Re: [tlug] [OT] Raising a geek (was: Interesting Hans Reiser article in Wired)

["emiddleton@example.com" <emiddleton@example.com>]

Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
>  > [Tell him] that other kids who are not themselves different are
>  > jealous of his intelligence.
>
> No, they're not.  They may envy his grades (or the preschool
> equivalent), but I doubt they envy him.  The point is that unless a
> person is already different in this way, they simply don't understand
> it well enough to want more of it than they already have.  It's a
> qualitative difference, not a quantitative one.
>   

Both my parents were teachers.  I when to a fairly rough public primary
school, and a fairly sports dominated private boys high school.

To be honest I don't think most bullying involves personal feelings for
the victim.  It comes from personal insecurities about the bully being
different.  The classic case being the rugby thug beating up effeminate
male students because of insecurities he feels about his own sexual
orientation.  This is why having friends who support you and having some
environments were people respect you is important.  You can obviously go
too far in protecting your child and then have them run into trouble
when they move out of your protected environment, latter in life, but it
is important to have some environments where they can be them self.

The biggest bullies at my high school were probably the geek minority. 
I remember the only time I was really threatened  was by a student (who
I latter found out had been beaten by his parents) because I got a
perfect score on an exam were the next best mark was 50%.

Edward