Cool in School
A long term study that looked at kids in nursery school and twenty years later found that:
I didn't attend preschool or kindergarten, and I don't remember being whiny in first grade - but then, who would. I was pretty damn insecure though. That insecurity might have been partly due to the fact that I couldn't see the board and hence had little clue as to what was going on, but the big factor was clearly Jimmy W and his little gang of thugs. They made my life hell before school, after school, during recess and during lunch, by chasing me, stuffing snow into my clothes, and beating me up.
I was the youngest in my grade I think, and I had grown up in a neighborhood with only girls, and it took me a while to learn the social ropes of juvenile society. It was probably about third or fourth grade, when another minor league bully was tormenting me, that I blew my top, picked him up and threw him down. This was quite a shock for both of us, but doubtless more gratifying for me, especially since the gathered crowd started cheering and clapping. This little victory is still one of my most memorable moments.
By that time I had glasses, had learned to read, and, quite inevitably, had become a liberal.
Remember the whiny, insecure kid in nursery school, the one who always thought everyone was out to get him, and was always running to the teacher with complaints? Chances are he grew up to be a conservative.It turns out that whiny insecurity only explains about 7% of the variance, but let's not let that discourage speculation.
At least, he did if he was one of 95 kids from the Berkeley area that social scientists have been tracking for the last 20 years. The confident, resilient, self-reliant kids mostly grew up to be liberals.
The study from the Journal of Research Into Personality isn't going to make the UC Berkeley professor who published it any friends on the right. Similar conclusions a few years ago from another academic saw him excoriated on right-wing blogs, and even led to a Congressional investigation into his research funding.
I didn't attend preschool or kindergarten, and I don't remember being whiny in first grade - but then, who would. I was pretty damn insecure though. That insecurity might have been partly due to the fact that I couldn't see the board and hence had little clue as to what was going on, but the big factor was clearly Jimmy W and his little gang of thugs. They made my life hell before school, after school, during recess and during lunch, by chasing me, stuffing snow into my clothes, and beating me up.
I was the youngest in my grade I think, and I had grown up in a neighborhood with only girls, and it took me a while to learn the social ropes of juvenile society. It was probably about third or fourth grade, when another minor league bully was tormenting me, that I blew my top, picked him up and threw him down. This was quite a shock for both of us, but doubtless more gratifying for me, especially since the gathered crowd started cheering and clapping. This little victory is still one of my most memorable moments.
By that time I had glasses, had learned to read, and, quite inevitably, had become a liberal.
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