http://www.snopes.com/language/document/liferule.asp

Another false story. I smelled it from the get-go.


Some Rules Kids Won't Learn in School


Claim: Bill Gates authored a list of 'Rules Kids Won't Learn in School.'


Status: False.
Origins: No, this list didn't originate with Microsoft head Bill Gates.
(It's frequently cited on the Internet as having come from his book
Business * The Speed of Thought, but it didn't.) Why it's attributed to
Gates is a mystery to us; it doesn't really sound the least bit like
something he
would write. Possibly, the item the Internet-circulated version of the
list generally ends with ("Be nice to nerds") struck a chord with someone
who views Gates as the ultimate successful nerd of all time.

One version that appeared on the Internet in June 2002 asserts this is the
text of a commencement speech given by Bill Gates to the graduating class
of Mt. Whitney High School in Visalia, California. It isn't — he didn't
give such a speech, and folks at that school are mystified as to why
they've been dragged into this apocryphal story.

Nor is this list the work of Kurt Vonnegut, another person to whom
authorship has been attributed. A clue found in those versions ("From a
college graduation speech by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.") explains why folks want
to lay these random words of wisdom on his doorstep: In 1998, the Internet
was swept with a narrative that has come to be known as the Vonnegut
sunscreen speech. That work of inventive fiction was actually the product
of Chicago Tribune writer Mary Schmich, but Internet-circulated versions
claimed it was a college graduation speech given by Kurt Vonnegut.
Vonnegut thus became associated in the minds of some people with pithy
advice to young adults.

This list is the work of Charles J. Sykes, author of the 1996 book Dumbing
Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good About Themselves But Can't
Read, Write, Or Add. (The list has appeared in newspapers, although not
necessarily in this book. It does, however, form the meat of his 2007 book
50 Rules Kids Won't Learn in School: Real-World Antidotes to Feel-Good
Education.) Many versions omit the last three rules:
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.
Advice columnist Ann Landers has printed the first ten items (uncredited)
several times, and the list has been used by radio commentator Paul
Harvey. The prize for misattribution, however, has to go to The Atlanta
Journal and Constitution, which printed the list twice in three weeks in
mid-2000, the first time crediting it to "Duluth state Rep. Brooks Coleman
of Duluth," and the second time to Bill Gates.

Last updated: 19 August 2008