Gates' speech to MT. WHITNEY HIGH SCHOOL, in Visalia, California.
Worthwhile reading for anyone. Love him or hate him, he sure hits the nail on the head with this!
To anyone with kids of any age, or anyone who has ever been a kid, here's some advice Bill Gates recently dished out at a high school speech about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings has 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 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 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 has not. In some schools they have abolished failing grades and they will 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
being well rounded, but I haven't used what I learned about Early American History, English Literature, Trigonometry, Geometry, LATIN (I only wish I had taken Spanish), etc., and many other subjects important to the school system, but essentially useless in the "Real World", since I was in school. Many of us learn what we have to just to get out of school with acceptable grades, and to get that "degree".
In society, a degree, ANY degree will get you a better paying position than if you didn't have the degree in the first place, but HOW does a music degree (for instance) prepare you for a career in the business world where you are involved in Data Processing (for instance)?
Why doesn't our esteemed education system teach one more of what they REALLY need to know - like how to balance a checkbook, how to work up a resume, and to fill out a job application properly,
how to go through the interview process when you apply for a job, how to file taxes, how to develop a business plan, how to negotiate, how to type (I took typing, and I only wish I wish I had taken better advantage of it), how to spell, how to communicate properly (both written and spoken), and so many other things we really need to learn???
It often doesn't get the credit it deserves, but the "School of Hard Knocks" seems to provide one with a much better education for what they REALLY need to know about life.
I guess we learn too late that there isn't a better teacher than
the actual experience, we just don't seem to be smart enough to learn that soon enough.
Don't we all wish we knew what we know NOW, but were 20 years younger???
Just MHO...
Using or not using what you learned in school depends on the choice one makes. Let us look at the case of Trignometry, Geometry, Calculus, American History, Latin or whatever.
Some of us use Trignometry, Geometry, Calculus, etc every day and some don't. Always wonder without these, how does one distiguish between experiences in life? How does one learn from life?
So, itg may not be fair to conclude we didn't learn anything from school. May be we did and we just don't know it!
By the way, education is not just for earnings. It is for enlightenment and enjoying life.
One of my professors use to say "Education is a participative sports and you have to decide whetehr you want to particiapte or be a spectator on the stands" ! Either one will work but to different degree and will bring difeerent results.
That is kind of sad for your John. It sounds like you learned to read just well enough to pass your tests but not to interpret or use what you learned. If you know basic math, you should be able to balance your checkbook (the banks tend to print a template or worksheet in your statement). If you use a computer you should know how to use finacial software to balance it even if you are bad in math.
The reason a college degree gets you a better job is that more than anything it shows persistence. If you are not willing to put in the effort to make yourself better (by that I mean more knowledgeable) why should a potential employer pay you the same as someone else who is? Think about it. Life grows more complex every day. Used to be the dumb grease jock in high school learned to fix cars and could make a living as a mechanic. Now it takes knowledge of computers, electrical circuits, etc. to repair a car.
You don't need a college degree to make it. You can do quite well in the "School of Hard Knocks" but don't expect the corner office with the B'mer and the fancy house for while....
I am sorry you seem to think I am so sad, but you are making WAY too many assumptions based on what you read, but not what I actually wrote. I said that the education process has some shortfalls, and can not be relied on for enough of what one needs to live a full life.
I CAN use a pc. I used to be a Systems Analyst, working for a major coprpration, and I was the "go to" guy where I was the last call made before going to the h/w and s/w vendors. I lived on a pager 24/7 which is NOT fun.
I now run a lowly service-type business (and I own more than one business in all), I make more than most bosses I ever had, I pay more in taxes than I used to make as a gross salary (even after taking all deductions I and my tax people can find).
"Beemers" are fine, but I prefer to drive a V-12 Mercedes.
NONE of the above came from what I learned in Latin, Early-American History, Greek Mythology, or English-Lit. MUCH of it came from what I learned in experience, some from the "School of Hard Knocks".
I am NOT trying to brag, but you made statements about me personally that were absolutely NOT true...
I think by the same token you have misread much of what I said. If you really think about it you are sum total of everything that has been mixed into you, be it latin, ancient arameic history or hard science. The fact you are successful in a material way shows that your education (the whole bag of it, by the way) prepared you well to reconfigure and go on, although probably 60% to 70% of the credit must go to your brains.
Your message just sounded like the constant bleating from the jerks that blame every decision the make on the hand fate dealt them, not what the did with the opportunities that were laid in their path.
I am glad you are successful and rich, the only question is are you content with who you are?
NO one can take it from you and you will always have it to fall back on ... College, like it or not will get you a better job then just a HS education... A job you can tell your family about (then you could do this just very part-time on the side for fun 
Want your kids to go to college ... give them an example to follow and go yourself... Want them to have a reality check? Take them to a homeless shelter and stay the weekend with no money. They will sure appreciate life more when they get back
True, college can't teach you all of lifes experiences but like it or not it will give you the advantage and headstart to a path of opprotunities.
All what you want for your children...The best right? You should also want for yourselves.
PS....How and why do some advertise they are full time college students and then on thier websites they are available 16 hrs a day six days a week?
I believe the answer to your PS question is "fuzzy logic mathematics"
When I read this post, I thought this was right on!
I have a higher education besides H.S.. While my schooling is invaluable I think Mr. Gates is talking about how we need to pay attention to the value of education and more so the reality of how far it will only take you. It is up to us as individuals to apply EVERYTHING we learned in school and use it in our daily lives. Like discipline. It sucks ass to have to get off work or finish making dinner and then have to go to class and be ON TIME in college. What about when you may have been on the year book staff or on the debate team? Do you think you might have learned a little marketing or how to speak to others and develop listening skills?
There is much much more than just and education. I wouldn't give up mine for the world. I am also glad to have learned the lessons in life as well.
Mr. Gates has an impressive way of putting things.
Be inspired!!!
I was bringing up the "reality check" part of what Brooke said in her original post, and how many people who HAVE the education, still lack the basic skills needed to do more than just be able to get a job. What we do in life, and with our lives, skills, talents (IMO - not always the same as skills), and education is totally up to us...
How many people do we see with a "well rounded" education, even the "higher degree" who are still poorly prepared in terms of the tools needed for average everyday life? I feel that the things I mentioned in an earlier comment above that aren't often taught in school are just as important as those subjects that are taught (and more necessary). Some of what we learn in school is not used so often (I don't mean higher math and sciences needed to be a doctor or a rocket scientist - I mean for the majority of us) after that graduation ceremony.
While I was in the corporate world I saw so many examples
of "educated" people, even in positions of management/authority, who had such poor communication skills (often more written than verbal, having so many grammatical errors it showed that) they couldn't put words and sentences together well enough to write a memo or to speak in public well enough to command attention and be interesting enough to pay attention to so that others could follow them and understand what they had to say.
As examples, look at some of the spelling and grammar used on these boards, really listen to high school / college students talk, not only what they say, but how they say it (WHERE did the word "conversate)" come from???), listen to adults when they speak, look at how many people WITH degrees/ education who still seem to live from paycheck-to-paycheck.
As for the comments bordering on being about me personally, just FYI - I DON'T have a 4 year degree (went for 3 years and quit), but I got good grades, high SAT's, scholarships, all the stuff included with the education except the degree, which never hurt me because I must have had enough of the other things I talk about besides education to make up for not having the degree.
MOST of what I know that makes me happy and sucessful are those things I learned outside of the "public education" process, at home, in everyday life, by having common sense, by having enough confidence and indivuality to not always follow the crowd and to do what others were doing and making decisions for myself, learning from making mistakes I HAVE made in what I called the "School of Hard Knocks", but I DID learn...
I am a caring, compassionate person, a loyal friend, pretty much open-minded and non-judgemental, I care a lot more about what and who a person IS than what they make, where they live, what they drive, wear, or look like etc.
I make a very nice living, I own more than one business, and
right now I am away from Atlanta, sitting in a home office, looking out over the ocean while I work at my pc.
I DO agree with what Bill Gates said, and I think that a person should not just find and get a job and a career, but try to find what REALLY makes them happy, then find a way to get paid for doing that.
Find something that you are really passionate about, not just something you can do well because it pays fairly well. An average, generic, politically-correct education, will teach you how to be average, just like most everyone else. It is up to each of us to develop what makes us different as individuals, and successful in what we do, and to use a better work than sucessful, plug in the words "content/satisfied".
If, in the later years of your life, you can look back and really be content and satisfied about what you have accomplished, and the means you used to accomplish it, then you are a very fortunate (notice i did not use the work "lucky") person.
Enough already!
I couldn't agree with you more completely!
Brooke, it IS a VERY inspiring list, but it's actually an excerpt from the book "Dumbing Down our Kids" by educator Charles Sykes. Just for your info so we can credit Mr. Sykes properly.
I'm not a purist but a very disillusioned observer of people. The English language has become so corrupted by the masses, educated or not, that what used to be considered misuse or disuse of English grammar is now a very acceptable way of speaking.
There are people who, not knowing any better, have adopted a grammar that exemplifies all that is wrong with our language.
How often have we heard people misuse lay and lie. They don't realize that lay is a transitive verb(thus requiring an object) and lie is an intransitive verb (not requiring an object). How often do we hear someone saying "between you and I", when "between you and me" is the correct choice because the objective case is what is called for.
It has become the case where conjunctions are rarely used because the use of conjunctions in their proper form is no longer practiced, even by newspaper editors. One has only to read the news and realize that often one must re-read it to get the correct meaning.
I could go on ad nauseum and I won't change anything. One must learn to endure and endear in order to survive in this PC world.
As they say in PA...." Ve get too soon oldt und too late schmart" anon.