• If you are having problems logging in please use the Contact Us in the lower right hand corner of the forum page for assistance.

Rules Kids Won't Learn in School

Help Support Ranchers.net:

Cal

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 14, 2005
Messages
3,598
Reaction score
0
Location
Southern SD
Rules Kids Won't Learn in School
From Charles J. Sykes, author of the book Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good About Themselves But Can't Read, Write, Or Add:

Rule No. 1: Life is not fair. Get used to it. The average teen-ager uses the phrase "It's not fair" 8.6 times a day. You got it from your parents, who said it so often you decided they must be the most idealistic generation ever. When they started hearing it from their own kids, they realized Rule No. 1.

Rule No. 2: The real world won't care as much about your self-esteem as much as your school does. It'll expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself. This may come as a shock. Usually, when inflated self-esteem meets reality, kids complain that it's not fair. (See Rule No. 1)

Rule No. 3: Sorry, you won't make $40,000 a year right out of high school. And you won't be a vice president or have a car phone either. You may even have to wear a uniform that doesn't have a Gap label.

Rule No. 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait 'til you get a boss. He doesn't have tenure, so he tends to be a bit edgier. When you screw up, he's not going to ask you how you feel about it.

Rule No. 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping. They called it opportunity. They weren't embarrassed making minimum wage either. They would have been embarrassed to sit around talking about Kurt Cobain all weekend.

Rule No. 6: It's not your parents' fault. If you screw up, you are responsible. This is the flip side of "It's my life," and "You're not the boss of me," and other eloquent proclamations of your generation. When you turn 18, it's on your dime. Don't whine about it, or you'll sound like a baby boomer.

Rule No. 7: Before you were born your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way paying your bills, cleaning up your room and listening to you tell them how idealistic you are. And by the way, before you save the rain forest from the blood-sucking parasites of your parents' generation, try delousing the closet in your bedroom.

Rule No. 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers. Life hasn't. In some schools, they'll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. Failing grades have been abolished and class valedictorians scrapped, lest anyone's feelings be hurt. Effort is as important as results. This, of course, bears not the slightest resemblance to anything in real life. (See Rule No. 1, Rule No. 2 and Rule No. 4.)

Rule No. 9: Life is not divided into semesters, and you don't get summers off. Not even Easter break. They expect you to show up every day. For eight hours. And you don't get a new life every 10 weeks. It just goes on and on. While we're at it, very few jobs are interested in fostering your self-expression or helping you find yourself. Fewer still lead to self-realization. (See Rule No. 1 and Rule No. 2.)

Rule No. 10: Television is not real life. Your life is not a sitcom. Your problems will not all be solved in 30 minutes, minus time for commercials. In real life, people actually have to leave the coffee shop to go to jobs. Your friends will not be as perky or pliable as Jennifer Aniston.

Rule No. 11: Be nice to nerds. You may end up working for them. We all could.

Rule No. 12: Smoking does not make you look cool. It makes you look moronic. Next time you're out cruising, watch an 11-year-old with a butt in his mouth. That's what you look like to anyone over 20. Ditto for "expressing yourself" with purple hair and/or pierced body parts.

Rule No. 13: You are not immortal. (See Rule No. 12.) If you are under the impression that living fast, dying young and leaving a beautiful corpse is romantic, you obviously haven't seen one of your peers at room temperature lately.

Rule No. 14: Enjoy this while you can. Sure parents are a pain, school's a bother, and life is depressing. But someday you'll realize how wonderful it was to be a kid. Maybe you should start now. You're welcome.
 
Cal,
I haven't read this fellow's book. But it made me think about many of the young women in prison. Most of them however DON'T feel good about themselves AND have trouble with the 3R's.

They came from unkempt "homes" where mom and dad weren't reliably there for them and weren't paying the bills.
If anything needed to be deloused it was dad- way before their bedroom if they even had a bedroom.
They can't begin to see beyond their bad upbringing and poor self-esteem to even dream of a $40,000 salary. It's like a millstone aroung their necks.
At least the kids he has aimed his comments to have parenting, food, housing and clean clothes. With good parenting they can catch up.

(sorry for the downer comments but we sometimes operate like the world all has at least middle class hurdles and options.)
 
cal..thanks for the posting....all too often, i see the next generation running around this tiny town, driving their fancy cars that mommy and daddy bought and whining about their part-time, minimum wage jobs and making statements like "i deserve better"....yep, kiddo, ya do...so, get out there and earn it like the rest of us have had to...heard a kid the other day complaining about having to work 12 hours a week while going to college because mom and dad could not afford the full tuition at his fancy, private college...i know this young man's mom quite well and have watched her work 5, 6 or even 7 straight days of 12 hour shifts at the hospital to pay for his education while he parties it away!! how sad! then there are the hard working kids out there who bring a smile to your face...the kids who are learning to take care of themselves, pay their own way and value what they have!! to those kids, i tip my hat!! the world is not an easy place, but it can be a beautiful place if we all try!! tomorrow is high school graduation in ennis and i pray for all those getting ready to head out into the "real world"....may god be with you always!! :D
 
The hard-working kids DO bring a smile to your face. AGREED!!
As for the others, they'll be back living off mom and dad, until mom and dad wise up. When we give them so much without due responsibility, we are doing them HARM. I say kids today do not know the meaning of achievement. Everything is handed to them, they don't know how satisfying it is to achieve something on your own. Sad, sad. In a way, it really isn't their fault. It's the parents fault.

Amazing the kids that turn out well, IN SPITE of parents, environment, etc. It is an amazing thing called, "TRY."

We know a young lady from here that was raised poor. She had big dreams. She spent quite a bit of time with us and I listened to her dreams. I was afraid for her, they were pretty lofty. I have a list of things on my refrigerator~hints on life or reminders, if you will. One of them is to remember "Do not rain on other people's parade." So I listened, and encouraged whenever I could. Helped, if possible. More from a support standpoint than anything else. Well, eat my words. This little gal has gone on and already realized some of her dreams. I think she is 21 now. Lives in Texas and is doing her heart's desire, and doing it well. The things she has accomplished should have never happened to her. It was like a fairy tale. So, it helped me remember, good things DO happen to good people. All she had going for her was determination. I remember so well, she was 12 years old, standing in my kitchen, telling me what she wanted to do with her life. She ended with this sentence. "I AM DROP-DEAD SERIOUS." Pretty good for a 12-year old!! She has my ultimate respect. She never quit GOING FOR IT, AGAINST ALL ODDS.
 
nr;

Being poor is no excuse. The only excuse children should learn is to say "excuse me."

Granted, being poor might make it harder to accomplish what someone wants, but hard work and try can overcome almost anything.

Too bad that we seem to elect people to federal public office who come from wealthy backgrounds. There are a lot of people out there who have the right priorities and would make good leaders, but don't have the financial backing to win an election.

Seems like we all look to someones financial background to see if they would make good leaders. I don't feel one has anything to do with the other.

Kind'a got off on a tangent, but feeling sorry for people very seldom does them much good. Just check out the majority of people on welfare.

Congrats FH for really doing some good for someone who needed it.

We appreciate what we earn more than what we are given.
 
Thank you ladies, for adding your interesting and thought provoking insight.

nr, in the unkempt homes you were referring to, where did the breakdown initially occur, in your estimation? Breaking it down to the lowest common denominator, what went wrong?
 
Rules Kids Won't Learn in School

I've seen in our grade school that kids do as well as their parents are involved with them, at home, socially, at school. Too many parents want the schools to "babysit" their children, which tells me these parents have kids they "own" and don't want to partake in the daily raising of them. I also realize there are kids out there in one-parent homes whose parent is working hard to make a living for their kids. It's just a hard thing.
 
Cal;
Either you didn't like my comments or you think I'm a lady! :shock:

I don't know whether to be annoyed, dissapointed or feel gratitude! :lol:
 
Cal: "nr, in the unkempt homes you were referring to, where did the breakdown initially occur, in your estimation? Breaking it down to the lowest common denominator, what went wrong?"

What went wrong? Self-centeredness.
Self-centered, sexually active people incapable or unwilling to act in an adult fashion (usually these days due to alcohol/drugs) had children. And that is where the parenting of these children ended. The parents were too tied up in their own problems to guide a child a make a loving home.

These children haven't been raised to understand what decency is.
They seem to have little self-respect and therefore give no respect to others. Eventually they break the law and end up in prison.

I'm not saying poverty causes it. Rather, poverty often accompanies the degredation because they don't hold down a job when caught in the downward spiral or they spend it on drugs or they have never learned to spend money wisely.

To my way of thinking the only way to repair the damage is to help them see that they are loved by God who has had a purpose for their lives all along even if their parents couldn't manage it.
 
Jinglebob said:
Cal;
Either you didn't like my comments or you think I'm a lady! :shock:

I don't know whether to be annoyed, dissapointed or feel gratitude! :lol:
I am soooo embarassed, must have thought it said "Jinglebelle", sorry! :oops:
 
nr said:
Cal: "nr, in the unkempt homes you were referring to, where did the breakdown initially occur, in your estimation? Breaking it down to the lowest common denominator, what went wrong?"

What went wrong? Self-centeredness.
Self-centered, sexually active people incapable or unwilling to act in an adult fashion (usually these days due to alcohol/drugs) had children. And that is where the parenting of these children ended. The parents were too tied up in their own problems to guide a child a make a loving home.

These children haven't been raised to understand what decency is.
They seem to have little self-respect and therefore give no respect to others. Eventually they break the law and end up in prison.

I'm not saying poverty causes it. Rather, poverty often accompanies the degredation because they don't hold down a job when caught in the downward spiral or they spend it on drugs or they have never learned to spend money wisely.

To my way of thinking the only way to repair the damage is to help them see that they are loved by God who has had a purpose for their lives all along even if their parents couldn't manage it.

nr, that was an excellent "Dr. Laura Minute", thanks for posting. Sure hope your shoulder that you had surgery on has continued to improve. Is it good as new yet?
 
Here is how it happened, I think.

Cal: "Thank you ladies, for adding your interesting and thought provoking insight." This was posted Sat May 21, 2005 8:18 pm

Jinglebob's preceding post was Sat May 21, 2005 8:17 pm. I am guessing that Cal's response was in the process of being typed before Jinglebob's post was on the board. Hope this helps to get you off the hook, Cal.
 
By Non-member Dad
Proud Dad and a good kid
The horse was my idea but her first business was goats at 4 or 5 that brought up sheep. In High School she wanted Cattle, which lead to 25 acres of hay. We had my Foster Daughters computer for safekeeping. At 13, she was playing with it making ads to sell her animals. People saw her ads and asked her to make them one also. I walked through, saw the ads and said that if she put them together she had 4 pages. Two weeks later she said she was ready to go to a printer with 12 pages.

To print two or three thousand were priced at $300, when the local newspaper said they would print 10,000 for $400. 10,000 copies soon became 20,000 and work with all the trades that went with it. Book Keeping, Photo, Ad make up, Public Relations, Sales, talks with Nashville, Interviews, knowledge on Row Crops, Field Crops, Cattle, Horses, Sheep, Swine, Goats and much more to include 2nd Place in National FFA Ag Entrepreneurship Awards. (Her paper is on hold because of school)

I was upset when she gave up going with her piers and Scholarships to Cal Poly to live and work at home and attend a Local Jr. College. Wanting extra classes she spent and extra year in JC.

Jobs:
Her Boss at Quality Farm and Country offered her an extra $2. per hour, to move with him, in his move to a local saddle shop. The offer of a $2 per hour more per hour and a part time job, at Sprig Electric, 4 blocks from her new college at San Jose State University helped made the move easy. She has set all her college classes for Full Time on Tuesdays and Thursdays and works full time 3 days per week. In 6 months on the new job she received another $2 per hour raise full benefits and a promises to pay her next Years College cost.

When her OLD old car, a gift from her mother, was totaled by a Hit and Run she bought a New Car.

I feed and house her but at 21 years she has a, a new car, NO COLLEGE DEBIT, is on the Deans List, a Credit Rating in the high 700's and a good job.

With a Public Relations Major she is required to do a six month apprenticeship with a PR Company. Sprig Electric, not wanting to loose her is working with the College in setting up their own PR Apprenticeship and turning all their PR over to her. The College MAY allow this considering her help with founding "American Large Animal Humane Association" setting up their Web Page www.alahassoc.org , Founding her own nonprofit -Time to Vote • Org , "Vickey's CATCH PEN Gazette" and documenter PR for 4H and FFA and Sprig Electric. That's not bad for a Dyslexic Person.

Note:
I am a single parent and Chose to give V¬ the social structure of Public School combined with Home School

As parents we need to be involved in our children's lives. V¬ has worked side by side with me – doing dishes, house cleaning, ranch work, electrical work - at 10 I started making her choose her friends, and talked to her to Helped HER decide her life style – Smoking, (Sex, THE PILL Rubbers) Drinking, time to come home, if she should call if late, Check Book, her Credit, when to Feed. It has not been easy but it's working. I have Not Told her what to do for 11 years.
 
Sounds like you raised a great daughter! I've got to warn you, though, she may put cyanide in your Cheerios for mentioning "sex, the pill, and rubbers" in your post about her. :D
 

Latest posts

Top