"Skip the idiot steps" Bad Teacher stories.

[davsand]

25. If "fitting in" means acting dumber than you are I'd rather be a pariah.

Maybe that is part of my problem in life, but I have NEVER understood the idea that you have to function at a lower level just to please the less intelligent. It has always seemed to me that if I was somehow "too intelligent" for the company I was keeping I probably needed to be running with another crowd.

Girls, especially, have been conditioned for a long time to dumb it down so as to not scare off the boys. Also, there's somehow a pressure on women, in general, to defer to others that you perceive to be in power. Must be a flaw in my upbringing, because I was taught a long time ago to just do my own thing and if it bothers anybody they can avert their eyes. You can't lord it over anybody that you have gifts, but you sure aren't doing yourself or anybody else any favors to deny it. When you are gifted in any way you need to celebrate that, and USE those gifts to their highest good. I'll grant you, you have to listen to learn, and nobody can know everything. Much beyond that, however, is something I call bullshit.

I was raised by a kick ass woman, and I have tried very hard to instill those same values in my own daughter. Right now (at 15) she's interested in a career in bio-engineering or medicine. Where she'll end up is any body's guess, but lord help anybody that I find out is telling her she CAN'T do something--because that child has the brains and the ability to do what she pleases. She's what I call a "triple threat" because she's smart and funny, she's kind, and she's beautiful.

Pisses me off that some in the current "education" system don't GET that.



Laura