I am a nerd. I am friends with nerds. Actually, all my friends are nerds.
By my definition, and we all probably have different ones, a nerd is someone who likes/loves school and loves to learn. They are smart and they work hard in school. Normally, they have some weird thing that your average popular kid wouldn't like.
Examples: LOTR, Pokemon, dark music/death, Sherlock. to name a few.
My friends and I are the only kids who got 4.0 GPA's at our school. We are all in Geometry in eighth grade (the highest math an 8th grader can be in at our school), and were in advanced reading or should have been.
We are more mature than a lot of our peers and make much better decisions.
Now, the stereotype of a nerd is a video-game loving kid with thick glasses, braces, and socks with sandals. Also, they are never athletic. Not true at all!
Almost all of my friends have sight problems, but only one out of four of them actually wears glasses - the rest wear contacts. I have braces, as does one of my friends, and almost all of my friends have had braces. All of the popular kids have braces, too. Almost all of my friends are athletic -we play volleyball, soccer, baseball, basketball, gymnastics, and run track and cross country. One of my friends practices for four and a half hours every day for gymnastics and has a 4.0. One of my friends, widely considered the smartest kid in school, is also the best runner on the cross country team.
I get annoyed at the nerd stereotype as someone who is held in complete awe of the popular kids and sucks up to them.
In my friend group, I think that we think of ourselves above them, in school rankings, because of our better morals and better grades. They kiss up to us, trying to get a few answers, which they do not get.
My school is pretty small, and a lot of people know everybody. In my grade, no one gets seriously bullied, and we stick together. The popular kids get along with the smart kids (my group), who get along with the goth group, who get along with the random group. Then there are a few drifters, floating from group to group but remained anchored with the smart kids.
The "smart kids'" lunch table in sixth grade was small and no one really sat around us. We had maybe six or eight people, and didn't venture outside of our boundaries. In seventh grade, that table grew to include more kids on the popular side, and more kids on the goth/geeky side. This year, our table is bigger than ever.
My two guy best friends left the popular table for our table, a few kids left the goth table for our table, one friend emerged from the wood works to join us, and we now take up three tables and have maybe 18 kids. All of these kids are not my closest friends, but they are more than mere acquaintances.
We are not bullied. I know that kids are jealous of us because, since we are normally teachers' favorites (not our choice), we can get away with more. Plus we get all the awards at assemblies.
We do not chose to be teachers' favorites. We do not suck up to teachers. They like us because we work hard, have good attitudes, and contribute in class. That's just a part of how we are wired, and we can't change that.
Now, I know this isn't true for many schools, but having been in a small rural school my whole life, I have no idea how other schools are set up.
So, I would love to hear how your schools are set up and what you think a nerd is. I really, really, really want to know what your school is like.
Anyway, don't forget to comment and vote and read The Society!
