Diagnosing Antagonism

Ian is getting grief from a schoolmate - a particularly hapless lad, and one whom their second grade teacher had hoped to pair up with Ian in the hopes that some of his firstborn uprightness might brush off, onto his understudy.  This is someone Amy has been worrying about for some time, and as of yesterday, he has apparently begun taunting Ian outright.

But I was impressed at Ian's insight into the situation:  "I think he was being mean to be because he thinks I'm smart..."

Apparently, this would-be sidekick had previously, before the taunting phase, been saying that Ian would be a good candidate for Class Bookworm (which he was subsequently "elected"), Class Brain and Class Computer Nerd.  The only one I don't understand is Computer Nerd:  Ian sees technology mostly as a delivery system for electronic Pokemon literature, imagery and sound, usually reconstituted as "video."  But, to his credit, he is probably the only child in school who knows anything about Ubuntu, and that's because Daddy's too cheap - err, I meant "Scottish" - and anti-Microsoft to shell out big bucks for substandard software.

Also, to his credit, Ian completed his assessment of his non-friend's hostility "because I'm smart" with the conclusion, "...but I'm not."  He went on to try to explain to me that he's not so intelligent, because there's so much more he could know... which is a refreshingly intelligent proposition.

(June 11, 2012)