Fourteen Rules Kids Won’t Learn In School

[Cryptid]

The original Fourteen Rules Kids Won't Learn In School were written by Charles J. Sykes during the mid-1990s. Mr. Sykes is the author of Nation of Victims, Dumbing Down Our Kids, Profscam, The End of Privacy, and The Hollow Men. His columns have appeared in numerous newspapers, including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. A radio and television host at WIM] in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and a senior fellow at the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, he is married and has three children.

• • •

Fourteen Rules Kids Won’t Learn In School
By Charles J. Sykes

RULE #1: Life is not fair. Get used to it. The average teen-ager uses the phrase "It is 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 #1.

RULE #2: The real world will not care as much about your self-esteem as much as your school does. It will 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 is not fair (See RULE #1).

RULE #3: Sorry, you will not make $40,000 a year right out of high school. And you will not be a vice president or have a car phone either. You may even have to wear a uniform that does not have a Gap label.

RULE #4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait until you get a boss. He does not have tenure, so he tends to be a bit edgier. When you screw up, he is not going to ask you how you feel about it.

RULE #5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping. They called it opportunity. They were not embarrassed making minimum wage either. They would have been embarrassed to sit around talking about Kurt Cobain all weekend.

RULE #6: It is not your parents' fault. If you screw up, you are responsible. This is the flip side of "It is my life", and "You are not the boss of me", and other eloquent proclamations of your generation. When you turn 18, it is on your dime. Do not whine about it.

RULE #7: Before you were born your parents were not 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 #8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers. Life has not. In some schools, they will 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 #1, RULE #2, and RULE #4).

RULE #9: Life is not divided into semesters, and you do not get summers off. Not even Easter break. They expect you to show up every day. For eight hours. And you do not get a new life every 10 weeks. It just goes on and on. While we are 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 #1 and RULE #2.)

RULE #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 #11: Be nice to nerds. You may end up working for them. We all could. (Note: While this rule is often mistakenly attributed to Bill Gates, it is actually from the book "Dumbing Down our Kids" by Charles J. Sykes, c.1995, and is directed at high school and college graduates.)

RULE #12: Smoking does not make you look cool. It makes you look moronic. Next time you are out cruising, watch an 11-year-old with a butt in his mouth. That is what you look like to anyone over 20. Ditto for "expressing yourself" with purple hair and/or pierced body parts.

RULE #13: You are not immortal (See RULE #12). If you are under the impression that living fast, dying young, and leaving a beautiful corpse is romantic, you obviously have not seen one of your peers at room temperature lately.

RULE #14: Enjoy this while you can. Sure parents are a pain, school is a bother, and life is depressing. But someday you will realize how wonderful it was to be a kid. Maybe you should start now. You are welcome.

• • •

Mr. Sykes has gone on to write 50 Rules Kids Won’t Learn In School. I have about a dozen of my own. What are yours?

 

[Forest Cat]

"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."

 

[Neonatal RRT]

1. When you have responsibilities, you must attend to them, regardless of how you feel.

2. Just because everyone else does it doesn't mean it is correct.

3. Opinion is the lowest form of evidence. Fact check.

4. Truth may be viewed from many perspectives. Explore other perspectives beyond your own.

5. Everyone has cognitive biases, including you.

6. The more you know, the more questions you will have. The less you know, the fewer. Be intellectually curious.

7. Within the workplace, an employee who is an asset will make more money for the company than what he/she is being paid. An employee who is a liability will make less money for the company than what he/she is being paid. A company is always looking to rid themselves of liabilities. The only time you have leverage for a pay raise or promotion is if you are an asset. Be an asset.

8. If you fulfill your job duties and requirements, you have "met expectations", the "lowest bar" of performance. Expect your pay and your career to reflect that.

9. Pay yourself first. Then figure out your budget, not the other way around.

10. People do not plan to fail, but often fail to plan. Have plans and goals in life.

 

[jsilver256]

1. Security is illusionary and a lie based on fiat currency, infrastructure, climate, and a whole lot of things with a weak point.

2. Get fit and stay fit, no matter what. That's the best "security" you can give yourself.

3. Of all the goals to chase, popularity is among the worst.

 

[honeytoast]

It's interesting to read this as someone who went to school from the 2000's to the 2010's.

 

[Stuttermabolur]

While I don't disagree per se with the rules, the tone is incredibly condescending. I've always had a distrust of those who talk in absolutes, though I know that tone is popular in American self-help circuits. It makes me feel as if the speaker looks down on others, no matter if it is true or not.

I guess the main "rule" which has served me well is to have a positive outlook, as it not only makes a good impression, but also helps me feel more confident about myself. I'm actually very pessimistic, but I don't see that as a reason to be downcast. I try to simply accept the bad, as thinking negatively won't improve the situation.

However, I don't think I've ever told someone else to "think more positively", as I know it's highly personality dependant and isn't a solution for anyone's problems as such.

 

[Outdated]

It's interesting to read this as someone who went to school from the 2000's to the 2010's.

Even more interesting to read from someone that grew up in the 60s and 70s on the other side of the planet.

I grew up in a different era, a different world. All the sorts of things mentioned above were taught by parents, schools were for reading writing and arithmetic. And schools did not run exams, they were run by a special education department division in a public hall where teachers were not allowed to attend. If you failed there was no arguing about it, you had to repeat that year again, by the time we got to Grade 7 there were kids in our class several years older than us.

Teachers didn't have to put up with the lunacy that goes on these days. If a child was disruptive in class they'd phone one of the parents and tell them to come and pick their kid up. Now! If it happened too often the parents were told to find another school. There used to be a 6 month trial period before starting Grade 1 where teachers could make sure a student was socially adjusted well enough to attend school, if the kid wasn't then the parents were told that the kid isn't ready for school yet, teach them some manners and try again next year.

Although it wasn't a perfect system most of us were far better prepared for the real world by the time we finished primary school than what most school leavers are these days.

The very first thing in that list above started me down this tangent, Mum's standard response to It's not fair was "And neither is a black boy's bum, get moving.".

 

[Mary Terry]

Even more interesting to read from someone that grew up in the 60s and 70s on the other side of the planet.

I grew up in a different era, a different world. All the sorts of things mentioned above were taught by parents, schools were for reading writing and arithmetic. And schools did not run exams, they were run by a special education department division in a public hall where teachers were not allowed to attend. If you failed there was no arguing about it, you had to repeat that year again, by the time we got to Grade 7 there were kids in our class several years older than us.

Teachers didn't have to put up with the lunacy that goes on these days. If a child was disruptive in class they'd phone one of the parents and tell them to come and pick their kid up. Now! If it happened too often the parents were told to find another school. There used to be a 6 month trial period before starting Grade 1 where teachers could make sure a student was socially adjusted well enough to attend school, if the kid wasn't then the parents were told that the kid isn't ready for school yet, teach them some manners and try again next year.

Although it wasn't a perfect system most of us were far better prepared for the real world by the time we finished primary school than what most school leavers are these days.

The very first thing in that list above started me down this tangent, Mum's standard response to It's not fair was "And neither is a black boy's bum, get moving.".

Your comments resonate with me. I'm a boomer, educated when acting up wasn't tolerated in schools by teachers or the principal. If a child wasn't intellectually capable of keeping up with the class, he/she was evaluated, held back a year or sometimes transferred to special ed classes where he/she could receive specialized help more focused on their immediate problems and to prevent their disrupting all the other kids who can and do learn on schedule, as it were.

And I totally agree that much of the behavioral issues begin at home with lousy parenting. Like the feral home schooled kids who live down the road from me. I pity them because it is going to be rough for them when they are incorporated into the real world.

 

[Peter Morrison]

Fair discipline is good for kids as long as they understand what they did wrong and how they can improve. One disruptive kid in a classroom disrupts the learning of 20 others. Being on the spectrum, I always required a learning environment that didn't spark my ADHD. Education for children and teens requires guidance. This is where you learn reading skills, writing skills, vocabulary and pronunciation, as well as recognizing that you are preparing for the future. I missed a lot of important learning in my youth. Most of it was because I was ashamed to ask questions. I was missing a lot of the basics in math, history, and geography. The worst was the pronunciation of foreign words and names. I was always trying to stick to the spelling and pronunciation rules for American English. I loved learning history and geography, but math skills were never clearly understood.

In addition to the basics of what children need to learn, there is a huge cultural divide that gives us all a completely different childhood experience. Regardless of where someone comes from, preparing for the future remains the same. I feel bad for kids who come from chaotic homes where studying and homework are not protected or encouraged.

I was in public grammar school in the 60s. It was an era of change and optimism. Changes came and optimism waned as the years rolled on. Nobody really grasped the importance of computer technology and the shifts in employment opportunities that left most young people without security or a decent wage. The American dream was a very steep slippery slope. I slipped a lot. The only things that saved me as I floundered in life was the information I gained through my childhood education. It turns out that my OCD had a place in the world. My lack of social skills was detrimental to progress. Only in hindsight do I understand my ASD and how it affected my professional endeavors. It was the broad range of topics in my early education that facilitated the abilities I was able to exhibit in my adult life. Real life has no pause button, no rewind, and no try again.

Childhood is the place where you learn good habits and personal discipline. After school, I would turn on the TV when I should have been doing homework. That was my "down time" from the anxiety of school. My life needed order and organization to make the most of what was offered to me. I discovered that I was wasting time. I was a slow learner, so extra time was a necessity that I couldn't manage without guidance. I later realized that I did my homework and enjoyed school when my older sister and brother weren't around. They were the distraction.

 

[Judge]

I've always thought that the only way young people truly learn such truths of adulthood was to experience them for themselves. Otherwise all too often they'd simply dismiss them if anyone tried to tell them as such.

Though I find it ironic that any adult who understands such things would have even bothered to write about it, knowing young people are so prone to instantly dismissing such things. Only to go on with life and experience them rather painfully firsthand. No point in feeling butthurt about this to be compelled to write about it. "It is what it is".

That "Sometimes you're the bug, and sometimes you're the windshield". - A rite of passage.

 

[Neonatal RRT]

Some other rules in life

1. Understand the concept of "This too, shall pass." Having the worst day of your life? This too, shall pass. Having the best day of your life? This too, shall pass. So on, and so forth.

2. Humans tend to have a negativity bias. It's not the 1000 things you do well or how correct you are, it's the 1 thing that you failed at that people around you will notice the most and remember.

3. "Those who are the best, do it different than the rest." That's quite literally why they are the best. If they did it like everyone else, then they would be like everyone else.

4. Those who are the best, open themselves up to be targets for criticism and harshness from others. This is the price to be paid. Wear it like a badge of honor.

5. Your co-workers do not care how you feel or your excuses, they only care that you are there and performing at least as well as they are. Translation: They don't want to do their work and yours too.

 

[Outdated]

And I totally agree that much of the behavioral issues begin at home with lousy parenting.

Abdication of responsibility seems to be where it's at these days. It's not my fault seems to everyone's favourite catch phrase. They expect educators to raise their children for them and blame the education system when that fails.

It's not my fault that my child never learnt how to behave appropriately in public. It's not my fault that my kid's going to spend their entire lives in and out of jail.

Ages 1 to 5 are key, they are known as the formative years for good reason. This is when a child learns concepts of politeness, saying please and thank you. This is when a child learns concepts like sharing and honesty and being fair. If they haven't learnt these very basic social concepts by the age of 5 then you've left it to late and they never will really learn.

Some parents are hopeless alcoholics and drug addicts and any kids they have will end up following the same pattern because of that lack of early education. There are also some cultures that think it's not right to discipline their children and that their children will just naturally pick up things by themselves some way, people from these cultures also represent an abnormally large percentage of the populations in our prison systems.

And these days we've got kids that spend almost the entirety of their formative years in day care centres.

It's not surprising to see all the troubles we have in the world today, not too difficult to find the root cause of it all.

 

[Kavigant]

1. Human beings are not all equal
2. People should be treated politely but not with respect until they earn it.
3. Some people are bad. They were born that way and cannot be changed.

 

[Mr. Stevens]

While I don't disagree per se with the rules, the tone is incredibly condescending. I've always had a distrust of those who talk in absolutes, though I know that tone is popular in American self-help circuits. It makes me feel as if the speaker looks down on others, no matter if it is true or not.

It's not a very real world list. Things like rain forests actually have essential functions. They aren't just idealistic foci for kids. The list seems to simplify life and work way too much...more so than school, I'd say.

 

[Kavigant]

And these days we've got kids that spend almost the entirety of their formative years in day care centres.

I suspect that this was done intentionally; a nation's productivity is positively impacted by the creation of an economy in which both parents must work in order to pay the family's bills. But the negative impact on the children is massive and cumulative. I would say that that is also intentional, but then I'd get called a conspiracy theorist.

 

[BryceMcBryde]

Some of these I agree with, but then others are just......what?. "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." I do agree with this to an extent, but it seems a bit odd. I don't think having a messy room automatically means you can't criticize people in power causing a ton of damage and hurting wildlife. "Ditto for "expressing yourself" with purple hair and/or pierced body parts" just comes off as being bitter. "These dang kids with colored hair!". Also, I find it odd that a lot of people who complain about "kids these days" don't take into consideration where they learned that behavior from. Shouldn't some of the blame on disrespectful youth be put onto their parents who didn't teach them correctly?.

A few weeks ago, me, my dad and my stepmom were going to my grandmas birthday at an Italian restaurant, and she saw this group of people who looked to be around 21-25 all sitting and eating ice cream directly in front of a parking space in front of the store. It did make me mad seeing it, but then my stepmom said something about "these modern kids", and while I agree they were being inconsiderate and rude, all I could think was "well, where exactly do you think they learned to behave this way?. They weren't born into this world all like that. Their parents (likely from my stepmom and dads generation, Gen X) who said "eh whatever" and never taught them right from wrong are at fault, too".

It's important to remember that every generation has highs and lows in terms of people.

"Every generation thinks they're special, and every generation is wrong". - George Carlin

 

[Kavigant]

Things like rain forests actually have essential functions. They aren't just idealistic foci for kids.

Speaking as someone who's shepherded four young people through their teenage years, I've always interpreted gripes like this to not be a judgment against the real-world issue so much as against the holier-than-thou attitude so many younger (and not so young) people seem to adopt when they suddenly discover such things.

Such issues (even when completely legitimate) allow some people to be crusaders for abstract causes far away while safely ignoring things that could be impacted more directly and easily.

 

[Outdated]

I suspect that this was done intentionally;

In Australia a lot of the blame can be laid fairly and squarely at the feet of teacher's unions. In one of the posts above I mentioned that teachers weren't allowed to run their own exams, that's because exam results were used as performance reviews of teachers and if too many kids failed then that teacher was sacked. And that's why teachers couldn't afford to waste time and effort on kids that were never prepared to be a part of society in the beginning.

That and the fact that most teachers seem to be chardonay socialists.

That changed when I was half way through highschool and I watched everything degenerate from there.

 

[Cryptid]

While I don't disagree per se with the rules, the tone is incredibly condescending. I've always had a distrust of those who talk in absolutes, though I know that tone is popular in American self-help circuits. It makes me feel as if the speaker looks down on others, no matter if it is true or not.

Tone-Policing does not alter the facts. From my experience and observations, the "Rules" are all valid. The generation to which the author addressed his article is well-known for considering itself "special" and deserving of all the participation trophies its members earned in school.

I previously mentioned my own "Rules" to add to the list. If anyone thinks that the original 14 were condescending, then do not read any further, as I did not hold back on the snark.

Spoiler

These Are My Own 11 Additions:

RULE #15: You do not automatically deserve a lover -- especially one with a perfect body, little or no moral character, and no resistance to your advances. If there is no "romance" or even friendship in your life, then make the necessary changes in yourself to improve your attractiveness, and stop placing the blame on those people who obviously have much better things to do with their lives than relieve you of your boredom and sexual frustrations.

RULE #16: Money can't buy everything -- this is very true -- but nobody respects a person who has no money at all. So if you want respect, you need to get up, get out, get a job, and earn enough money to buy your own clothes, pay your own rent, and drive your own car. Look at those homeless people; do you think anyone respects them? No. Do you? No. At best, homeless people are pitied; at worst, they are beaten up, arrested, locked up, or driven out of town to be someone else's problems. Do you want that? No? Then get a job and earn some respect!

RULE #17: The World will not change for you. You are only one person, while The World has over 8.1 billion people. That means that there are over 8,099,999,999 people in The World who will NOT go out of their way to accommodate you or your feelings. Either accept it or don't -- just be quiet about it, either way.

RULE #18: People will hate you. It doesn't matter who you are, what you do or how well you do it; there will be people who will hate you no matter what. You can either deal with it, complain about it, or run away and hide from it.

RULE #19: People will steal from you. They will steal your property, your money, your reputation, your ideas, your dignity, and your sanity. Make them work for it instead. Set yourself up so that if anyone wants what's yours, they must either sweat, bleed, and cry for it or pay their own hard-earned currency for it.

RULE #20: People will lie to you. This does not mean that everybody lies to you all of the time; it means that you should verify everything you are told. Even the nice, little "White Lies" people say to you to get you to feel better about yourself (and them) will hurt you in the long-term by giving you false expectations that are never fulfilled. Besides, if a little "White Lie" makes all the difference between feeling good and feeling like Hell, then maybe you should start ignoring those little "White Lies" and start working on your own self-esteem.

RULE #21: No one wants to hear any more of your excuses. No one wants to hear another word from you about how you can't do anything to change your life for the better because of all of the crap that other people have dumped on you in the past. What are you doing about it NOW? Nothing. Complaining is nothing. Using your childhood fears and traumas as excuses is nothing. Blaming your parents, your siblings, your teachers, and your elected officials is nothing. No excuse will ever do as much for you as what you can do for yourself. Blaming yourself is a start; now, get out there and DO something about it!

RULE #22: You don't have to be perfect. You only have to be better at something than most other people around you. Yes, that's all it takes. And by 'something', I mean something useful to other people -- construction, cooking, music, programming, whatever; it's the usefulness of what you can do that makes the difference between being appreciated and being ignored.

RULE #23: It really is the gift, and not the thought that counts. Forget that old saying to the contrary, because if it was true, there would be no thoughtless gifts being given. Giving a thoughtful gift shows that you care enough about that person to know what they like and what they want. Giving a cheap, knock-off of a name brand tells the recipient that you are cheap, and that you really don't think very well of them at all.

RULE #24: How you treat other people matters. How people see you treat other people matters, too. The old "Treat others as you would have them treat you" maxim (from many philosophies and religions) means that if you want people to respect you, trust you, and be nice to you, then you have to respect them, trust them, and be nice to them first. Do you need a favor? Offer them a favor first. Would you like them to remember you on your birthday? Remember theirs first. None of this means that you have to constantly suck up and give compliments to everyone around you; it just means that other people will treat you the way you've treated them.

RULE #25: Winners have a philosophy of life. So do losers. The winners in life think constantly in terms of "I can", "I will", and "I am". Losers, on the other hand, concentrate their waking thoughts on what they should have, could have, or would have done instead. They also think about what they can’t do; so they stop trying, and then forget that if they never try, the result is always "Fail".

Please note that these are not MY rules -- I did not create them, and I do not enforce them -- they are only what I've observed and come to believe are the Rules Of The World.

 

[Crossbreed]

Though I find it ironic that any adult who understands such things would have even bothered to write about it, knowing young people are so prone to instantly dismissing such things.

1. If for no other reason, the adult can say, "Told ya so..."
2. The teen might become less dismissive after a few confirming wipeouts...