11 things you didn’t learn in school

Excerpt from the book Dumbing Down Our Kids by educator Charles Sykes. It lists eleven things you did not learn in school.

Sykes talks about how feel-good, politically-correct teachings have created a generation of kids with no concept of reality, and how this concept sets them up for failure in the real world—you will not float in the air because you do not believe in gravity.

1. Life is not fair – get used to it.
2. The world does not care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself.
3. You will not make 40 thousand dollars a year right out of high school. You will not be a vice president with a car phone, until you earn both.
4. If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss. He does not have tenure.
5. Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping — they called it opportunity.
6. If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes, instead, learn from them.
7. Before you were born, your parents were not as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes, and listening to you talk about how cool you are. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent’s generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.
8. Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not. In some schools they have abolished failing grades, and they will give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. This does not bear the slightest resemblance to anything in real life.
9. Life is not divided into semesters. You do not get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on your own time!
10. Television is not real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
11. Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.

Published on July 11th, 2012