Eleven Rules
Charles Sykes
In the book "Dumbing Down Our Kids", Charles Sykes lays out 11 rules that students do not learn in high school or college, but should. He argues that our feel-good, politically correct teachings have created a generation of kids with no concept of reality who are set up for failure in the real world. The list:
Rule 1. Life is not fair; get used to it.
Rule 2. The world won'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 $40,000 a year right out of high school. 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 till you get a boss. He doesn't have
tenure. Rule 5. Flipping burgers in not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents 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 andlistening to you talk about how cool you are. So before you save the rainforest from the parasites of your parents' generation, try "delousing" thecloset in your own 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; they'll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest 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 jobs. Rule 11. Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.
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