I just read the following for the first time and I thought I'd put down my responses. The original piece is sad and I pity the author for his loss of pride and idealism. Lets see how we can turn this into a message of hope ...

Some rules kids won't learn in school
Text By Charles J. Sykes

Printed in San Diego Union Tribune
September 19, 1996

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.

First off, lets get rid of 'rules.' These are one mans observations on life and don't hold true for everyone, or all the time.
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Rule No. 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, they realized Rule No. 1.

The better the world is, the more fair it seems. The world should be fair. But that's not what the author is talking about. The lesson that children don't learn is that it is very difficult to distinguish personal desire from objective fairness. For example, it's not fair that I was born to smart parents, or that I have a nice job and a nice house. But I rarely take the time to consider the gross unfairness of this situation because it benefits me. Learning to see when things are unfair because the world needs to be improved, and when you feel wronged because your desires aren't met is a skill most teenagers lack.
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Rule No. 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. (See Rule No. 1)

There is no such thing as the real world, there is only the one world after all :) In fact those people that love you will always want you to feel good about yourself. What the author is identifying is not that life outside of school is uncaring, it's that it is much harder. Problems that you deal with in school arn't problems at all, they've already been solved. They are tests. Outside of school you'll see real problems and if you've never faced a real problem it can be traumatic. Failing at hard things is very common and students might not be used to it.
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Rule No. 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. Cute anachronisms aside there is much more to this point that should go into an education. Given early academic choices what can you expect from the job market? There are well documented statistics, and if you graduate from school without an awareness of these, you're in trouble. Your degree in philosophy will put you at the Gap, but your CS degree will probably have a better return.
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Rule No. 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.

This observation makes me very sad. What life circumstances forced this man to endure uncaring leadership? Almost every boss I've had did care about me and wanted to know how I was doing, knew the importance of moral and emotional health, and had my back in a crunch. The rule here is if your boss doesn't fit that description and you have any choice at all, leave and leave fast.
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Rule No. 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grand-parents 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 all weekend.

Pride is a powerful thing. Flipping burgers should be beneath anyone's dignity. They should be so mad at having to flip burgers that they will do anything, go to great lengths so that they don't have to anymore. Maybe they will even invent an automated way to flip burgers :)
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Rule No. 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
baby boomer.

Again I feel bad for this guy, somewhere along the way he lost his support network and grew a highly jaded skin. Parents are there to catch you when you fall, if your 5, 10, or 50. The only job a parent has is to see the success and continuation of their offspring. People who don't feel this way shouldn't be parents in the first place. Great parents however will never need to do this though because children destined for happy lives and great things take pride in personal ability, accomplishment, and independence. Being an adult means that you don't need to ask for help very often but you arn't afraid to when you do. It's a very hard line to walk and that's the lesson children often miss.
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Rule No. 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.

If you resent your children it unlikely you're going to be a good parent. Now I feel bad for this guy and his kids.
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Rule No. 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. (See Rule No. 1, Rule No. 2 and Rule No. 4)

A few things matter in life. Winning and losing are not part of that set. Being able to accomplish your goals is important, but if you're playing a game where the only way for you to win is for someone else to lose ... YOU'RE PLAYING A GAME, and whatever it is doesn't really matter. Life is not a zero sum game.
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Rule No. 9: Life is not divided into semesters, and you don't get summers off. Not even Easter break. They expect you to show up every day. For eight hours. And you don't get a new life every 10 weeks. It just goes on and on.
While we're at it, very few jobs are interesting in fostering your self-expression or helping you find yourself. Fewer still lead to self-realization. (See Rule No. 1 and Rule No. 2.)

I can't begin to articulate how saddening this mindset makes me, and I'm glad I don't suffer from it. Every day is an opportunity to reinvent yourself and the thing holding you back from doing so ... that's probably fear. Look hard at whatever you think it is, it' probably fear masquerading as knowledge.
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Rule No. 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.

Sure, but how about "Don't watch T.V." That's a rule I think we could all live with.
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Rule No. 11: Be nice to nerds. You may end up working for them. We all could.

Teh lolz.
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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.

First part I'm all for, but the second? I'm terribly vanilla, but if you really want purple hair and piercings, go for it! That stuff grows back. In the spirit of the rule lets go with "Tatoos are probably a bad idea." Why? Because they last and last and last, and the impulse that made you get it will fade. On the other hand, if you consider your body a canvas, remember you only get one and having a master plan before you start couldn't hurt.
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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.

Actually is is terribly romantic, it is fantastic, it is totally selfish. Once you're dead, that's it. The rest of us have to go on living, so have a care for us ok?
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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.

And to all the different ones, "It gets better." Being an adult is a hell of a lot more fun for us than being a kid ever was.