Why Smart Kids Are Still Made Fun Of (And What You Can Do As A Parent Or Teacher)
The October wind blew crumpled maple leaves into my 4th grade classroom as we lined up after recess last month, and I spotted Maya before anyone else. She was slouched against the cinder block wall, one scuffed white sneaker twisting into the mat by the door, her left hand clamped hard over the top of the fraction quiz we’d passed back that morning. I’d marked a big 100% on the top in red pen, and I knew she was hiding it from the kids behind her.
A second later, Jax brushed past her to cut into the line, nudging her shoulder hard enough that she stumbled. “Watch it, walking math textbook,” he mumbled, and a couple of the boys behind him snickered. Maya’s face went pink all the way up to her pigtail ties, and she just stared at her shoes. No eye roll, no snappy comeback, just silence.
After everyone settled in for reading, I pulled her aside for a quick chat by the art supply shelf. She picked at a loose chunk of plaster on the wall while I asked if everything was okay, and after a minute she mumbled that she didn’t get why everyone cared so much about her grades. “I tried to get three wrong last week,” she said, so quiet I almost didn’t hear it. “So it wouldn’t be a perfect score again. I guess I messed up.”
I’ve been teaching elementary school for 12 years, and this isn’t something I only saw when I started out, or when I taught at a different school. It happens every year, in every class, to kids who are quick with reading, good at math, or just curious enough to ask questions that other kids don’t. People still think of teasing smart kids as a harmless, old-fashioned joke—something that just happens, right? But it’s not harmless, and it doesn’t have to be inevitable.
I used to think the teasing happened because the kids who got picked on were socially awkward, or because they bragged too much about their grades. Most of the time, that’s not true. Maya doesn’t brag. She sits with the new kids at lunch and helps hand out art supplies every Friday. The real reasons this still happens are a lot more mundane than that. For one, we still have this unspoken idea that being good at school equals being uncool. Adults toss around words like “nerd” as a joke all the time, even when they’re talking about their own smart kid. A parent will joke at a grocery store “sorry, my little bookworm would rather read than talk to you” and don’t notice their kid shrink into the cart. We separate kids into fixed ability groups at school and call out high scores in front of the whole class, which puts a clear target on kids who pick things up faster than their peers.
And it’s not just the kids being mean for no reason, either. More often than not, the kids teasing are the ones struggling. Jax, for example, gets 20 minutes of homework help twice a week from me, because his mom works two evening jobs and can’t sit with him to go over math problems. Fractions don’t click for him the way they click for Maya, and every time we pass back a quiz, it’s a public reminder that he’s behind. Teasing is just an easy way to turn that frustration into something that makes him feel bigger, instead of smaller.
A few years back, I started making small changes in my classroom that have cut down on this kind of teasing a lot, and most of them are things parents can do at home too. I don’t broadcast test scores or call out kids who finish work early in front of the class anymore. If a kid gets a perfect score, I write a little sticky note on it and hand it back privately, instead of holding it up for everyone to see. I stopped naming reading groups by ability—now they’re just “pine group” and “oak group” based on the picture on their bin, and I rotate kids between groups every six weeks so there’s no permanent “smart group” label.
If a kid comes to me upset about being teased for being smart, I don’t say the thing everyone used to tell me to say: “they’re just jealous.” Dismissing their feelings that way makes them not want to come to you the next time. Instead, I say, “That had to hurt, even if they’re pretending it’s just a joke. Do you want to practice what to say next time?” We practice one or two short, neutral lines that don’t start a fight—things like “I like getting good grades” or just “huh” and walking away. Big snappy comebacks just escalate things, but a low-stakes response takes all the fun out of teasing for the other kid.
For parents, a simple shift I’ve shared with a lot of families is to stop talking about your kid’s grades as a public achievement. Don’t brag about their test scores at family barbecues, don’t post them on your social media, and ask your kid what they’re comfortable with sharing. Maya’s mom told me at our last conference that she used to post every A Maya got on Facebook, until Maya asked her to stop. Now they only talk about grades one on one, and when extended family asks, they just say she’s doing fine and shift the conversation to her rec soccer team, which she cares a lot more about.
And if your kid is the one teasing a classmate who’s doing better in school, don’t just jump into punishing them. Pull them aside and say, “I noticed you teased Sam about getting good grades. Does school feel really hard for you right now?” Nine times out of ten, they’ll admit they’re frustrated that something feels easy for someone else that’s hard for them. Validate that frustration first—“It makes total sense to feel that way when you’re working so hard and it still doesn’t click”—then set the clear boundary that teasing isn’t okay.
Last week, I looked out my classroom window after dismissal and saw Maya sitting on the sidewalk next to Jax, showing him how to sort fraction problems with a pencil and a scrap of paper. Jax had a test coming up, and he’d asked her for help. No one was calling anyone names. They just sat there for 10 minutes until Jax’s mom pulled up, and he yelled “thanks” over his shoulder as he ran to the car.
This stuff doesn’t go away completely. Kids still pick on difference, and we still carry that old idea that smart equals uncool around with us. But the small, boring changes—stopping the public labels, not broadcasting grades, validating everyone’s feelings—make it a lot easier for kids to stop caring what the teasers say, and keep liking the things they’re good at.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » Why Smart Kids Are Still Made Fun Of (And What You Can Do As A Parent Or Teacher)