MALAYSIA - WONDER if any of you caught the 'Beauty and the Geek' (Astro Star Channel 711) - a reality show based on a social experiment as to how much a beauty or a geek can be transformed by living and working in close quarters with one another.

Most people live their lives with blinders on - focusing on and inter-relating with people of their own kind, while shunning a whole other segment of society whose pursuits, norms, habits and mannerisms they are not familiar with.

The show is based on the premise that, given the right circumstances, all this can be changed.

Take beauties and geeks, for instance. The geek is more intellectual. His pursuits are more academic and he couldn't care less how he looks.

Ambitious in his own way, the geek pursues his passions single-mindedly. He could be an oceanographer, a video programmer, a software analyst or simply a Star Wars fan. He could, and often is, a genius of sorts in his own chosen field.

The problem he faces? Socially, he may almost be a zero, particularly in the grooming department.

As for his deportment - the way he carries himself - the geek's awkwardness is a given trait. Because of this, having and sustaining a relationship with a person of the opposite sex is a major issue for him.

Looks are an asset.

As for the beauty, she lives her life, centred on how she must and ought to look every day. Her physical attributes carry her through situations where her intellectual ones fail her. Her looks are her major asset in life - so she cares for them, attends to them and depends on them.

Socially, she is fashion-savvy, body-conscious and fully aware of her physical attributes. In the intellectual and academic department, she doesn't care two hoots if she can't spell the word dinosaur or doesn't know which part of a computer does what.

Put a beauty and a geek together in real life and what do you get? Definitely not instant chemistry! In fact, being such polar opposites - they just don't click.

But, what if they were thrown together and forced to acknowledge, live and work with one another, would something come out of it? Would the act of putting them in the same team do the trick? Despite their differences, would they learn something from each other?

I have caught a few seasons of 'Beauty and the Geek' now and I must say, that the social experiment devised by Ashton Kutcher, actress Demi Moore's life partner, has had its effects - not only on the participants, but also on the audience!

The truth is this, until and unless you are forced to work and live with someone who is diametrically opposite to you, you will never know how much lies under the surface of that person and the image that he or she projects to the whole world.

A geek, for instance, has more things going for him than just his intellectual abilities and a beauty can be more than just a good-looker - she could truly be a heart-warming, sensitive and generous person, with some intelligent abilities to match.

Keeping to themselves

Frankly, and this is true for co-education schools in particular, the social experiment is going on all the time - right under the very noses of us teachers. But, in real life, what is true is also painful - about 90% of the time, the geeks tend to keep to themselves and so do the beauties.

I see it on a daily basis so I know what I am talking about.

The geeks may admire the beauties and may dream about them - but for the most part, they know the beauties live in a world apart from them. As for the beauties, they aim their charm at the good- looking guys and the hunks.

The only time they (albeit, very reluctantly) turn to a geek is when they need serious help. This will usually happen when teachers put them together in a group to do a common project.

If you give students the freedom to form their own groups, the natural order of things will dictate that beauties will never choose to group up with geeks. Period.

So, it is the teacher's responsibility to get them together, wails will rise, hails of excuses will rain down on you and if you're too tired to fight them, they will get their way.

I've stuck to my guns several times and forced them to be in the same team - hoping of course that they will get to know each other better as well as be able to work out their differences.

I must say that the strategy does not really work because students who aren't like-minded in the first place, will still keep very much to themselves - dividing up work and then somehow managing to submit a report without even really getting to know each other. Sad, but true.

That is why, I take my hats off to Kutcher - because in his reality show, the beauties and the geeks have to really work at their relationship as at stake is a quarter of a million US dollars (S$400,000) - a reward enticing enough to keep the ball rolling and the audience watching, week after week.

I wish I could do the same at school - in particular, dole out such a reward too - and make a beauty know a geek really well and vice-versa - but who I am kidding? We teachers try, but it is close to impossible.

What I have learnt from the show is that if I want the geeks and beauties to work together because of their many hidden talents, I make them work in pairs, not in groups ... it somehow seems to be the better option!

The Star/Asia News Network