notes

SOME RULES KIDS WON'T LEARN IN SCHOOL

Charles J. Sykes

Unfortunately, there are some things that children should be learning in school, but don't. Not all of them have to do with academics. As a modest back-to-school offering, here are some basic rules that may not have found their way into the standard curriculum.

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.

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 it's not fair.

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.

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.

5. Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word of 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 or Britney Speers all weekend.

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 kid.

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.

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.

words for today

People like crowds. The bigger the crowd, the more people show up. Small crowds hardly anybody shows up.

Looked South toward Illinois the other day, deficit will hit 9 billion this year. Businesses are looking to move out and many are doing so. Made me think, if you don't learn from history, you are going to be history. What has happened to this once great state?

I think my bank is in financial trouble. They put a sign above the front door that reads "Money isn't Everything"

"You can't build a reputation on what you're going to do." Henry Ford.

"We see right now all around us the menace of the untaught -- the menace to themselves and to us." Jacques Barzun

Accountability

No individual raindrop ever considers itself responsible for the flood.

Consumer confidence has been defined as "the willingness of citizens to go deeper in debt."

With the housing problems in our thoughts it reminds us of this old story. A claims investigator reported the cause of a suspicious fire was friction.......from rubbing a $200,000 insurance policy on a $100,000 house.

"Middle age is when anything new you feel is most likely to be a symptom"

Stayed at a fancy hotel recently, just for health conscious, valet jogging. You just give them a tip and away they run for you.

a smile

I finally figure out how the government works - the Senate gets the bill from the House. The President gets the bill from the senate. And we get the bill for everything.

Teacher: Glenn, how do you spell 'crocodile?' Glenn: K-R-O-K-O-D-I-A-L. Teacher: No, that's wrong. Glenn: Maybe it is wrong, but YOU ASKED ME how I spell it.

The trouble with experience as a teacher is that the test comes first and the lesson afterward.

One and one doesn't always equal two. Sometimes it equals eleven.

As Yogi Berra did not say: "It won't happen until it happens."

Smith's clothing store wasn't doing much business all year. One afternoon on the way home, Smith met his friend Jones. Jones says, "Smith, I'm terribly sorry to hear about the fire in your store yesterday." Smith looking around nervously, whispered, "For heaven's sake, not yesterday, tomorrow!"

a good read

Now You See It. By Cathy N. Davidson A very interesting read, the concept of education through application makes sense to those who have been involved in technical education. Ms. Davidson was involved with the Duke University I-Pod project. Students were give I-Pods but they had to find an educational advantage. Literally thousands of applications were utilized with students advancing their education by receiving lectures from world wide sources. Not an easy read, in our opinion, but a book that should be read.