America Needs Its Nerds Summary

In Grant Penrod’s essay called Anti-Intellectualism: Why We Hate Smart Kids he starts by talking about his high school football team and that they won the championship again this year. He says the speech and debate team also won the championship this year. The football team continues to receive mass amounts of praise and attention even after their win, while on the other hand the academic teams that won receive miniscule amounts of recognition. The academic teams might get a shout out at the end of an assembly, but never the amount of praise that the football team receives. The educated kids have the label of nerd and with this label; social norms become more difficult for them. Penrod says that even celebrities make it look like dropping out

The passage "America Needs Its Nerds" is by Leonid Fridman. Leonid explains that America needs more nerds and geeks. The author uses strong words in the passage. Such as "rampant, ostracized, idolized" etc.. The words he uses to explain that nerds and geeks have it the hard way.

Fridman, an activist in the fight to revive the “nerd”, gives real world examples and comparisons to help develop his argument that America needs nerds. In his piece Fridman writes this,

“America Needs Its Nerds” by Leonid Fridman proposes a relevant issue that the intellectually gifted students are being ostracized in today’s society. Fridman argues that nerds and geeks need to stop being ashamed of themselves. He develops these arguments by using the rhetorical strategy of parallelism, making comparisons, utilizing diction and irony. Fridman uses parallelism through his sentence structure and in the progression of the essay.

Let me start off by saying this reading really opened up my eyes. It’s crazy that there is so much that comes into consideration when being apart of a society. High school is a big part of many people’s lives, they need to make it out big in the hallways. This means that people will do anything in their power just to fit in with the “cool kids”. In reality there is such a thing of a higher status and a lower status, but the fact that in high schools it’s a huge problem is sad. When I was in high schools, which wasn’t that long ago, this was a big problem. People needed to have the hottest clothes, shoes, phones, and music, in order to just be recognized. The funny thing is was that, the “nerds” were very high in demand as well. The cool kids wanted to be on their side as

In “America Needs Its Nerds” by Leonid Fridman, he shows his concerns of social acceptance. Fridman’s purpose is to reconstruct social acceptance and emphasize how intelligence is necessary to be a world-class power through a matter-of-fact tone that proves there is no better choice to all social classes.

Fridman described the way nerds are seen “ ostracized”, meaning banish or outcast to identify the social role a nerd is. In other words, nerds are view as a discrimination. Fridman, later on, reveals that being smart can change your status from cool to loser/outcast. He introduces to the reader’s that in U.S elementary school’s, is where it all begins (when people are starting to label other’s), clarifying that it starts on an early age. Then it leads up to high schools to college. Fridman reveals, when a book is chosen over an activity, your put in a group call “ social outcast”. People also state that books can be a problem to their communication with other

America needs its nerds Leonid Fridman draws attention to the priorities that the American society has put into place.as of today America puts constant infacest on athletics and not enough on the intellectually curious. As of today, America is in a constant race with other countries to be the most technologically advanced and in a battle with japan to have the best economy. Fredman develops the argument of American society needing to shift our focus on kids’ academics so America can remain a world class power.

Education in America is not as valued nationally as the current culture wants the societies of the world to think. There are occupations that are valued above educators, but our civilization wants to imply that our educational system is well advanced and tries to emphasize that we are a country of well-educated people. Unlike in Leonid Fridman’s “America Needs Its Nerds,” and Benjamin R. Barber’s “America Skips School”. Everywhere in this country we hear the government say how our schools are the future of this country, but if we listen carefully we will hear little in our civilization over education financially and how poverty mixes in with this issue.

In the article “America Needs Its Nerds” by Leonid Fridman, the author is trying to inform his audience about how the US has a lack of support for the extremely smart, and driven people that want to learn and don’t have to be forced. While some of America is acting like the extremely intelligent are different, but in a bad way and should be socially outcasted. It actually should be the other way around. Americans shouldn’t mock or bully the people that strive to learn they should treat them as they would want to be treated. When those people grow up they will most likely be the ones to help America thrive and prosper.

Since (put a time), the media has tainted the idea of obtaining a good education in America. If there is someone who enjoys school and learning, then they are considered a nerd or someone who is not conventionally looked as a cool kid. Contrastingly, the media conveys the message that if someone does not like school, or at least pretends to not like it, then they are perceived as a cool kid. America’s media system has continually deterred our children from going to school by praising popular and mainstream things that are against the idea of school. An example of such a thing is the movie, Ferris Bueller’s day off. What is seen as a classic American comedy, has an undertone that bashes the practice of going to school. From the boring teacher in the beginning of the film, to the principle representing the antagonist of the story, this movie sends the message to adolescents that the authority figures in life are harmful rather than supportive and uplifting. Nevertheless, the media is not the sole source of this problem. The American Government should be held accountable for some of these problems that need to be addressed.

In the world of academia, from Graff’s perspective, street smarts are associated with anti-intellectualism. Graff states “we associate the educated life, the life of the mind, too narrowly and exclusively with subjects and texts that we consider inherently weighty an academic.” He argues that educators should broaden their aspect of material they once preserved as inefficient. Graff implies that a person who is studious enough can find substance in any content. He reasons that intellect can be uncovered and observed in various forms, hence the name “hidden intellectualism.” He suggests that the Education system overlooks the interest of the students because they consider their interest irrelevant.

In the passage taken from “America Needs its Nerds” by Leonid Fridman, the author gives examples of how our society compares to others, regarding how they successfully treat intelligence as a gift, and we treat intelligence as a social inormality, ostracizing our nerds. He uses examples from schooling in America to universities in East Asia, to just different amounts of respect shown to different occupations (such as a university professor), in East Asia vs. America.

In Hidden Intellectualism by Gerald Graff, he begins with the argument of “street-smarts” versus “school-smarts”. Graff explains that school-smarts can be hidden within street smarts and can be learnt through not just talking with friends, but also from the media and our surroundings, hence the “hidden” intellectualism. He goes onto explain that “schools and colleges overlook the intellectual potential of street-smarts” (198) because these types of intellectualism are actually considered anti-intellectualism. Graff then begins to discuss that intellectualism is often looked down upon within schools, and people that are considered “school-smart” are seen as nerdy, or boring. We learn that as a child, Graff was afraid of bullying and

Human brains are programmed with a need to be accepted and not overlooked. Subsequently, it’s not a factor people can usually ignore. Fridman makes comparisons in which nerds, “prefer to build model airplanes rather than get wasted at parties with their classmates, become social outcasts” (Fridman 14). His comparison associates with the individual’s interest that represents social acceptance. Next, Fridman proceeds to explain the social insecurities of “refusal to conform to society’s anti-intellectual values” (Fridman 15). He implies ethos in the example that from a young age kids are forced to look at what is usually socially accepted, and then expected to try and follow others accepted qualities.