| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Monadnock Guide |
Posted - June 08 2008 : 3:58:34 PM
Dumbing Down Our Kids
Charles Sykes is the author of Dumbing Down Our Kids. He volunteered for high school and college graduates a list of things they did not learn in school. In his book, he talks about how the liberal, feel good, politically correct philosophy has created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and 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 40 thousand dollars 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 is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping; they called it opportunity.
Rule 6: If you screw 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 by paying your bills, cleaning your room, and listening to you tell how idealistic you are. So before you save the rain forest from the bloodsucking parasites of your parents' generation, try delousing the closet 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, of course, bears not 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. |
| 5 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| winglo |
Posted - June 12 2008 : 5:52:49 PM
Thank goodness my daughter is in a private school where they actually get grades and have to work for them. |
| Dances with Beagles |
Posted - June 12 2008 : 4:39:31 PM
I would add another:
If you ask a 'yes or no' question, be prepared that the answer may be "NO".
As for posting them in the classroom. Sure, go ahead. But, they learned the attitude and behaviors from somewhere else... |
| Theresa |
Posted - June 10 2008 : 08:04:32 AM
Not only should this be placed in every classroom, it should be placed on the inside of the bathroom stall door (since so many always need to go to the bathroom to get out of class), in every child's bedroom, on the refridgerator, in the school superintendent's office...and various and sundry other places I can't think of at the moment. Only problem is, I wonder how many could actually read it. |
| RedFraggle |
Posted - June 09 2008 : 07:58:08 AM
Wow, my 21-year-old sis really needs to pay attention to #'s 3 and 6. She's been jobless since October (when she quit a good-paying job because her co-workers suddenly weren't "cool" anymore) and has turned down multiple job offers because she'd have to go to training first, thinks every job pays too little for her, and believes she won't have enough time for "fun" with her friends if she takes on a new job. She also blames my parents, not her refusal to get a job, for the fact that she has no money to pay for more classes at the community college where she's on academic probation for failing all her classes. (Incidentally, it's also their fault that she's failing because they were the ones who wanted her to go to college anyway. She never wanted to.)
She definitely has an unbalanced sense of entitlement and puts no value whatsoever in achievement. She can't see why she can't make more than a cut above minimum wage, even though she only applies for jobs at bars, and if she fails at something, it's always someone else's fault.
Sorry, long rant to say that I completely agree with this list of things not learned by today's high school and college-age students. Frustrating to no end but sadly true. |
| Obediah |
Posted - June 08 2008 : 9:56:56 PM
Rule 11 reminds me of a football cheer that is popular at the University of Chicago. UC does have footballs teams, which play in Div. III or NAIA, or some such and they lose a lot and get stomped a lot ... the cheer goes like this: "That's alright, that's OK, you're gonna work for us someday!"  |
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