Even when athletes and musicians show off, they do so in ways that youth culture can claim as its own. The peer group comes to admire athletes and shun scholars. The resulting stereotypes reinforce themselves. Conversely, jocks and band members can't admit they like physics without getting laughed at. We sit and agonize over how to write papers, trying out this phrase or that one, when the prose doesn't just flow.
Many adults forget how often students face such frustration.
In a culture that values self-confidence and the appearance thereof, the thinker lacks the cachet of the doer. Imagine watching James Bond struggle at the firing range, comparison-shop for armored convertibles, or study flash cards on the favorite drinks of Russian spies. To be sure, Americans do have a more positive attitude toward science and individual achievement than people in most other countries. But in our schools, the incentives remain skewed, as Bishop, Ted Sizer at Brown University, and other reformers have argued. Schools evaluate relative rather than absolute performance.