The Geeks Shall Inherit The Earth is a book by Alexandra Robbins which summarizes the story of seven different teenagers that have many different problems, which many of todays teenagers also have. I found myself having many similarities to the teenagers in the story, for example, when with her group Whitney, the popular bitch, thinks “You didn't day that when we were alone, but now that you're in front of a group you do” (Robbins 21). I can relate to this because I feel as though many people are pressured to say or do things they normally wouldn't whenever they are with their group or ‘clique’. Robbins has this idea that the freaks and geeks, or “cafeteria fringe” will someday grow up and use what they are criticized for to become more successful than the other peopler people. She calls this the ‘Quirk Theory’ (Robbins page 11). This helped me to learn that right now, in high school, not being ‘popular’ may seem like the end of the world, but the reality of it is that after these four years, it wont even matter, but what will be important is how you learned to grow as a person and the true friendships that were made. This makes me want to focus more on my education and learning to grow as a person instead of focusing on how many friends I have or who I sit with at lunch, because truthfully it wont matter once high school is over.
The seven different people Robbins talks to include Blue (the gamer), Regan (the weird girl), Whitney (the popular bitch), Noah (the band geek), Eli (the nerd), Danielle (the loner) and Joy (the new girl). The stories she explains for each of these people, involve some part of the quirk theory. She gives each of them a challenge to remove them from their comfort zones, this helps each of them to learn ...
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Alexander Stowe is a twin, his brother is Aaron Stowe. Alex is an Unwanted, Aaron is a Wanted, and their parents are Necessaries. Alex is creative in a world where you can’t even see the entire sky, and military is the dream job for everyone and anyone. He should have been eliminated, just like all the unwanteds should have been. He instead comes upon Artimè, where he trains as a magical warrior- after a while. When he was still in basic training, and his friends were not, he got upset, he wants to be the leader, the one everyone looks up to.
After reading the story, I found I had mixed emotions about it. To explain, when we were getting into detail and finally finding out what really happened the day of June 28th, I found myself completely interested and glued to the book. I also enjoyed the way the incident was explained because I felt like I was there watching it all happen from the great detail. I enjoyed Phillips style of writing because through his writing, he really came off as an intelligent person who is very familiar with the legal system. The book is an easy read, and I liked the non-pretentious style of writing. I did not find myself struggling with reading the book at all, which made the overall experience that much more enjoyable.
Thirdly, we need to look at the poem “Icarus” by Wendy A. Shaffer. The poem is talking about free will versus obedience and conformity through the main character Icarus. The title named Icarus and nothing more, suggesting to the reader that this is solely about him or that we should concentrate on him. The poem opens with asking if what thoughts passed in Icarus’ mind as he approached the sun and his wings began to melt. The speaker of the poem that Someone who question Daedalus’ role as the father or someone who thinks of Icarus as adventurous and maybe even a bit careless. After that It then moves on and asks if Icarus ever questioned his father’s motives. The poem ends with his fall and the final questions about failing fathers, but the
Many adolescent have to learn many things from the events in their lives. Freaks and Geeks show characters adapting to the changes in their life and learn to adjust them. Neal Schweiber, a freshman at McKinley High School and friends with Sam Weir in episode 12, learns that his father is having an affair with his mother. He reacts to this situation by lashing out at his friends and other family members. Neal finally comes to terms with the fact that his father cheating and adjust to life with it. This shows the changes in Neal family life and he learns to adapt to it. He develops into a mature adult and learn the lesson of life. This lesson is of people, like his father, who have a mid-life crisis and they tried many things to avoid the feeling of it. Another example is Sam Weir, in episode 17, breaks up with his long time crush, Cindy Sanders. Sam learns that Cindy is actually very shallow and boring and that isn’t what he is looking for. This strays from the stereotype of having the popular person always break up with less popular person and having people always think that adolescent always have true love in high school. Sam in particular learns t...
The Tomorrow City by Monica Hughes The plot of this book centres around two adolescents, David and Caro and an evil supercomputer which aspires to control the futuristic city of Thompsonville. Dr. Henderson, Caro's Father creates the "perfect" computer designed to solve all of the problems of Thompsonville by gaining almost complete power of the city. The computer then begins to make rash decisions of it's own. It decides that humans are incapable of making decisions of there
As preteens and teens push for increasing independence from their parents, they tend to turn to their peers for guidance, acceptance, and security. For those who are low in self-esteem and confidence, their safety lies in fitting in and having a place to belong. Most people find a group in which they connect with in a healthy way while others make their way in cliques that give them security but at the price of their own values and individuality. The movie Mean Girls portrays how high school female social cliques operate and the effect they can have on girls. I will argue how if one doesn’t have a strong sense of self-identity, the opinions of others will become their identity.
These days, as both characters ironically prove, it is difficult trying to be different when being different is a category in itself. Dave and Julia, the two protagonists of this book, are both the cool, “hipster” type kids that would burn themselves drinking their coffee because they have to do it before it is cool. Both of them think high school is the biggest cliché imaginable, which – when you think about it- it really is. How many of us fantasized over being prom king or queen? Having someone ask you out to a dance in the most romantic, over used fashion possible? Wanted to run for class president or some other office? These are the sort of things that Dave and Julia vow never to do during their four years of high school, until one day everything changes. As the summary explains, Dave and Julia start a pact (which they write down and title the "Nevers List") right before high school, swearing off participating in any of the "cliché" high school experiences that were just bound to arise. The list goes as
Reading “Freaks, Geeks, and Cool Kids” written by Murray Milner Jr. has allowed me to dive into and discover the link between teen status systems and the culture of consumption. By watching high school interactions, the author detected and inferred an important idea throughout the book that teens develop status systems to account for their lack of authority and decisions they have within their established schools, regardless if they are public, private, or religion-based. They can then rank their peers, the higher level individuals gaining their own source of power through this social hierarchy. Another strongly implemented idea was the racial segregation that still exists in diverse high schools. The author observed that blacks and whites
Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World is far more relevant today and has a higher possibility of actually transpiring in the near future compared to George Orwell’s 1984. Even though both of the two, which are totalitarian societies, are based on plausible premises, the utopia illustrated in Brave New World still has a opportunity to appear today, while the “Big Brother” controlled society presented in George Orwell’s 1984, being based off of totalitarian societies to some extent that existed at the time the book was written, is simply obsolete.
Love as an impairer or love as an enhancer. As I went along reading these literary pieces, such as Proust’s Swann In Love, and Marquez’s Love In The Time Of Cholera, I couldn’t help but continuously see love being implicitly depicted as an impairer. I did manage to find a great example of love as an enhancer in Nussbaum’s Loves Knowledge. Love impairs our judgments and makes us do ridiculous things that we only do whilst in love. The impaired nature of our minds can be both beautifully displayed in the most innocent of ways or completely strange and misguided. But when enhanced, beautiful cognition of one’s self occurs. A jolt of something so real and all knowing happens, cataleptic impression.
One of the major misconceptions unfairly given to our teenagers is that the world owes them. Stepping into life thinking that a cushy lifestyle, 50,000 dollar a year job, and a house will be handed to them strictly because they are "cool" is setting the future of our country up for a huge pitfall. After all, being "cool" in high school afforded them a great deal. This idea keeps our teens from striving to become all they can be on their own. They are then left in their mid-twenties with little to no education, no skills, and extremely unhappy because everything taught to them growing up is now proving to be blatantly wrong. Realizing that being popular doesn't get the same response any more can be devastating. So we now end up with a generation that has spent precious learning years working on popularity, instead of developing skills and gaining knowledge. Our teenagers need to know that they can become, and should strive to be, whatever is in their hearts to be. Then, and only then will we produce an educated society who can earn the lifestyle that they so desire.
If you were to walk into a high school lunchroom, what is the first thing you would see? Groups, cliques, friend circles, and separations. Tables split up in detached formations, almost completely unaware of the other surrounding pupils nearby. The most common groups in high school are the populars and the outcasts. The kids who have endless friends, engage in team sports, and meet the ideal teenage standards, against the ones who are quiet, solitary, and unconventional. The ones that are outcasts fall into the second description. They don’t line up with society's norms therefore, they tend to be looked upon as bizarre and atypical. Outsiders are too often misjudged and misunderstood
Many students think nowadays that it is more important to put appearance first, not intellect. Students who do well in school are often called nerds and geeks. They are also known ...
Despite that being cool includes gathering attention through showcasing an impressive individual feature one has, it still falls heavily in the idea of conformity. People, mostly in school settings, have this set image of what’s cool and what’s not, and despite that it may vary, they all involve the same idea. The common idea shows how “cool behavior can range from dressing in trendy styles to being good at a certain sport to being sarcastic to parents; uncool behavior often includes displaying excessive affection and obedience toward parents, reaching out to an unpopular classmate, and expressing interest in school work” (Bernstein). This type of behavior is often showcased in the media, or even inspired by it. In schools, there tends to be a separation of social status, based on their behavior. We have those students who rebel against the rules, disrespects others for comedic effect or proof of dominance, and simply follows all the popular trends to gain this title of being cool. On the contrary, we have these students who are more obedient, presents themselves as good role models, and are more in the side in which they weigh their responsibilities more than what’s in and what’s not. They’re two different kinds, but in the end it tends to just merge into one whole group, as the students who are more ‘uncool’ in a sense, desire to be ‘cool’ and act accordingly. This is always the case in my history of transitioning from to a higher level of education, in which I have relations with these students who used to be very invested in their studies, start to become more rebellious and uncaring for their education as they grow. From what they see in excessively in the media, the people who tend to who have bad behaviors are more popular, and as they grow to become teenagers, popularity seems to grow more of its significance. Since its significance grows, these
According to Cambridge Dictionary, the definition of “culture” is “the way of life, especially the general customs and beliefs, of a particular group of people at a particular time”. On the other hand, accroding to Raymond Williams, it is more complicated. However, ther is something that is certain: Culture is ordinary, which happens to be the title of an article he wrote to define and explain what culture is.