Cosas de la vida: Reglas de un educador para nuestros hijos, que desafortunadamente no aprenderán en sus escuelas.

Supuestamente Bill Gates se presentó recientemente ante un auditorio de jóvenes estudiantes y expuso las siguientes reglas de vida que éstos no habrían de aprender en sus escuelas. En realidad no fue así o, por lo menos, no son reglas de la autoría directa de Bill Gates. Más bien, se trata de un conjunto de reglas mencionadas por el educador Charles Sykes en su libro Dumbing Down Our Kids, cuyo mensaje es el mismo que se atribuye al supuesto discurso de Gates.

Cualquiera que sea la fuente, ese mensaje vale la pena propagarlo. Les paso el texto en inglés, porque así lo recibí.

Saludos,

Carlos.

11 rules your kids did not and will not learn in school.

Rule 1:
Life is not fair - get used to it!

Rule 2:
The world doesn'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.