Quote:
Originally Posted by E. Wood
I too do not consider myself a "nerd". Sure, I have what you may call "nerdy" moments and be an engineer by trade but this does not automatically make me a nerd. I believe that FIRST students can be very creative, bright students but to call us all "nerds" is unfair. That is a title that must be accept and carried by each individual person. If you want to be a nerd, good for you, there is nothing wrong with that, but some of us have other titles in mind for ourselves.
|
The trouble with the "nerd" label is the same as the trouble with any label (think "jock," "learning disabled," "ADD," "goodie two-shoes," "communist"): they obscure the real, individual people they are applied to.
Part of FIRST's mission is encouraging kids to move away from the culture where kids inordinately look up to music/sports stars. It's trying to break the culture where the most athletic/social students are often considered the "elite" and the more intellectually-/mechanically-/technically-/whatever-inclined are lower on the totem pole. But it must be very careful to avoid encouraging the "nerds" to form cliques of their own. Society needs all types, and I feel that FIRST's rhetoric sometimes fails to acknowledge that.