This is an arousing excerpt which was said to be taken from Bill Gates’s speech to MT. Whitney High School in California. Some have claimed that it was originally written by other person but whoever the author of these eleven rules, I think he had done a great job to explain the misconceptions of real life by most high school students.
Bill Gates: 11 things they don’t teach in school
Love him or hate him, he sure hits the nail on the head with this one. To anyone with kids of any age, or anyone who has ever been a kid, here’s some advices Bill Gates dished out recently at a high school speech about 11 things they don’t teach in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings have 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 $40,000/year right out of high school. You won’t be a vice-president with a cell-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 word for flipping burgers-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, and
listening to how cool you are. So before you save the rain forest from the
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
hasn’t. In some schools they have abolished failing grades and they’ll give
you as many times as you want to get the answer right. 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 and
Christmas break off, and very few employers are interested in helping you
find yourself. Do that on you own time.Rule 10. Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to
leave the coffee shop and go to work.Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.
source: forwarded e-mail
July 30th, 2007 at 7:39 am
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October 28th, 2007 at 5:54 pm
If you fact checked for five seconds you would find that this is one more wrongly attributed piece of writing.
This list is the work of Charles J. Sykes.
November 29th, 2007 at 11:22 am
yep. Bill has stolen someone else’s ideas again;)
March 26th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
LOL, this is so true.
April 4th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
so, who seriously cares wether someone stole someone else’s ideas or not besides the morons that give you grades (nowadays called “proffessors” or “teachers”) and the idiots at the CRIA and RIA? if its useful, hell, give it. This is really true. School might teach you some things but lets say, when you have been discriminated against for being blind, and thus cannot get a job, or when conditions do not allow you for better stability (lawyers *clears throat*, “legal” rights, and so on don’t help at all), thats when you’ve learned many of the afforementioned things. There is surely a lot more to learn but this is hopefully understandable for people with average maturity.
April 12th, 2008 at 8:34 pm
I believe Bill Gates to be a well read educated man. His perceptions on life are true. Obviously he has read the book “Dumbing Down our Kids” by educator Charles Sykes. It is a list of eleven things you did not learn in school and directed at high school and college grads. Coming from Bill Gates it appears to be more powerful and so it should. He is the one who has earned the billions not us. Good on him for being honest.
April 18th, 2008 at 11:24 am
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July 20th, 2009 at 11:38 pm
First off this is wrongfully attributed, Gates never said this, not to mention that most of the list is claptrap.
1. While technically true it glosses over things like racism, sexism, and nepotism.
2. Ah yes, the ‘we treat you like crap because you deserve it’ lovely
3. Gates didn’t earn much, he stole, copied, and then used control of market share to keep any competitor from existing.
4. Most of my bosses have been more reasonable and forgiving than my teachers.
5. They were also paid better, treated better, and society didn’t view it as a job that was meant to inflict humiliation.
6. REasonable enough.
7. Like how Gates got most of what he did from being a fairly wealthy kid to start with? Or is this the curmudgeon argument that kids should sit down, shut up, and not dare question those beings who are exalted just because they’re older?
8. Never heard of a school that did this
9. Don’t even know what this is supposed to be related to.
10. Not to mention that in real life most people are abused by their bosses, treated badly by others and have no real means to stop it.
11. Nope, the tall guy who has frat brothers has the nerds working for him until they’ve been drained into lifeless husks to be replaced by new eager college students who will then also become lifeless, soulless cubicle drones.
December 11th, 2009 at 3:04 pm
1. thanks bloganything.net for listing the 11 things.and thanks once again.
2.thanks mr joker for the honest and commendable comment. like to interact with your views .
June 6th, 2010 at 1:06 pm
Rule #1 is wrong. Life IS fair….it screws everyone at one point or another!
June 22nd, 2010 at 6:57 am
Not sure I’d call flipping burgers opportunity, merely a start when you realize exactly how important school is
.