Some people are just pushovers, and it is readily detected in more aggressive individuals. The more someone rolls over and takes the abuse, the more it emboldens others because now they know they can get away with it.
Honestly I don’t think this neccessarily has to do with being smart because I knew bullies that were straight-A students. It has to do with being assertive/dominant vs passive/submissive.
I think that in school, there is this social pressure to be defined in some way. Sometimes when someone is picked on, its just easy for them to settle into that role and accept it. The more time that goes by, the harder it is for them to change.
My school did have seperate academic classes like math or English based on ability/grade level and regular and AP classes for English, social studies, and science, but no effort at all was made to seperate gym classes (other than by sex). Every class contain a random mixture of freshmen, sophmores, & seniors (ranging from 13-19 yrs) with no seperation by ability. Now the *extracuricullar *sports were seperated by age & ability; varsity & junior varsity plus the fact that students had to try out just to get on them.
Our classes were separated as well but there were still cases where I was talking to a friend in the hallways about their difficulties in Algebra II while I was taking Pre-calc. On the other hand, while I was playing DII football I never talked to someone who was playing DI A ball. Academically there is only so much separation possible while in sports people are separated by talent level.
P.E. is a different issue, art classes are separated by talent either all of the minor classes people are lumped together without distinction and teachers do their best to teach to the middle. It is only the personality of the people who are drawn to teach each that makes P.E. more competitive. I got to watch talented artist get complimented every day while the teachers ignored my crap. I also got to take Spanish I with several native speakers and it was only my inability to continue on to harder classes that separated me from them it didn’t stop there from being chuckles as I tried to pronounce words in class.
The risk of humliating an opponent is an inherent one in competitive arenas, which is why there are protocols around sportsmanship and common courtesy.
But virtually all sports are naturally competitive. Nobody really participates in sports in a vacuum. Even practice (rallying in tennis, practicing shooting hoops, playing catch) will usually eventually evolve into something more because most people practice because they want to be good for competitive encounters.
But the number of competitive venues for academics are much fewer and far between. Debate competitions. Academic Leagues. Vying for valedictorian. They do happen, but they are still largely the exception and not the rule–most people don’t try for good grades to best someone else, but because they recognize the importance of education and self-improvement.
That’s why it’s far douchier to rub people’s faces in your “brainy” achievements–because most people who are doing homework or trying to graduate or earn an advanced degree don’t see it as a competition. They simply see it as a sign of individual achievement, using their own set of standards for “success”.
Sports (not just P.E.) is always voluntary. School is not. Some people are natural grade-earners and some people aren’t, but everyone still has to comply with a standardized system of evaluation. But outside of jerkwad teachers and overzealous parents, few adults try to pit students against each other in competition based on those scores; the emphasis is on doing well, not being “the best”.
Of course, that doesn’t stop some of the more immodest smartypants from making it their goal in life to lord over their “inferiors” in those departments. But unlike a sports league or game tournament, most students don’t see their academic efforts through that prism of competition. Which is why turning it into one makes you that bigger of a jerk for doing so.
I think the OP is correct. Academic all-stars and star athletes are both born AND made. In other words, the natural gift is there and is nurtured. No matter how much I practice, I’ll never be Serena Williams. She’s a natural athlete; I’m not. There are several theories of giftedness which also recognize that genius is inherent, yet nurtured. I think we can all agree to this?
Athletic giftedness, however, is more socially acceptable than intellectual giftedness. In fact, I’d say that athletic giftedness is the ONLY form of giftedness that is truly supported and admired. In our schools, athletic programs are probably the ideal gifted program: special teachers (coaches) are hired, expensive equipment is purchased, and sufficient campus space is devoted. The gifted students (athletes) are given individualized attention and training, they’re able to spend large amounts of time with peers who are similarly gifted, they are encouraged and rewarded to do their very best, and they are given the opportunity to travel to other schools to complete with other talented individuals.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we devoted that much money, resources, and time to our intellectually gifted students?
Buffett, Gates, and Jobs are all highly sought after for their opinions - on the economy, the evolution on computing, the financial climate of the US, etc. You don’t hear people asking Paris Hilton about the same things (at least, not in any serious in-depth way).
For a rough illustration, I typed in Bill Gates under Google news. Some of the articles that pop up are:
Those aren’t articles about the latest cars Gates is buying with his wealth. They are seeking his knowledge on some of the current macro topics facing our nation.
One factor is that learning really requires an atmosphere of trust. In order to really push your brain into places it has never been before, you need to be willing to open yourself up to new ideas and question that assumptions that you have been making your entire life. This makes you vulnerable- which is not a state you are going to let yourself enter if you are being heckled.
Students will certainly harass each other if the opportunity presents itself. One of the jobs of a teacher is to diffuse that energy and direct it towards learning.
We do. It’s called academic decathalon. Model UN. Advanced placement courses. Merit-based scholarships. Fellowships. Research grants. Nobel prizes. Pulitzer prizes. Etc.
I might have overshot with my examples of the prizes if we are limiting it to students, but the point still stands. There are plenty of resources for the intellectually gifted among us.
I suppose you could also ask why a guy throwing or kicking a ball around a field gets a stadium full of cheering support, but a student completing an essay or thesis gets no interest from anyone.
Or why, if both of them follow on to relatively successful careers (i.e. sports star and academic) there will be such a huge disparity between salaries and general social recognition.
I think, to answer the O.P., that the reason is that intelligence is inherent whereas fitness comes as a result of training.
But of course everyone is supposed to be equal, so we get all the little balancers such as A is "better educated "then B, the inference from this being if only B had been given the same educational opportunities as A then he/she would be as intellecuatley developed as A.
Of course, laziness and motivation aside this doesn’t explain why those identically educated are often not identical when it comes to intellectual performance.
The other balancers are that everyone is differently abilitied.
i.e. C may be functionally illiterate but he makes up for it by being a brilliant carpenter.
Unfortunately this theory doesn’t prove to be true in the real world either, inspite of the triumphalism of those who when they actually discover someone of high intelligence who is lacking in some other field.
When I and others passed the competative entry exam to attend a Grammar school rather then less academic institutions, there were a lot of hurt feelings and a sense of unfairness amongst not just the kids who failed but, their adult families.
The reason being that if you were funtionally literate, numerate and scored high on I.Q. tests then you should be at the very least, wimps, and easy to beat up.
Is this really that hard to figure out? Sports are vastly more interesting to watch than a guy writing an essay.
Similarly, the pay disparity is easily explained: Wayne Rooney brings in millions in sponsorhip, TV rights and other fan monies for his club. His playing career will last approximately 15-18 years, in which time there’s a small chance that it could be ended early by a “horror tackle”, or some other injury. Finally, once his career is up, what is he supposed to do? His whole life has been centred on sport, at the expense of other forms of education. He’s virtually unemployable in any other capacity, apart from going on to coach a football team, or commentate on TV, both professions which only a few ex-footballers can enter each year.
If you want to attract talent, you have to pay well. Especially so when the average working career of a sportsman is twenty years at the most.
Yes, and then we could discuss which one is more interesting to watch. Not that I’m denying the fact that athletic achievement does get more social recognition. It does. Sports is a lot more likely to be part of father-son bonding from an early age than research is, and it’s easier for more people to relate to athletic achievement.
I’d like to run with just this one part of the OP. There clearly ARE different standards of behavior at the high school and college levels for teachers vis-a-vis coaches towards their students/“student-athletes.”
The question is, why? I remember one time when my (college) students had collectively sucked on a test that I felt I’d prepared them well for. A football or basketball coach could have thrown a chair in a locker room after his team embarrassed itself on the playing field; that one particular morning, I wished that, after handing out the tests, I could have thrown a chair in the classroom. Instead, I told them that if I had the freedom that a coach did, I would be throwing a chair right about then.
Makes me wonder, if a teacher did throw a chair in a classroom at a high school or college where the coaches occasionally did the same thing, and the administration tried to sanction him because of it, would he be able to make any hay out of the uneven enforcement of that standard?