To be pissed off that people who are not academic are branded as thick!

[teamcullen]

Why is it that people/children who are not academically clever are constantly branded as Thick, stupid or the underclass of society.

A person can leave school at 16 with little qualifications and work every day of their lives in McDonalds or a shop or as a labourer. They pay taxes. They contribute to society. Yet people constantly make comments on how you must be thick to work in those proffessions.

There are options in schools for children to take vocational courses, but I am always seeing comments like "No way Id let my DC take a deploma or vocational course." Or those subjects are only for the thick kids!

I understand that if a child is likely to go to uni, they need to take the traditinal route of GCSEs and A levels, but the world ecomony would quickly cease if everybody took this route.

Just because somebody is not academic, does not constitute being thick. Creative skills, patience, common sence, empathy and listening skills to name just a few are things that may not come naturatly to those with letters after their name, but are needed in many proffessions.

If a child who is not academic goes into the world at 16 and works hard in a job which needs no or little qualifications is it not unreasonable to treat tham and their proffession with a bit of respect.

Yes it is Socrates quote runny.

Can you tell me where it comes from? I have studied Socrates quite in depth and have never heard it, I'd like to see it. Always interested in quotes I've never seen before. Thanks

Guys, if it's anything, it aint Socrates, it's someone paraphrasing Socrates, then translating. This, because the poor man wasn't literate in modern English. The fool.

What is revealed by whose profile? LeQueen's? Teamcullens

"Nobody can make you feel worthless without your consent, teamcullen."

What a patronising and oddly misguided thing to say, runnybottom.

Where it comes from? From a souvenir i bought in corfu . I 've got it on my fireplace

Welldone for having studied Socrates in depth, am very impressed!

And since this is a competition thread, i have studied him in the original. Come on beat this

If I may paraphrase Socrates, in a form that owes a debt to the late Sid Viscous - "Anyone who thinks they have the answers is a cunt"

I'm kind of confused - I thought he didn't write anything but other people wrote it down for him? But I haven't studied Greek for years since the internet rotted my brain.

All this intellectual one-up-manship is well exhausting, isn't it? tethersend, I thought that a bit too. It's a bit mean to suggest that if you feel inferior, it is also your fault. But teamcullen has said she doesn't feel inferior, she feels angry about these attitudes. Which is different, and valid as far as I can see.

nice paraphrase

I don't read Greek, I'm afraid. It was a genuine question, I wasn't being arsey. I'm very interested in Socrates and that doesn't sound like him, translated or not, thats all.

tethers its neither patronising or misguided. Teamcullen was complanining about being "made to feel worthless". I agree with Eleanor, nobody can you make you feel anything, your feelings are your own. People can have an opinion, it doesn't make you feel worthless, only you can do that.

Until fairly recently I had no qualifications to speak of and did a variety of fairly low paid jobs with little chance of progession. I certainly never felt worthless or below anyone else, and sure as hell no-one elses opinion could make me feel that way. Now I have some and on my way to gaining more, I am not superiour to anyone either. I do it for myself and to get ahead in a career. I am proud of the work I have done and continue to do. Nobody else makes me feel that either, only me.

Words to live by LittleRedDragon [serious face]

runny, I agree that's a great way to live and a good way to motivate yourself. But I don't agree that only you can make yourself feel inferior. If you have a decent sense of self-worth already, perhaps one stray comment won't make you feel inferior if you tell yourself firmly that you're not.

But some people have been put down all through their lives. My little brother was bullied by teachers at school who told him, repeatedly, that he was thick and lazy. It is much, much harder for him to shake off negative comments even now. I don't blame him for that one bit.

Woah...looks like this kicked off after I went to bed!

I'm thinking back to the schools I've worked in and the attitudes towards 'intelligence' there. On the whole, in many schools, being academically bright is still not considered cool and people are encouraged towards Btecs in randowm things like Media and Film (I can teach these subjects so I'm not completely 'dissing' them)...flying in the face of the idea that people who aren't traditionally intelligent somewhat. In fact, I would say that I come across the complete opposite attitude more than I do 'intellectual snobbery'.

When I was at school it was different...you certainly weren't as 'cool' as the really sporty kids if you were very bright but you certainly weren't made to feel 'uncool' as you would be now. It is a task I quite familiar with now, trying to tell young people that being smart IS cool. I very much hope that when our first child is ready for school (not due for a few months!) there is a school available to us that does encourage academic ability where it is found.

I think this 'inverse snobbery' has actually led to a devaluing of academic achievement and intelligence, which is sad. I certainly don't see as much 'snobbery' the other way round. But maybe that is because the company I keep is very much of a level, so I could be missing a trick.

Oh, and runny, the quotation not sounding like Socrates might have something to do with translation styles changing? Translators tend to have a 'house style' for different languages, don't they? All the old Loeb books feel the need to translate Greek into very odd archaic English in grandiose flowing sentences, but imo the Greek isn't itself particularly like that. More modern translations reflect this and can sound much more colloquial. Could that be what's happening here?

I freely admit my knowledge of Socrates himself is very limited, so just theorizing.

Coralanne, I am sure you know what I mean.
Either that or you are being deliberately obtuse.

I agree with everything you have said MrsC.

runnybottom, the idea that only you can make yourself feel worthless is fashionable rhetoric IMO.

It's like me calling you a cunt (I'm not, btw), and putting the responsibility for any hurt feelings on you. You must feel a bit like a cunt anyway, or else why would you be upset?

It is patronising, although I'm not sure you meant it to be.

You misunderstand me. Teamcullen was saying about "being made to feel worthless" particularly in regard to her child growing up as less academic than a sibling. Surely it is a good lesson to teach him that the opinions of others need not influence your own feelings? I fail to why you would let a child think that if people say you are worthless you should feel worthless, which is the counter of that. I think teaching a child that noone can make you feel worthless without your consent is a good lesson on believing in yourself.

I don't think its that fashionable as rhetoric, being an 80 year old quote. I don't think its patronising either.

If you call me a cunt and I'm hurt, it doesn't mean that I think you're right, and it doesn't mean there is anything wrong with having hurt feelings. But if you call me a cunt and I then believe I am a cunt, its a bigger problem. Because there has to be something else going on if I take the opinion of some randomer to heart so readily, imo.

Neither does me saying that mean that I would think its ok for you to call me a cunt, whether I am hurt or not. It would still make you a nobboid.

Do you see what I mean?

Don't you mean knobboid, runnybottom?

It is an argument that is often plucked fresh from a short course of CBT in order to justify being offensive regardless of context- apologies if I have misunderstood you.

I believe some posters have intended to make other posters feel worthless. The fact that they have been successful in doing this it not necessarily indicative of a greater feeling of worthlessness on the part of the poster, and it would be dangerous to assume this.

If I were to call you a cunt every hour, every day for the next six years for example, you may well begin to feel as if I am right. This would not mean that there were any other issues within you which you had to take responsibility for- it would just mean there was something wrong with me.

I see what you mean, but while I'd be happy to say to someone, 'look, no-one can make you feel worthless', I wouldn't suggest that, if you do feel worthless, then it's your doing. That's quite an unfair emphasis.

There are all sorts of comforting motivational quotations that are great to remember, but less good to use as psychological aphorisms. Yes, it's lovely to say, 'No one else can make me feel worthless if I don't let them'. But, if you do feel worthless when someone says something nasty, that soundbite could be particularly unhelpful, as well as being incorrect.

I have no experience of CBT and have no interest in justifying being offensive to anyone.

Its a matter of opinion. Its difficult to ascribe intent and effect with this type of communication, and very easy to attribute thought processes that are incorrect. I can only speak for myself however.

If you were to call me a cunt every hour for many years I would probably think you were right. However if it had been instilled in me from an early age that your opinion of me did not form an accurate basis for assessing my own self worth, I would be much less likely to have put up with it for so long in the first place, don't you think?

The opening line of the first post was;
"Why is it that people/children who are not academically clever are constantly branded as Thick, stupid or the underclass of society."
and I simply do not believe this to be remotely true. I don't know anyone who thinks such a thing or acts in a manner which suggests so. I know that some people look down on others for their jobs or lack off, for their educational attainment or lack of, for a percieved intellectual abilities or lack of. But I don't think this equates to "you are thick and in an underclass if you don't have a RG degree"

YANBU

I'm academic and completely crap at basic lifeskills such as organisation, everything has to be taken very step by sterp.

DH is not academic and gifted in hid area (actually he's doing a degree now and getting 90% each time but that is becuase it has a lot of practicalm assessments)

And I am a carer stuck on limited income whilst he is self employed and making more each year.

ScreamingEagle arew you a anme changer (I am mind LOL)_ same degree, similar IQ..... it's one part of a person isn;t it? People are so much more

My mother always had a nicer way of puting it when it came to me - "you were always 'to the arts' dear"..

putting it, sorry. I can spell!

But runnybottom, surely you are not naive enough to be suggesting that because you haven't seen people behaving in such a way, that they don't?

I've never seen Africa, but I'm pretty sure it exists...

This thread is hilarious .

OP, I know exactly what you mean.

BTW, has anyone come across Sir Ken Robinson? If he's right, our children will be having to think and work in such a different way to us that pretty much this entire conversation will be irrelevant.