Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a high school about eleven things that students would not learn in school. He talked about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this same concept set them up for failure in the real world. So, love him or hate him, Bill Gates sure hits the nail on the head with his comments:
Rule 1: Life is not fair- get used to it!
Rule 2: The world doesn't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself.
Rule 3: You will not make $60,000 a year right out of high school and you won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.
Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait until you get a boss.
Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grand parents had a different word for burger flipping- they called it opportunity.
Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault. So, don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.
Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes & listening to you talking about how cool you are. So, before you save the rain forest from the parasite of your parents' generation, try delousing the closet in your room.
Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and you get as many times as needed to get the correct answer.
This does not bear any resemblance to anything in real life.
Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on your own time.
Rule 10: Television is not real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to their jobs.
Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.
Okay, the comment in #3 about the "car phone" makes me think this is a little bit dated! But still, some interesting stuff there. I do wonder how the way kids are being raised today is going to affect them as adults.
In regards to #8, I was not scarred as a child from losing at things. I went to my nephew's soccer game a few years ago and I said, "Oh, is the score board broken?" and he informed me that they don't keep score. But he made us keep track for him so that he could know the score after the game! I can see the arguments for not keeping score. Especially for really little kids.
But back in my day, (yup, I am old enough to finally be able to say that!) we used to keep score, and sometimes we lost, and we still had fun!
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