The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth: Popularity, Quirk Theory, and Why Outsiders Thrive After High School

by Alexandra Robbins

  “That’s cool,” Mia said.

  For the final weeks of PE, Joy and Christine debated which sport to sign up for. Christine insisted they swim, even though Joy couldn’t swim well. As they handed in their choice cards among a swarm of students, Joy said, “Come on, let’s switch to dance.”

  “No, Joy!”

  Joy laughed. “You bitch! Please!”

  “Your mom,” Christine said.

  “You hobag!” Joy said.

  Lupe and Mia, who stood in front of them, turned around. “You curse now?!” asked Lupe.

  Christine laughed. “She always cursed.”

  “You’re different than I expected,” Lupe said.

  “I’m not that different,” said Joy.

  “Hey, so which activity are you doing?” Mia asked.

  “We’re doing swim,” said Joy.

  “Hey, me too,” Mia said. “We can talk.”

  “Of course!” Joy said.

  A SUBSTITUTE TEACHER WAS playing hip-hop music on the AP English teacher’s computer. The students couldn’t believe it. “He’s playing music! Is he allowed to do that?!” one student whispered.

  This quarter Joy’s assigned seat was by the door, behind a girl named Pooja, who kept turning around and glaring at Joy. Joy stared back. What’s she looking at? Joy thought. She was in a bad mood to begin with. In PE the day before, students on the opposing volleyball team decided the game would be more fun if they pegged the ball at Joy’s head. A skater had hit her, hard.

  Xavier asked the sub to play another song, but when the teacher realized the lyrics were explicit, he paused it. “I can’t play any songs that are dirty,” the sub said. “I’ll put on this one.” He turned on a Sean Paul song.

  Joy laughed. The sub had chosen a song containing multiple sexual references. “You just don’t think it’s dirty because you don’t understand Jamaican,” she said.

  “And you do,” the sub said sarcastically.

  “I think I would, since I’m from Jamaica.”

  “You’re from Jamaica?! That’s so cool,” the sub said. He asked her to recommend other Jamaican musicians.

  Joy spelled out names for the teacher. “E-t-a-n-a. There’s also Queen I-f-r-i-k-a.” The sub typed in the names but couldn’t find their songs.

  Joy thought of another. “Type in S-i-zed-zed-l-a.”

  Xavier turned around. “What’s a ‘zed’? Do you mean ‘zee’?”

  “Yes, that’s what I mean. Same difference,” said Joy.

  “Who the heck says ‘zed’?! So weird,” Xavier said. “Say ‘zee.’ That’s the correct pronunciation.”

  Joy bristled. “I don’t need to change my speech to accommodate you. I say zed, you say zee. Get over it!”

  The class quieted, watching Joy and Xavier like a tennis match. Sly mongrels want to suck up every last drop, Joy thought. The teacher observed silently.

  “You’re American now,” Xavier said. “Speak English.”

  “I am speaking English,” Joy retorted. “You’re so ignorant!”

  Xavier adjusted his glasses. Pooja twisted around in her seat, her fingers clutching the back of her chair. “What’s your problem?! Why do you hate everybody?” Pooja shrieked.

  I hate someone?! Joy thought. For God’s sake, I don’t even hate my father! On other days, Joy might have just brushed her off. But not today, she thought wearily. No sirree, not today. “I don’t hate anyone,” Joy snapped, reverting to her Jamaican accent. “I just have a problem with people like you!”

  As Pooja gasped, it sounded like the entire class held its breath. People didn’t speak to Pooja that way. The teacher finally stepped in. “You guys, relax. What’s going on? This is supposed to be a room full of positive energy and peace.”

  Joy, still fuming, raised her hand. “May I go outside?” she asked. As she left the room, she thought, If you want to talk to me, don’t insult my culture. Just talk to me. I know I’m outspoken, but I can be really sweet to you, if you don’t screw around with me.

  About ten minutes later, the sub came outside to check on her. “What was going on in there?” he asked.

  “Nothing, just a little blowup.”

  “You look really upset,” the sub said.

  “Yeah, that’s ’cause I am. I’m tired of having to change myself and my culture for these people.”

  “You shouldn’t change. It’s great that you’re from a different place!”

  Joy switched to her strong Jamaican accent, the one she took pains to disguise at school. When she was upset, she slipped back into it because it was easier to use her first dialect. “It might be cool to people who appreciate it, but I don’t like having to change my accent, or my letters, or anything about myself just ’cause others aren’t used to it.”

  “You see that right there? I love your accent! You know how many people wish they were Jamaican? That they were different? Just ignore it. People must like seeing you upset. I mean, I did,” he said.

  “I don’t normally let things get to me, but sometimes you need to put people in their place for them to understand, or to have an ounce of respect.” A tear rolled down Joy’s cheek. She hurriedly wiped it away.

  “I don’t understand why they behave like that,” the sub said. “They should be trying to learn more about your culture.”

  “That’s just how AP kids are. They believe they are elite. My mother always taught me that no matter how far you reach in life, no matter how intelligent you are, have respect for others and recognize that you’re equal to them. We never know, we might end up scrubbing their toilets,” Joy said.

  “Well, what you have right there is so cool, and no one else has it. You just be you, and love who you are,” he said. “Do you want to go inside?”

  “Thanks,” Joy said. “I think I’ll go inside and give them more to talk about.”

  When Joy returned to the room, Pooja again turned and glared. Joy ignored her.

  That afternoon, Joy’s biology teacher conducted an oral quiz. He kept picking on Joy specifically, asking her several questions before he’d asked other students one. Joy grew frustrated. “I don’t know,” she said.

  As the teacher strode down the aisle in the middle of the classroom, he said, “What’s wrong with Joy? Joy used to be the best. She used to be able to answer everything. Now she’s becoming like all the other Americans.”

  “She used to be the best,” a few students parroted, laughing. “Used to be.”

  He didn’t say anything about Joy’s classmates. The teacher had told Joy previously that he pushed her like that to motivate her. “Joy, you’re a smart girl, and I don’t do it to hurt your feelings,” he said once. “Sometimes you need to be pushed. You’re not second best; you’re the best! Plus, I like making you upset; it’s fun hearing you go back into your Jamaican . . . Mi irie, mon!”

  The teacher called on a few other students, then returned to Joy. When she didn’t know an answer, she said so, and the teacher resumed his banter. “What’s wrong with you, Joy? You becoming American or what?”

  Joy grew increasingly irritated, rapping her fingers against the desk. The teacher thought he was joking around, but Joy was angry. Although she liked America, she wasn’t American. She was Jamaican and proud! Why should she change for anyone?! Next to her, an abandoned textbook lay on the corner of an empty desk. Joy hit the book as hard as she could. The book dented. The class was shocked that Joy had hit the desk. She had never been physically violent before in her life. Joy felt better.

  That evening, Joy told herself that this was her home now and there was no going back, so she’d just have to make the best of it. “I recognized that I lost touch with myself because I wasn’t being the best me,” she said. “I was neglecting the very being that makes Joy Joy! I love myself and should try not to be cranky. I’ll return to my accent. I behave like a Jamaican. I stick to my roots and don’t try to conform to societal pressures. And if someone’s rude to me, I will put them in their place.”


  ______

  CONFORMITY IN SCHOOLS

  Amelia, an excellent student in southern Missouri, had a special relationship with her dad. When she was six years old, however, he died of brain cancer. Just before she began seventh grade, with her mother’s permission, Amelia dyed her blonde hair pink, which she called “the cancer color,” as a tribute to her beloved father. When she showed up for school, administrators sent her home. “You’re suspended until you change your hair,” they told her. The twelve-year-old was concerned about falling behind in classwork, but pledged to make her father proud by fighting to express her individuality. Only after the ACLU got involved did Amelia’s middle school revoke the suspension.

  Why would a school try to control the color of a student’s hair? Amelia’s principal told a local television station, “We want it to be equal for everybody, nobody getting any more attention than anyone else, and we just go on with the process of education.” Since when is equality identical to conformity?

  In the 1970s, fewer than 25 percent of U.S. residents lived in counties in which the presidential candidate won by a landslide. Thirty years later, that percentage had nearly doubled. Political partisanship, an example of the homogenization of U.S. communities, is also a force powerful enough to perpetuate sameness, politically and socially. The existence of political majorities deters minorities from voting, just as the preps’ perennial dominance of the student government at Whitney’s school caused most nonpopular seniors to skip the elections. But the impact doesn’t end there. Those voting minorities also withdraw from volunteering and other local social activities. The community loses exposure to diverse philosophies and consequently becomes more uniform. “What had happened over three decades wasn’t a simple increase in political partisanship, but a more fundamental kind of self-perpetuating, self-reinforcing social division,” Bill Bishop wrote in The Big Sort. “The like-minded neighborhood supported the like-minded church, and both confirmed the image and beliefs of the tribe that lived and worshipped there.”

  One might assume that the more educated a person, the less likely he will prefer such a narrow existence. University of Pennsylvania political science professor Diana Mutz’s findings illustrate a different reality: Well-educated Americans are the least likely Americans to engage in political discussions with people who hold different views. The higher the level of education, the more homogeneous the conversations. The people who experience the most diverse political networks are poor, nonwhite high school dropouts.

  At first glance, that finding doesn’t make sense. Aren’t schools supposed to enlighten students by teaching various manners of thought, problem-solving, and expression? They’re not, students say. Junior Beth Anne Katz wrote in a column for the Intelligencer Journal in Pennsylvania, “Elementary school taught us that variety is what makes the world beautiful. In high school, variety is weird and conformity is survival.”

  Schools are so focused on conformity that administrators panic over students who stray even slightly outside of the box. Across the country, for example, schools have squelched efforts to display cultural pride at commencement ceremonies. For American Indians, eagle feathers, imbued with deep spiritual meaning, are sacred, traditional gifts that honor accomplishments or sacrifice. In Oregon, a tribe member arrived at her high school graduation with eagle feathers sewn into her cap, feathers she had carried since age five. School officials plucked them off. An Idaho school removed a boy from his graduation procession because he wore an eagle feather. A Maryland school withheld a Cherokee student’s diploma to punish him for wearing a bolo tie—symbolic Native American formalwear—instead of a necktie. Schools are also punishing gender nonconformity. Examples abound of administrators suspending crossdressers, with an Atlanta school going so far as to tell a student that he had two choices: dress more “manly” or stay home.

  But the issue of conformity in schools concerns much more than appearances. The overemphasis of standardized tests forces teachers to teach the same restricted, uninventive curriculum. Longtime educator Brent Evans has said that today’s schools are organized as assembly lines, “(running at a set speed) and with each worker (teacher) at designated places (grade levels) on the assembly line performing predetermined actions on products (students) considered to be somewhat generic (one-size-fits-all) and passive (waiting to be filled or formed to the desired shape).”

  That this assembly-line metaphor is used frequently makes it no less apt. Marketing expert Seth Godin told Psychology Today, “The school system was invented by industrialists, and its only function was to train people to work in factories. When you slap on top of it standardized testing and No Child Left Behind, what you are left with is a system optimized for compliance—the opposite of what we need. What we need to teach is how to solve interesting problems.”

  As schools whitewash their populations into a sterile sameness, creativity fades. Schools impose a hierarchy on subjects, with unequal credit requirements for arts, sciences, humanities, physical education, languages, and mathematics. Rather than using interdisciplinary curricula designed to encourage learning related to students’ interests, skills, and learning styles, many schools overlook the fact that not all students learn best the same way.

  Schools’ prioritization of conformity over creativity is a global problem. In 2009, two schools in Ireland were sanctioned for discriminating against boys by suspending them for coming to school with hair that fell past their collars. One of the schools hired a barber to measure; one boy violated the dress code by only an inch. The school refused to lift the suspension. The Toronto Star reported on a Canadian school system that “values conformity and control” and in which “many get suspended simply for opposing authority.” (A professor who works with at-risk youth said, “That’s sort of like saying, ‘Okay, we’re suspending you because you’re fifteen.’ ”)

  A Scottish health services report cited a study illustrating that children’s “capacity for divergent thinking (a good proxy for creativity and imagination) declines steadily from 98% at age 3-5 to just 2% at age 25 as we progress through the education system,” leading the report’s author to conclude, “We teach conformity.” In England, a government-commissioned study found that British schools were extinguishing the creativity of students and teachers alike. Sir Ken Robinson, a former arts education professor who chaired the inquiry, said, “All children start their school careers with sparkling imaginations, fertile minds, and a willingness to take risks with what they think. Education is the system that’s supposed to develop our natural abilities and enable us to make our way in the world. Instead it is stifling the individual talents and abilities of too many students and killing their motivation to learn.”

  In response, the British government implemented Creative Partnerships, a program designed to focus on creative learning by partnering schools with creative professionals including artists, performers, multimedia developers, architects, and scientists. The program was so successful that England’s Art Council allocated £75 million (more than $90 million) to create a new national organization called Creativity, Culture, and Education, to operate from 2009 to 2011.

  Meanwhile, U.S. students acutely feel the effects of a system whose priorities fall on the opposite end of the spectrum. “School doesn’t encourage creativity and imagination,” said a Texas freshman. “I think this is why lots of creative-type people, like musicians and artists, are sometimes seen as outcasts. If you don’t behave like everyone else, most likely you’ll be an outcast.”

  Student populations blatantly conform their clothing, hair, and other features. A Florida senior noted that, “All the girls fake tan, and you know when a dance or big party is coming because the whole school is orange.” Several redheads told me they were picked on merely because of their standout hair color.

  Many teens feel pressured to match an ideal body type. A freshman boy in Georgia said, “Right now, my forearms are about as big as my biceps, because I run and don’t work out. I look around an
d see all these big guys walking around school and there’s definitely pressure to look ripped, because when you’re small, you’re usually labeled as a nerd.” An Indiana thirteen-year-old added that students are much more likely to pick on boys who are underweight than overweight.

  Cliques of girls tend to share levels of depression and self-esteem, as well as body mass index. In the first study to examine eating disorders within friendship groups, psychologists discovered that cliques of high school sophomores shared extreme weight-loss behaviors, body-image concerns, and dietary restraints. The researchers could even predict a girl’s rate of extreme weight-loss behaviors simply by gauging the rates of other girls in her group. “I’ve struggled with anorexia and bulimia since eighth grade and that’s not even rare,” a semi-popular Maryland senior said. “I’ve gone into the bathroom towards the end of lunch to fix my makeup and heard girls vomiting in the stalls. And no one talks about it, ever. Because that would be abnormal, and no one can afford to be that.”

  Conformity is a mask behind which students can hide their identity or the fact that they haven’t yet figured out their identity. “I disguise how little of a life I have outside of school by wearing cute, fancy, expensive clothes,” said a Texas sophomore. “I pin myself as a ‘mess in a dress’ because although I look pretty on the outside, I feel awful on the inside.”

  More troubling than accessories that can be removed at will are group standards for attitudes and behavior that can’t be so easily changed. Students in gangs, for example, might be pressured to fight or to act belligerently in school. In a group discussion, several minority students from various states told me that they felt they had to “act white” to be accepted by teachers and administrators.

  Other students repeated the sentiments of a New York junior, who said that in her school there’s an unspoken rule prohibiting frequent class participation. “In math, someone told my friend that I ask too many questions and that I’m a bitch trying to be a teacher’s pet. I asked two questions that day. Now I don’t even bother raising my hand.”