Much of the learning that takes place in high schools and colleges is designed for temporary retention and grades, with very little application to the real world.

I agree with Milwaukee talk radio host Charles J. Sykes, who said that our feel-good politically correct educational system is setting up our high school and college students to fail in the real world.

Sykes, the author of "Dumbing Down Our Kids" and "50 Rules Kids Won't Learn in School," has laid out some rules that high school and college students have not learned very well. (On the Internet they are sometimes incorrectly attributed to Bill Gates.) Some of these rules are as follows:

• Life is not fair. Get used to it.

• The world won't care about your self esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself.

• You will not make $40,000 right out of high school. You won't be a vice president with a car phone until you have earned both. (OK, so this was 1996. Forget the "car phone" comment.)

• If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you meet your boss. He doesn't have tenure.

• Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for flipping burgers; they called it opportunity.

• If you mess up, don't blame your parents. Don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

• 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 are. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try "delousing" the closet in your own room.

• Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not. In some schools, they have established failing grades; they'll give you as many times as you want for the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to real life.

• Life is not divided into semesters. You don't have summers off, and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on your own time.

• Television is not real life. In real life, people have to leave the coffee shop and go to their jobs.

• Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

Please be reminded that graduating from college is not the end all and be all for success. It is now time to prove you can be successful.

Please practice humility and perspective by considering the message in the following story:

A college graduate got a job in a supermarket as a management trainee. The store manager said to him: "Please get a broom and sweep the floor."

Management trainee: "But I'm a college graduate."

Manager: "In that case, let me show you."