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Posts #49 and #52 illustrate a toxic, condescending attitude that is unattractive to me.
Not meaning to offend, merely to point out the hollow nature of arguments assuming or insinuating that high academic achievers are somehow inherently flawed in other areas.
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Originally Posted by Fern435
The posts are also poorly written...
How so?
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Originally Posted by Fern435
...exactly which group envies the others in the first paragraph of #49?
The arrow was positioned rather directly. It harkens back perhaps to points raised by James Burke in the final episode of the original Connections series, suggesting that as technology became ever more complex, even the technologically advanced would lose an ability to comprehend it all, raising the specter of torch-and-pitchfork mobs roaming the streets in knee-jerk rebellion against all that they didn't understand.
I didn't need a school to teach those things to my children. Children will act as they see their parents act. Most of childrens friends have excellent manners and treat others with great respect. Having a school setting that shoves that down their throats would more likely just make them want to rebel. I certainly saw that happen when I was a kid. Did we learn nothing from the repressive 50s and the reaction of the 60s?
I think that's the general belief among NoVa parents, which is why ILD is basically saying neither TJ nor other public schools in this area are likely to provide the environment that he's seeking for his kids.
The prevailing assumption among the upper-income parents in this area is that you teach these values to your children or, if you want them inculcated and reinforced at school, you find a private school that embraces those values or homeschool. If, say, Cooper MS in McLean announced that it was going to require students to wear uniforms, and teach them etiquette, parents would likely recoil, because they associate public school uniforms with Title I schools and inner-city charter schools. And, from a constitutional perspective, the public schools clearly cannot undertake to teach Judeo-Christian values as such, while ILD also seems to have in mind.
I don't think northern Virginia has a problem with "anti-intellectualism." Whether you attend a neighborhood school or TJ, you're still going to be in an intellectually stimulating environment, and you're going to be living in a community that places a high premium on education (since, IMO, that attitude is standard throughout northern VA).
Anti-intellectualism is a problem everywhere. It's all a matter of degree. Certainly this area has on average one of the highest educated populations in the country. This may tend to limit its harmful effects here, yet there are many enough exceptions to the rule who remain individually unconvinced by facts and convinced instead by the fictions of the propagandists. So it goes.
FWIW, I recently had kidney surgery and my surgeon went to Herndon High School. IMO he is an excellent surgeon. Attending a regular high school did not keep him from excelling in medical school or from acheiving his dreams. (Assuming, of course, that his dreams were to become a surgeon.)
You are making the point. We all want the best in terms of expertise and experience when our own interests are on the line, whether those be in surgery or in repairing a leaky roof. So why do we see this undercurrent disparaging the character of those who excel at math or science and those who teach them?
"Anti-intellectualism" can also be a rallying cry of the petty mind that fancies itself intellectual. Most real intellectuals I know do not disdainfully dismiss others -- even those less educated than they -- as "pedestrian" minds. It's usually the pedant who engage in such talk.
Quick to bruise, slow to heal. Hardly justifies avoiding the point in favor of self-serving personal commentary.
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Originally Posted by IndiaLimaDelta
I seriously doubt that such things are the daily goals of the TJ administrators or its students (or the parents, for that matter). I doubt that, notwithstanding the diversity of the course offerings, TJ students spend much of their days discussing the nature of truth or what constitutes beauty or, indeed, what virtue means for the individual and ethics mean for the society.
So far as I have been able to observe, these and others like them are all but universal questions that daunt nearly every human mind, regardless of whether it has any particular interest or proficiency in math or science. I seriously doubt that there is any valid basis for seriously doubting that TJ students have any less experience at grappling with these issues and questions than others do.
As far as I recollect, no one here stated TJ was unique or singular among the many high schools in the United States. It just happens to be the one located in northern Virginia. It's very unlikely that northern Virginians would presume to believe that the science/math/tech school in their area is superior to those in other parts of the country.
How many times has TJ been proclaimed by pop-published sources as the #1 public high school in the nation? When not, how many times has it been rated within just a few spots of #1? There is every reason for those in this area having such an inclination to believe that TJ outshines the results of attempts to create similar resources anywhere else, and some do.
Around here this phenomenon is not just limited to TJ. I suspect some of it has always existed, but perhaps is heightened by parents anxiety about the economy and the prospects for their children to have the same career opportunities they had. A generation ago, a college degree, in pretty much any major from pretty much any school was a ticket to a solid middle class lifestyle. I think, as that bar has risen, so too has the anxiety and competition for elite educational opportunities.
Now perhaps two generations ago, many fewer men and very few women went to college at all. Today, some 70% of high school graduates enroll in some form of higher education, and even the worst-rated states report 20% of residents over 25 having at least a bachelor's degree. The assurances that were once generally provided by a college degree went only to the top 10% or so. That group is still enjoying such assurances, but they are distinguished today by more than simply a bachelor's degree.
I think it's been established that the pointlessly silly posts are the attempts at condescension, and are nothing more that hot air that rises simply because it's...well, hot air. And not because it is indeed a "higher plane of thought" or whatever. But keep trying. It's amusing.
What's with the continuing lack of response to any salient point at all?
While I am a fan of Rain Man and can appreciate an esoteric debate, let us refocus on the original topic of TJHSST. Avoiding off-topic posts going forward, particularly personal attacks, will minimize infractions and maximize the life of this thread.
Enjoy this sunny Football Sunday!
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Whether you attend a neighborhood school or TJ, you're still going to be in an intellectually stimulating environment, and you're going to be living in a community that places a high premium on education (since, IMO, that attitude is standard throughout northern VA). 
