Brain Matters : Laughing (Sometimes) in the Face of Stereotypes, High-IQ Types Find Their Own Formulas for Fun

Everybody knows one. Or at least thinks they can peg one by sartorial preferences, or when cropped, colored hair gets classified as punk, or by musical tastes, say the way listening to Morrisey must make you a vegetarian.

Let’s see: The diagram of a nerd, an egghead if you prefer, should definitely feature a pocket protector crammed with pens and mechanical pencils. Pant legs cut off at flood length. Short-sleeved shirt buttoned to the top. Hair either plastered with pomade or disheveled a la Einstein, but parted in the middle. Calculator watch. Glasses thick and frames taped. And compact discs of Bach’s Greatest Hits and the Top 10 of 1842-1853 filed with the latest CD-ROM brainteaser games in the knapsack, which is worn up high and over both shoulders.

“I’m sure,” sighs Nancy Lee, 17, of Anaheim, “the majority of us listen to KROQ or Power 106.” The Esperanza High School junior recently spent a perfect beach day hanging out with friends at Cal State Fullerton for the Science Olympiad regional competition. She turned up just for support.

“People are always surprised that I listen to Pearl Jam.” In classical music’s defense, however, Nancy adds that “at least it’s better than country.”

Nancy isn’t wearing a pocket protector. She keeps her slide rule in her backpack and not in her back pocket. A T-shirt and jeans cover her fit figure, and her hair is rather normal.

“I’m Asian. That’s another total stereotype,” she says, as if her ethnicity predisposes her to getting perfect marks. “With me, they assume I don’t speak English and that I can’t possibly get Bs.” Though B grades are not typical, she concedes, they are not unheard of, either.

“Let’s just say my mom thinks I don’t study enough.”

Perhaps Mom is expecting another valedictorian like her older brother--a nerd, she quips--who now attends the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“It seems if you’re into science or math, people assume you’re a nerd. The reality is we’re people like everyone else, just with an interest in learning.”

Events like the Olympiad, in which school teams run from one station to another, flex their brain muscle and cheer at full volume, she adds, should be seen as just another opportunity to rally school spirit, like attending a basketball game.

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Nerd. Egghead. Norman. Einstein. Brain . Just sticks and stones and all that jazz for many high schoolers who are dished out a fusillade of names and stereotypical attitudes just because they’re preoccupied with academics and not their shoes, their social status or partying.

That’s not to say they don’t fret over zits and dating. It’s just their idea of raging includes a discourse on existentialism or a debate on philosophical theories.

Finding others in the cliquish world of high school who share their formula for fun and IQ level doesn’t generally materialize the first semester. As it is, the adolescent follies of procuring a niche become all the more important when a teen has endured years of name calling and isolation, as a few of these have. Sometimes the harassment escalates, as one high schooler recalls, into pushing and shoving from peers who want nothing to do with a brain.

“It’s a lot worse in high school, because of the popularity thing,” notes Capistrano Valley High freshman Nathan Arnold, who was at the Olympiad representing his school. “Everything is magnified here.”

And two-faced. Insecure about their own place in campus society, some students play friendly in one class, then change their demeanor next period if it means siding with a more popular classmate. Nathan has experienced this game, from the receiving end and too often.

He says he played inconspicuous at the start of the year to deflect attention, not raising his arm sometimes or downplaying his intelligence in other ways. Months later, he says, he became a wanna-be, morphing through various scenes.

“I don’t like being isolated. People always think nerds are perfect in every course, except, of course, athletics.” (Nathan is as active in roller hockey, golf and running as in science and math.) “Sometimes jocks don’t take into account they excel in sports just as we excel in academics.”

Trying to explain this point to a classmate, however, backfired. The guy instead interpreted it as another example of him showing how smart he is, Nathan says.

“Then I realized there will always be people who make fun of me. I just have to be myself.” His real self is a pretty regular guy, in fact, in surf wear and braces. Bespectacled, yes, but so are a lot of others--both smart and dumb.

“It’s like coming out of a fire where it hurts,” he continues, “but it also make you stronger. If I can handle this in high school, then I can handle the future, real world, which is only three years away.”

Nathan continues to restrain himself from constantly raising his hand or showy displays of his knowledge; he calls it his “shadow mode.” He’s most comfortable in his honor classes. He’s also found that he has friends--jocks included--in every circle.

Next year, things will be different for Nathan, according to Jennifer Fox, a senior who also attends Capo Valley High.

In their sophomore year, students are more likely to be placed by aptitude level in all their academic courses, the brains in advanced courses and so on, explains the 17-year-old, who has hoarded medals and certificates in academic contests through her high school career.

Like her scholarly peers, Jennifer has blazed through gifted programs since she was a little kid, and gotten teased for it (“smart kid, carrot hair--easy target. And at the time I didn’t even wear glasses, which was a good thing,” she now says with a laugh). She’s even had a couple of close friends tell her they did not want to associate with her because of the intellect thing.

Those who stuck around endearingly called her Encyclopedia. “But it was basic information they all should have known for that grade level,” Jennifer says.

Older and wiser, the future physicist says she and her friends now laugh at labels. Their crowd is a mixed bag anyway, she says, into various types of music, manners of dressing and interests. “Yeah, many of us wear glasses”--she got hers two years ago. “A couple even fit the stereotype exactly. Most of us might dress less trendy. But that’s about it.”

As with any other clique, many like to spend free time together, whether it’s on the weekend at a competition such as the science Olympiad, or congregating at lunch or after school in one of the classrooms. They are places as chatty as any other teen hang, but here, talk floats from philosophy to math equations to literature.

Definitely not for the Beavis and Butt-head set.

“Yeah, it’s a little weird,” Jennifer admits. “But it’s so much fun I don’t care what people think.”