What our kid's don't learn in school

(image courtesy of the bbc)

I'm sure many of you receive the 'funnies' via e-mail from friends. Today I received an e-mail that I really enjoyed, and both having and working with teenagers can identify with the sentiments, some of you may already have seen it. It is meant to be light hearted and a poke at stroppy I know everything teenagers, but some of the points actually did make me think.

"A famous very successful businessman gave a speech at a High School about 11 things they did not and will 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 concept set them up for failure in the real world.

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 £60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a company car until you earn both.

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss. (I'm sure some youngsters get a very sharp shock when they speak to employers the way they have been able, through their hands being tied with discipline, to speak to teachers, and are told in no uncertain terms exactly who calls the shots)

Rule 5: Flipping burgers is 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. (the sooner kids learn that they are responsible for their actions........!)

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 and listening to you talk about how cool you think you are. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parents generation, try delousing the wardrobe in your own room. (there isn't a money tree at the bottom of the garden, or a fairy who magics dinner on the table, food in the cupboard and clean clothes in the wardrobe)

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 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 the real life. (many schools no longer have sports days as they don't like children feeling inferior, but are still quite happy to aim for academia - I find this very sad, many children who are not academic are good at sport and this has taken away their chance to shine, so what if the grade A student always comes last in the 100m - tough you can't have everything, and to take away the competitive sports days doesn't allow the sporting kids to shine....)

Rule 9: Life is not divided into terms. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that in you own time.

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In the real world 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.