A Nerd's Summary of Life

[Bunny]

This was an email that someone sent.

This should be posted in all schools
and work places, and at home!

       
Love him or hate him, he sure hits the nail on the head with this!
Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a high school about 11 things
they did not and will not learn in school. He talks 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.

[snip]

Sorry to debunk this, but this is not from any speech made by Bill Gates.  It's from the book "Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good about Themselves but Can't Read, Write, or Add" by Charles Sykes.  In any event, it's still good advice to anyone about to start college or highschool, or for that matter for any parents who are wondering why their kid sits around expecting Mommy and Daddy to hand them everything on a silver platter.

[Brian]

Yes Q, in the United States, it is all about winners and losers. Most people are losers, big, big, big time. Some are still losers, but not so much, and there is an entire, gigantic industry catering to them so they can at least pretend to be not as much losers as they really are. Why do you think this is such an anti-social, aggressive, paranoid society here? Why is this the country with by far the most prison inmates per capita in the world?

You're living in the wrong part of the country, mate. I don't think you would find my past and present homes of southern Indiana and central Texas to be anti-social or aggressive; these parts of America are genuinely welcoming and friendly, albeit in a backwoods sort of way.    And I speak as a certified Loser - I'm wearing my Wal-Mart badge right now... 

By the way, at my former school district in Detroit 'F' grades were abolished because of the negative connotation of the letter 'F'. If you failed, you received an 'E'. Naturally, E's quickly became just as horrifying as F's. 

[ChamberNut]

By the way, at my former school district in Detroit 'F' grades were abolished because of the negative connotation of the letter 'F'. If you failed, you received an 'E'. Naturally, E's quickly became just as horrifying as F's. 

How ridiculous!    

[Bunny]

By the way, at my former school district in Detroit 'F' grades were abolished because of the negative connotation of the letter 'F'. If you failed, you received an 'E'. Naturally, E's quickly became just as horrifying as F's. 

That's one piece of education they couldn't dumb down, even though they tried.

[head-case]

By the way, at my former school district in Detroit 'F' grades were abolished because of the negative connotation of the letter 'F'. If you failed, you received an 'E'. Naturally, E's quickly became just as horrifying as F's. 

Reminds me of the bit in "Arrested Development" where George-Michael goes to a new age school where students are supposed to express themselves and there are no grades. 

The teacher explains:

"Either you learn and get an L or you fluctuate in your learning."

"Then what do you get?"

"Then you get an F. "

[Operahaven]

This was an email that someone sent.

This should be posted in all schools
and work places, and at home!

       
Love him or hate him, he sure hits the nail on the head with this!
Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a high school about 11 things
they did not and will not learn in school. He talks 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 car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4 : If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

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.

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 thought you were. So before
you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's 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
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 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.

Anne, I'm not sure what to make of all this.

This seems to me to be mostly a load of, how shall I say...'caca de toro'.

[Anne]

Anne, I'm not sure what to make of all this.

This seems to me to be mostly a load of, how shall I say...'caca de toro'.

Thanks to teaching 3-yr-olds from Mexico in the summers, I can translate your Spanish.     I posted the email just to see what others think about the subject.  We now have your opinion.