when they're fresh out of Uni, let alone halfway through college, it's so well paud that I can now afford to move out of home and support myself in a flat of like-minded friends... and all at the tender age of 17.
I'm from England and I'm 17.
Until this school year I went to a public school in which bullying and general putting-down was rife.
I was also into computing and music (as a subject) and I got a fair deal of harrassment for this from my 'fellow students'.
However, I never, ever, had any problems from my teachers. The closest I came to that was from the rugby master who criticised me for missing Rugby due to a music lesson.
My point it that so many of these comments, as far as I can tell, seem to state that the teachers are in on the act of bullying as well as any students.
I do not see how this situation could arise... it seems inherently wrong to me that in a society that is so focused on one's rights that this infringement of your human right to being accepted, not neccessarily liked, but accepted is abused by all.
When I had all my problems, I eventually grassed on some people, and lo and behold my problems went away... I was almost friends with one bloke who had been *REALLY* nasty to me...
... So I think that Katz is doing right... Speak out against those who put you down...
To finish, a point to all those who hasseled me
Well, would YOU want to be a garbage man? They deserve the pay they get, if not more. Think about it -- a dirty, smelly job, that has a high risk of injury
I'll be flamed into oblivion for even suggesting this, of course, but I still say that many computer professionals are quite overpaid.
And you know what? Teachers aren't THAT horribly underpaid, either. I know; my father is one. And I somehow got through college with no student loans, and was given a car when I graduated.
Quite frankly, the people who are "in it for the money" are the LAST ones I want anywhere near my children, when I have them.
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
Quite simple, really. Frankly, it won't be the students who make the decisions about which schools they end up at. It'll be the parents. And that's a problem for two reasons:
:(
1. The students who want to be in the higher level school, even though the parents couldn't care less. Probably most likely to be a problem in the inner city -- IF the stereotype is correct, something I am not at all sure about. Likely to be somewhat of a problem anywhere with apathetic parents. (read: everywhere)
2. The parents who want their little darlings to have only the best, when said little darlings are apathetic at best and exactly what the school was designed to stop at worst. Remember "all the children are above average"? There are way too many parents out there who use their kids' accomplishments as their own pedestal.
And a bunch of kids who don't want to learn is exactly what you don't want in a school like this.
I like the principle of magnet schools, and we have a good program of them where I currently live (Rochester, NY), BUT it would be a Very Good Thing to somehow ensure that the student was making the decision about where to go, NOT the parent. And given that high school students are generally minors, I'm not sure that this will ever be guaranteed. More's the pity, too.
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
*raises hand*
...
... all of it was "school" for me. The down side was that most of the area homeschoolers fell into one of two camps, neither of which we fit: the "We are true Christians who don't want our kids taught *gasp* sex education!" camp, and what I called the "homeschooling anarchists" camp -- those who didn't seem to care if their kids EVER learned to, say, read. So, for various reasons, I decided I wanted to try going back to school. We sat down with the superintendent (who by now was a family friend) and that led to ...
... if you can't handle this, it's your problem." My best friend was thrown up against a wall by this person and told "I'm going to f**k you before I graduate if it kills us both." This is NOT just flirting, and yet it was blamed on the girl's perceived lack of social skills. I had a similar problem, went to talk to the aforementioned clueless counselor, and she broke confidentiality on me. The aforementioned jock spent the next few weeks threatening my life. NOTHING was done, even when this happened in front of teachers. And I had to see a lot of the person who was threatening me -- he was in choir, in band, and in the school play with me. I think it was one of the other actors who finally got him to leave me alone. Ironically enough, the same person who gave me all this trouble later defended me from some other folks who insisted on running their mouths at me.
...
...
;)
:) I've got a job, I've got a fellow-geek boyfriend (though I could just as easily have a girlfriend *grin* but I'm content), and I'm doing all right. The scars are there, but they aren't open wounds.
Hello, my name is A.J. and I'm a geek. I learned to read when I was two years old, I am decidedly unathletic (though that is improving a little now that I've discovered SCA fencing), and in a lot of ways I was a "mini-adult" starting when I was five or so. Recipe for instant disaster when attempting to mix with other kids. And did I mention that I was tall enough to tower over most of my class? That's no help, either.
My parents, and the local school system, tried every academic solution available, and nothing seemed to completely fix the problems I was having. Hellmouth didn't end for me until I started attending a state college at the age of not-quite-sixteen.
Here were the steps:
1. I went to a Montessori preschool and kindergarten. Problems galore here, much to everyone's surprise. My original preschool teacher decided I was autistic because I couldn't tie my shoes. She was later fired for cracking a ruler over some kid's head. Kindergarten was better but not great -- my teacher informed my mother that I knew all my vowels but not consenants because we hadn't learned them yet. At this point, I'd been reading for two and a half years!!
2. Catholic school, first and second grade. First grade was wonderful thanks to a teacher who understood what was up with me and let me read out of the fourth grade reading book. Second grade was horrible. The teacher once asked my mother, "Well, don't you want your daughter to be NORMAL?" She, having been the "class brain" herself, had the sense to respond: "NO! Not when normal is six hours of television a day!" This woman then became the principal, which led to
3. Homeschooling from 3rd-6th grade. This probably is what gave me something of a foundation of sanity. I was free to follow my interests: mathematical matrices, the history of France, environmental science, horseback riding, baking cakes
4. 8th-9th Grade: Public Jr-Sr Hellmouth. My experiences were textbook-case Hellmouth.
It started when I pulled an admittedly silly stunt to fit in, and indirectly caused a fistfight between two girls. I was considered "maladjusted" as a result, and sent to a counselor. She told me that sarcasm never solves anything, when it was the only defense I HAD against certain subsets of the school population. This woman did nothing to help my self-esteem, and actually made things worse. And, of course, gossip got around that I was talking to a counselor, which helped NOTHING.
Lots of other little (and not-so-little) incidents -- I nearly had my bike stolen by a bunch of guys higher on the social food chain, I had my French tests blatantly copied (and the teacher did nothing about it), and I had a choir director make my life miserable because I'm an alto and her definition of alto is "chicken soprano." She wouldn't let me try out for All-County Choir, and in a later competition, singing one of what would have been the tryout songs, I scored higher than someone who made the damn choir. Was I angry? You betcha.
Most significant of them all, a particular jock who was in 12th grade when I was in 9th, and decided that the 7th-9th grade girls were his harem. Only a couple of us "geek girls" complained about this, and the response? "He's just flirting
I'd had as much as I could take, and thankfully I had an out
5. A high school-college bridge program, housed at a private women's college. Here, I thought, there would finally be people like me. But "people like me" still turned out to be rare, and overall, the experience was a disappointment. The kids were bright, sure, but too many of them were also filthy rich and had the attitudes to match. To them, this was just a super-elite private school. One of them loved leaving little messages like "you should be dead, you f**king dyke!" on my dormroom answering machine. I knew who was doing it, but had no proof, and the administration there didn't believe me.
I was lucky there -- I did have wonderful teachers, and I got out of most of the "required" classes due to some summer coursework I had completed. The "traditional" college students were generally good to me, and I was able to "pass" as one of them most of the time, even though I was not-quite-14 when I started there. But eventually I decided enough was enough -- the teenage silliness of "I need a man!" got on my nerves, as did the drunken "men" who came to visit the dorm and pulled a water fountain out of the wall at 3 AM, flooding my entire floor and mildewing the lounge carpet. Also, the school's program in my area of interest was quite weak. It was time to move on
6. I transferred to a small-ish state college. This was good as well as bad. After a year of strangeness and only a few friends, I found "my" people. The Real Friends I'd been hearing about all my life. But this, too, had its downside. Since I enjoyed something of real popularity for the first time in my life, my academic life suffered for it. I didn't see it that way at the time (and part of the problem was my tendency to bite off more than I could chew), and I made it through without flunking out, but I wish I had "applied myself" a bit more. Too late now, of course.
I've been out of school for two years now, and I want to go back, if I can find a grad English program in the area that will have me.
I wish I could say that anything I experienced or didn't experience was the problem, but my parents certainly tried, many of the teachers tried, and nobody knew quite what to do with me. No blanket solution, or even combination, is going to "save" all the kids from having to go through this stuff.
If you are one of those kids: hang in there, it does get better. I do wish I'd had the Internet around when I was younger. It might have helped.
Since you've got it, use it wisely. Or something.
:)
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
Imagine my surprise while browsing through the Economist website (thankfully not one of those lousy American-based newshype magazines a la Time and Newsweek) I came across an article on the school shootings where Slashdot was mentioned and linked, too!e forall/current/index_us8244.html
Here's where it's at:
http://www.economist.com/2inDlU5S/editorial/fre
Going to high school was a daily chore for me. I dreaded setting foot inside the classroom. I was a typical geek, not goth, clean cut, I just didn't fit in. I had no-one to share my pain with. I had a few friends, but they were unable to comprehend what I was experiencing.
I was verbally abused by both students, and faculty. Publicly, privately, I once had a guidance counselor swear at me loudly. I didn't cause trouble, trouble just seemed to find me in the form of mindless twits with nothing better to do than cause me pain.
I spent four years in the worse hell imaginable, a prison of the mind, where my thoughts were filled with nothing but desire to run from the school and never look back. My grades suffered, my nerves shattered, and my self esteem shot, I managed to grauate 4 years later.
I do not mean to belittle what has occured in Colorado, or the various other schools that have been victim to the rampages of a few. The part that really disappoints me, is how quickly the media set forth on blaming everything material around them, instead of finding out if there was any kind of emotional reason for it.
Teachers do not care, no matter how much they claim to. I had teaches who told me they knew what the other classmates were doing to me, but they never lifted a finger. Yeah, great, talk about the problems besetting our kids, god forbid you actually try to help one of them. I am disgusted at how teachers only now care after something tragic happens. It is your job to make sure we are okay. You are there to teach us, to help us, and to make sure we do not harm ourselves or others. Any of you who claim it is not your job to do this are blind fools. If you were lieing, bleeding on the sidewalk, and a student of yours walked past you and said 'This isn't my job' would you forgive them?
If you don't care, get out of your job, because you do not belong there.
Shame on you, hopefully you will someday wake up.
And they are a GODSEND. I really do encourage you, if you are stuck in a regular public school, and think you can qualify, to get in one. But not everyone's grades are up to it.
On convincing school boards to implement magnet schools: It is going to be tough if the district doesn't already have them. You're going to hear comments like "elitist" and people are going to question why they need to spend money on such things, when they only benefit a small minority. School bureaucrats tend to be hidebound, and narrow minded, and very very much like the old Ma Bell - they don't care, they don't have to.
It's possible to do, just as it's possible to move the earth with a lever. But it will take you a lot of effort, and a lot of time. It's much easier to move yourself around, and change yourself than it will ever be to change them. My advice is to not even try.
If you don't have a magnet school in your district, you still have options. And this is where parents come in. If you think your parents are up to it, try dropping out and home school. But you really need the right kind (ie. not screwed up) of parent to pull this off. Most kids these days don't have very good parents, unfortunately. But go for it if you do.
Otherwise, your options are junior college and GED.
The main objective is to get that 4-year college degree. How you do it isn't too important. And it is possible to get there without attending a traditional, jock infested high school.
What is violence to you? Is driving someone to suicide violent to you? How many countless social outcasts have been driven to that point? When I was there [high school], only the hope that things would be different as an adult kept me alive. (I'm glad I made it.) Seems like the difference here is that these kids took a few of their persecutors with them. I feel bad for the parents, and for the kids who were just in the wrong place at a very wrong time. I honestly don't care about Katz' motivations-- his articles (and the many other /. topics) have helped me realize that the anger I thought I had supressed all these years was never far away, and this realization may help me truly put that period of my history behind me.
Perhaps you think I'm just some screwed up fuck who desperately needs some kind of counseling. I'm thinking you may be right. I wouldn't have thought so a month ago, but the scab is off-- seems the wound never healed-- and a community discussion is underway. And every community has its leaders.
Someone needs to be the advocate, the messenger, a leader. Why not him? Who else? You? Bah.
"There is a diminishing return on caution."
I think I understand the context of your objection, now. However, I don't see where /. is a forum for the events of Indonesia, Aceh, or East Timor. Most of /. readers are very personally affected by the Littleton tragedy, which makes this a perfect forum for venting our thoughts and feelings. So, don't be surprised that this is a hot topic here. The national press went a bit overboard, and certanly has lowered my opinion of their ability to understand the issues they are "reporting," but it's a shocking event that happened in someone's backyard-- and everyone wants to know how to keep it out of their own. As a parent, I have a deep worry for my preschool kids' future, and the Littleton shootings have every parent with teenagers on the edge of their seats. It's a flaw in human nature that we are most concerned with what affects us directly, but to say that there should be no venting forum anywhere because the world has deeper tragedies is silly. (Isn't that easily inferred from what you're saying?) Without a forum for intelligent discussion of this issue, it is doomed to repetition. How many high school kids have to die before it's worthy of your attention? Which forum is better for our discussion of this issue?
Katz is showing the problems that led to this tragedy from a perspective overlooked or unnoticed by most media, and I feel that he has done me a personal service for publishing the work that I've seen (though I'm unfamiliar with his earlier work.)
Why is the plight of East Timorians more topical than Geek persecution in this forum? Why shouldn't those of use deeply affected talk about it? Sure, "deeply" is relative for those of us so shallow as to think the Littleton shooting was newsworthy, but that shoe fits me, so I'll wear it.
Perhaps there is a different forum somewhere for you to talk about the plight of the inhabitants of Aceh (Acehians?) and still be on-topic but I'm pretty sure this thread isn't it.
"There is a diminishing return on caution."
[Reposted; sorry, I put it in the wrong place the first time]
An editorial in my local paper said that "We should be concerned about the anguish of non-conformists who feel harassed and humiliated." I immediately fired off an email pointing out that kids who are different feel harassed and humiliated because they ARE harassed and humiliated.
The columnist replied brightly that her daughter, an outgoing, happy high school senior, told her that students *don't* harass kids who are different (except boys who are thought to be gay). So there you have it. It's all in our minds. (Except for you boys who are gay or are believed to be gay. I guess the columnist doesn't think you matter. Sorry about that.) Gosh, I thought that other kids made my life a misery when I was in high school, and other kids are making your life a misery now, but no! They didn't! They aren't! A popular kid assures us this is true. I'm so happy now.
I of course suggested to the writer that perhaps she was consulting the wrong source.
I'm not going to go on and on about my own story, but some of it's really very similar. What I'm left wondering is....what has changed? Geez, I'm an old geeky 35 yr old now, and it sounds like when I was in school. The only really big difference is that now there are guns there. Weren't any when I went.
(Note: try going to school when you're a geeky, butch-looking, smart woman from a huge multiracial family living in a working class macho helltown. The jocks ruled. Very scary place. Yuck. No guns, just physical/sexual violence instead.)
Dutch TV would like to talk to school students in NY area about reasons behind school shootings. Students who wrote Jon Katz about it, who want to tell what's it like to be a non-conformist kid and be treated in an awful way because of that. Who want to explain cliques, importance of sports, money, background.
We come to where you are. Is for background story on the school shootings that will only be broadcast in the Netherlands. Please contact chrisveldkamp@yahoo.com
To fill you in on my current status, I'm a senior in high school and attend night courses at my local Governor's School, New Horizons Governor's School. NHGS just teaches science/technology classes. It's not a replacement for high school, just a place for higher education, I guess that's the term, for kids wanting to take higher math/science/technology courses than what their parent high school offers. I made it in to NHGS against most odds, I have a 2.6/4.0 GPA, made a 1170 or so on SATs, but I aced all of the tests they used to choose their students. Computers I can do, and do well, however you'll discover I won't ever major in English grammer :] .
/. so I'm not bothered by it yet).
Well, it turns out that the current teacher (replacing his wife while she's on leave to take care of newborn) of my "C/C++ in a UNIX Environment" class is also CEO of URLabs (www.urlabs.com). URLabs makes software that filters the Internet and is used largely by schools but also some large corporations I think. Personally, every school I've visited in the area uses it and it's also been used in some of the schools that have been involved in these shootings. Anyways.. he came into class one night and told us he'd like a few volunteers to test out I-Gear (their flagship program, the main Internet filtering program, and claimed to not have filter out the Internet and not prevent the Littleton incident. Cause we all know that the Internet, pornography, and DOO/V\ is to blame) and make sure they aren't "overlooking" anything and to prove that in general the program does filter out improper sites (hey, it still lets me go to
We were chosen because due to the fact that we attend NHGS for a computer/technology class, that we are the best in our area, for our age, at what we do.
Anyways, we went in to their office last Friday (which happens to be right down the street from NHGS, where he teaches us) to try and search out how to make/buy/build/assemble/blah/blah/etc weapons (bombs) and guns. So me and two other friends, from the same parent high school that attend C/C++ @ NHGS, went in to URLabs (we're minors, but had parental permission) to find "browse" the internet without the filtering system on. This Thursday we'll be going back in to do it all over again w/ the I-Gear system full operational and prepared to stop us at all costs. We were told that when we go back in, we'll be recorded by the company that handles URLabs' PR and most likely get splashed across the news (national and local). So, naturally I'll be sporting my "Linux \n Don't Fear the Penguins" tshirt and flip flops.
But on a more serious note, I was wondering if anyone has any advice for me. I'll be doing my best to get past their systems, but the ways I know of doing aren't possible from parent schools due to the fact that they block out telnet and other misc apps. So I'm not expecting much unless I stumble across something.
So, to those of you who took the time to read this article and even think about replying, "Thanks. I'm sorry this post was so long."
--Steve
Blessed be he who reads this post, Cursed be he who tells my boss.
Well, if you want to be technical, having real tastes, and interests, is a sure sign of non-confirmity/geekness. It's been a dozen years, but as I recall the members of the social butterfly cliques in my high school were conspicuous for their lack of any tastes of any kind whatsoever, a lack of any interests except sports (the males) and gossip (the females), and a lack of any semblance of anything which could be referred to as an individual personality. The best word to describe these people would have been: "interchangeable."
Things were this bad when I was in school, I graduated high school in '86. Actually, High School wasn't that bad, a 5 on a scale of 1-10, unpleasant, creating a lot of resentment, but tolerable. Now junior high was a consistent 8+; bad, really bad, every single day for three years.
High school was helped by the fact that 3 or 4 junior highs spilled into my high school, so there was a decent dilution factor there, plus the teachers and principal were competent (the only good teacher I had in junior high was a student teacher who taught my 8th grade English class for a quarter - pathetic, huh?) and I didn't have to deal with that god-awful and, as far as I can tell, totally incompetent social worker any more.
Things aren't any worse today, you just got lucky.
One of my oldest friends is a teacher. Last night she told me what's been going on in her school. Teachers are scared of the freaks, they are whispering about who to watch out for in the teachers lounge, and my friend spoke up and said "I was a goth. And a nerd. And miserable and suicidal because I wasn't doing what everyone else was doing. So I graduated, went to college and came to NY, and now you're telling me, that kids who are the way I was terrify you. I know plenty of goths, I've been to the clubs, and you couldn't find a group of more harmless people. It's just about sensuality. Wait, that scares you too." Her fellow teachers just looked at her in shock and horror anyway. How can it be that education these days is only for those that don't explore?
Anyway, I've got friends going to their local school board meetings, and writing their alma maters and spreading the word.
We will change this stuff.