One Person's Perspective

[evmori]

Does Scouting prepare kids for life?

BILL GATES' SPEECH TO MT. WHITNEY HIGH SCHOOL in Visalia,CA. Love him or hate him, he sure hits the nail on the head with this!

To anyone with kids of any age, here's some advice. 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.

 

Ed Mori

1 Peter 4:10(This message has been edited by evmori)

[NJCubScouter]

I do agree with a lot of this, though it is stated in a harsh and somewhat humorous way. I see a lot of this kind of attitude in my kids and their generation, and to be honest, my parents' generation probably saw a lot of it in mine, but I have to say that the attitude of "entitlement," selfishness and basically delusion about what life is really all about, seems strongest in the younger generation. But again, that is a matter of "perspective."

 

I do need to point out, however, that the attribution of this "speech" to Bill Gates is an "urban legend." It is one of many things that goes around the Internet that is simply not true. I have seen it before, and remembered being suspicious that Bill Gates would actually say some of these things, and sure enough, an Internet search revealed that he did not. I got the same result this time.

 

The article at this link explains it all. I especially like the part about the Atlanta newspaper that published a version of this twice in three weeks, and attributed it to 2 different people.

 

http://www.snopes2.com/language/document/liferule.htm

 

[NJCubScouter]

By the way, if anyone wants more links on this, you can do the same Google search that I did:

 

"urban legend" "bill gates" speech sykes

 

"sykes" being the name of the person who actually wrote a version of this, as indicated in the one link that I posted.

 

Interestingly, some of these links also debunk that speech that Kurt Vonnegut supposedly made in which he mentioned "wearing sunscreen" as a "rule of life." And until today, I believed that one!

[EagleInKY]

This is one of my favorite "lists", and I do agree with a great deal of what it says. As a "geek" myself, I like rule 11. But I've known for some time that it was an urban legend. I didn't know until today the actual source of it. That's great to know.

 

As for the initial question, "Does Scouting prepare kids for life?" I believe we do a pretty good job of it. The leadership experiences, moral lessons and overall social skills gained through scouting experiences are great training experiences for life. In fact, I think we do a much better job than our schools in this regard. I've had parents ask why we don't take the summer off, or why we have meetings on days that school is out. One answer I like to give is that we are trying to prepare the boys for the real world. And, in real life, we don't get breaks every time you turn around.

[OldGreyEagle]

I don't care if Merlyn Leroy wrote it, all are valid points and should be included in every high school diploma...

[NJCubScouter]

Well, I agree, OGE, but I still don't know why people feel compelled to make things up and send their false information bouncing along to every computer on Earth.

 

This does remind from a scene from Fiddler on the Roof, which I think goes like this:

 

Tevye: As Abraham said, I am a stranger in a strange land.

Other guy: Moses said that.

Tevye: Well, as King David said, I am slow of tongue and slow of speech.

Other guy: That was Moses too.

Tevye: For a man who was slow of tongue, he talked a lot.

 

It's funnier in the movie.

[purcelce]

Does Scouting prepare kids for life?

 

Yes...that's my perspective of the Scouting program.