Math Is Fun Forum

Jai Ganesh

Administrator

Registered: 2005-06-28

Posts: 48,413

Bill Gates' Rules

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.

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It appears to me that if one wants to make progress in mathematics, one should study the masters and not the pupils. - Niels Henrik Abel.

Nothing is better than reading and gaining more and more knowledge - Stephen William Hawking.

iheartmaths

Member

Registered: 2008-01-08

Posts: 31

Re: Bill Gates' Rules

haha I like number 11. I wish people would've taken notice of that one earlier, especially when I was in high school.

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Don't quote me on that.

All_Is_Number

Member

Registered: 2006-07-10

Posts: 258

Re: Bill Gates' Rules

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. … 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.

MS software excepted, of course.

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You can shear a sheep many times but skin him only once.

Chewy

Member

Registered: 2008-08-07

Posts: 67

Re: Bill Gates' Rules

My favorites are rules #5 and #7

Tigeree

Member

Registered: 2005-11-19

Posts: 13,883

Re: Bill Gates' Rules

I lyk those rules their very true to life. Wish bill gates came and said that when I waz at school.   
At schools the teachers always try 2 bring out students self-esteem but if theres no point when it comes to life.....

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People don't notice whether it's winter or summer when they're happy.
~ Anton Chekhov
Cheer up, emo kid.

Amalcas

Member

Registered: 2008-11-18

Posts: 8

Re: Bill Gates' Rules

I disagree with rule 8. Schools haven't done away with winning and losing; they've made everyone look like winners at the price of training any real "winners" or making any "losers" into winners. I have seen many poor students pushed through the system because they could be, and so many smart students breeze by with top marks for no effort whatsoever. Smart students shouldn't get better grades; they should take harder courses. Teaching "smart" students that they don't need to try is a travesty, as much as failing to teach poor students at all, or nearly so, as combined they cut the legs out from under society from both the top and bottom.