That’s “bad teaching” not “bad book”. I’m all for eradicating bad teaching. 
That was not my experience growing up in Texas in the 70s and 80s. The smart kids were often the popular kids. Graduating in the top 10 was a big deal at my school. Honors classes were cool, and you saw athletes, student council leaders, cheerleaders, etc. in them.
I never knew of any bullying happening to the smart kids at my school.
@Nrdsb4 That was not my experience either. I went to a large, well known California public school; my kids to a diverse (racially and economically) urban public in Colorado. In both schools academics and school-related accomplishments were valued and admired.
I think that you were really lucky in the school you attended. I know a good number of “nerds” whose high school experience in the 1970s was very different. The fact that nerds were portrayed negatively in almost every movie or TV show of the 1970s into the end of the 1980s, and then the popularity of movies along the lines of “the Revenge of the Nerds”, “Weird Science”, even “War Games”, demonstrates both the treatment of these kids as well as their own perception of themselves.
Even researchers looked down on nerds as late as the early 1990s: “From Nerds to Normals: The Recovery of Identity among Adolescents from Middle School to High School” (https://www.jstor.org/stable/2112783). The article talks about how nerds were able to overcome their awful Nerd condition and become “Normal”, as though being a nerds was some pathological condition, like anxiety or depression.
An interesting read as to how nerds were perceived and treated (including the bullying) is here: “Nerds and Freaks: A Theory of Student Culture and Norms” (https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/20067256.pdf)
I don’t think it’s uncommon to assign summer reading without an accompanying guide or questions to ponder. Some do, some don’t. I don’t recall any “assignment” related to War & Peace, other than to read it. I believe we assumed any punchline (some learning related to the reading) would come later, be discovered in September.
I do think it’s iffy to tie a love of reading to possible bullying. Then or now. Reading, outside class assignments, is a very easy activity to keep private, if a kid has those concerns.
Of course, you want to find others, who love it as you do. But high school is so full of its own ups and downs, you just keep moving through it.
One of mine has a newish friend who claims to have never read a book for pleasure. That’s a shame. But I can’t fault some teacher for personal choices made well outside the class context.
Judy Blume, Madeleine L’Engel, Robert Cormier, Paul Zindel, Lois Lowry, Katherine Paterson, SE Hinton, Paul Zindel, Paula Fox, Scott O’Dell, William H. Armstrong, CS Lewis, Frances Hodgson Burnett… We had plenty of good YA literature.
I gobbled down the series that started with “The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe,” “A Wrinkle in Time,” and anything by Judy Blume. And it wasn’t all preachy kid lit. “Go Ask Alice,” anyone?
Some of my kids’ favorite lit has been old stuff. One of my kids uses the phrase, “Stay gold Ponyboy” and listed their favorite MS book as “To Kill a Mockingbird.”
I’m really impressed with the amount of service and social activism in this generation. My gen. might have done an occasional weekend of “community service” but we really didn’t embrace doing work in the community the way a large proportion of this generation does.
@aquapt says “The one thing that continually puzzles me is the way these “digital natives,” who have grown up with a portal to all the world’s knowledge in their pockets, seem to have so much more difficulty finding needed information than those of us who acquired the same tools later in life. It’s a continual refrain that college-aged young people insist that some crucial piece of info cannot be found, and the parent is back five minutes later with said information in hand. I don’t know what that’s about, as I would have expected the skill-differential to tilt the other way. Maybe it’s a product of information overload?” (wish I knew how to copy correctly)
I find this to be the case quite frequently. Although no data to confirm, I’m certain it has a lot to do with little attention to detail and massive multitasking that causes attention deficit. Also I find with social media, they are in such a hurry they don’t really read, but rather scan, so they miss a lot of the detail. Actually think it’s a real problem.
I find this to be the case quite frequently. Although no data to confirm, I’m certain it has a lot to do with little attention to detail and massive multitasking that causes attention deficit. Also I find with social media, they are in such a hurry they don’t really read, but rather scan, so they miss a lot of the detail. Actually think it’s a real problem.
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quote button in the lower left hand corner of a post.
I find this increasingly commonplace along people of my generation as well, though. We see it here on CC all the time. Reading comprehension seems to be declining.
You are equating “nerds” and “smart.”
The “nerds” at my school weren’t necessarily smart (I don’t even like that word, but it’s what is being discussed here).They typically were kids who were socially awkward, not always practicing good hygiene, etc. At my particular school, “nerds” tended to be in ROTC, wore the stereotypical high water pants and white socks, kept their hair very short when the style was wings and big hair. They weren’t outgoing or particularly active in school. They weren’t in Honors classes and only one graduated in the top 10, a very big deal at my school. The only other really nerdy kid I knew who was really smart was actually pretty well liked. He had a good personality, was in band, and everyone knew his dad made him dress very conservatively. His dad made him have a flat top haircut when it was the exact opposite look most young men were sporting, and he wasn’t allowed to wear clothes that were in style at the time.
Many of the really smart kids at my school were quite popular, the antithesis of “nerdy.” As I mentioned before, it was seen as "cool’ to be in Honors classes. I was in Honors classes, and while I wasn’t in the most “popular” crowd, I had classmates in those Honors classes who were athletes, cheerleaders, student leaders, etc. I was in band, which at my school also wasn’t considered “nerdy,” as many of the same student leaders played in the band.
How my school may have differed from many was that even the “nerds” weren’t bullied. The popular crowd at my school were pretty nice to people. I don’t remember a mean girl or a mean crowd such as you see in films. Of course people had their cliques with whom they spent most of their time, but it didn’t feel mean spirited to me at all. You had the “populars,” the choir kids, the band kids, the Ag kids, the Drama kids, and the kids who smoked/experimented with drugs beyond alcohol (but who just kind of laid low and went their own way for the most part). But even within those cliques, there was crossover with many of the popular/smart kids. I was shy and didn’t seek out attention/acclaim/leadership, but I had a great friend group in band and had a very happy high school experience.
My friends from high school got together last summer for dinner and we were remarking on how lucky we were to go to school with so many nice kids. The culture there was really positive over all, though I’m sure there were kids who didn’t have as happy a life as I did. But I saw no overt meanness at my school, much less bullying of smart kids, who as I mentioned, were not “nerds.”
The idea that digital natives cannot find information is the very antithesis of my experience. I can’t tell you how often we look stuff up for our parents when they supposedly can’t find anything or how many times we go and book something online because they can’t figure out how to use the forms.
We know how to find info. We know how to parse through real vs fake information.
On the other hand, as my IT friends can tell you, almost all of their minor problems come from older folks who can’t figure out basic tech issues. Millenials? We’ll google it on our phones and replicate it on the computer.
I’m sorry but I don’t buy the idea that reading comprehension has decreased. And there’s not really a way to measure that.
There IS however a way of measuring whether or not people can pick out real information from fake. And in that metric, studies show older folks failing massively compared to young people.
https://www.businessinsider.com/baby-boomers-more-likely-to-share-fake-news-on-facebook-study-2019-1
Purely anecdotally, nearly all of the falsities that have been fed to me during my pregnancy have been from older men and women. Younger women are much more likely to look to studies rather than relying on old wives tales.
I can’t tell you the number of older people who have yelled at me for using caffeine despite the fact that study after study after study shows moderate caffeine use is perfectly fine. When I present them evidence, they refuse to accept it.
My millenial kids went to an all girls private school that prides itself on sending its graduates to top schools. Not being considered smart would be a bad thing there.
I’ll have to ask my kids if their friend groups like to read.
I just thought that this was appropriate for the thread: https://lithub.com/in-2019-more-americans-went-to-the-library-than-to-the-movies-yes-really/?fbclid=IwAR3pSFXVhmqqDJUK2h6RAVxuJm68XuqbD5zfOaXC0KB8IJOM1s4CTHyI4es
I have overheard some of my same age or older nursing colleagues tell a young pregnant woman that she is carrying high, so that means it’s a girl. NURSES.
I think I told you about a nurse in the ER last year (two years ago?) who told my dad that she thinks you can get the flu from the flu shot, didn’t I?
It’s been over a year and I’m still gobsmacked over it. I had been in a car accident (was fine, just went in out of caution since I had whiplash) and had to give her a lecture on it because I was just not OK with letting it go. I had had a bad day (obviously) and that was my last straw.
Oh and the guy that hit me was an older fellow. On his phone. And I was in a dead stop in traffic and he… was not. So lucky for me, I got to watch the whole thing in what seemed like slow-motion through my rear window.
@Nrdsb4 - your HS class sounds a lot like mine.
Anecdotes are fine, but I am sure there are ignorant and/or stupid nurses (and doctors and all other occupations) at any age.
Unfortunately there are also anti vax nurses. They are a clear minority relative to all nurses, but there are a lot more of them than you would imagine.
My example of reading comprehension and gen z:
I send a text
“Dinner is at my house at 5:00. Please come at 4:30 to set the table and bring your moms dessert.”
Reply
“Ok, my mom wants to know if we’re bringing anything”
See above
“What time should we be there?”
See above
“What time are other people coming”
Omg child read my entire text you are wasting my time.
I have had that conversation with multiple kids multiple times. They do not read carefully. AT ALL.
I think I landed on a different planet. My kids, 23 and 24, love reading. The Odyssey was one of my daughter’s favorite books in high school. She wrote out excerpts and taped them all around her room, and her yearbook quote was from that work. My son adores Shakespeare. He’s also a screen addict, which I think is typical of his age group, and is always encouraging us to read new material from the internet.
I work with middle and high schoolers at my church, and although this is a very small sample, I love these kids. They are thoughtful and kind and intellectually engaged.
Wow, I wish that had been my experience growing up in Texas in the 70s and 80s. I was definitely bullied occasionally. It was not cool to be one of “the brains.”