There is a new phenomena amongst the Indian young. It is part of the rebelliousness of the consumer indoctrinated generation. As the media and society in general continues to ‘dumb-down’, more and more children find it ‘cool’ to be mall meandering, fashion following, copyists of mass produced western influenced inanities.
Paradoxically as the under-educated youth of the USA and Europe invent new ways of talking, dressing, making music, and even walking, the fully-educated children of our private schools are copying mass produced variations of ghetto innovations, language and attitudes. In many Indian schools teenage groups are proclaiming it is not ‘cool’ to do homework, and it is ‘cool’ to seek to do the minimum amount of class work. The powerful message – ‘It is cool to be dumb’ – is being adopted by more and more of our teenage children.
If pressed, many children are quite explicit about their reasons for thinking it is ‘cool to be dumb’. - If you are clever, you don’t get to hang out with the others. - There is nothing new about this. In the social hierarchy within each classroom, those who are ‘in with the in-crowd’ are not, and have never been, the academic achievers. The stereotype of the isolated class swot, staidly dressed, and adorned with unfashionable glasses has long been an image in popular culture, but the phenomenon has taken on new proportions and is tightening its grip on much younger children.
The idea that clever children are not part of the class social set, comes with the need of young people to define themselves in their own terms. Until recently they have done this in contrast with the norms of adults and adult run institutions. The problem is now that certain adults are colluding in, and encouraging these attitudes.
Many adults in the marketing, fashion, and media industries, spend billions and work constantly to encourage the notion of teenage consumer related rebellious “coolness”. Parents too are conspiring to sanction and encourage children seeking to be “cool”. They buy their children the soon to be out-of-fashion clothing and trainers, and pay for their CDs where many of the ‘cool to be dumb’ exhortations are to be found .
My nephew works very hard at his studies and he goes to elaborated lengths to hide the details of his studying from his classmates. Including telling his mother not to let his friends know the amount of hours he spends doing homework. He is a clever boy and realizes that to be part of the class in-crowd he has pretend not to study. His mother works hard to ensure that he studies, and understands the foolishness of being a victim of the fashion, marketing, and media industries, and yet does enough so as not to be socially excluded. It is a tough balancing act.
Unfortunately some parents seem to lack the skills or the will to challenge their children's misconceptions. They are often the ones that complain if their schools can't keep control, or can't push their children to do well. But the key to the problem is in their hands - if they don't start to challenge this ‘cool to be dumb’ culture, it will continue to grow. This is a problem that needs to be confronted at home. The battle against the ‘cool to be dumb’’ is not one schools can win alone.
