On a financial forum a while back I encountered a twentysomething who didn’t understand why his credit score sucked so badly. <\/p>\n
Asked to lay out the details so others could analyze the problem, he boasted of his “90% on-time record” of paying his bills, which he thought should have given him a big boost.<\/p>\n
He was flabbergasted to hear, “Well, there’s your problem. You have to pay your bills 100% on time to have good credit.” He thought that because 90% would get you an “A” on a test in school, it was also terrific in all other aspects of life.<\/p>\n
He may have been a bit of a doofus. But that got me thinking about ways that school itself — or experiences in the social or extra-curricular sidelines of school — mislead us about life in the real world.<\/p>\n
For instance, did you think that the tight little cliques and the “mean girls” were the way the real world worked? Did you think that the various ways of earning brownie points were going to carry over into adult life? Did you get the idea that kissing ass or following rules was more important than actual achievement? Or did you bust your buns to learn-learn-learn-learn some subject — only to discover that what you were taught had little or no real-world application?<\/p>\n
Now, I don’t mean to blame school for all our social or intellectual ills (though, yeah, there’s a case to be made). I’m just talking about ways in which school or the school environment taught you something that you had to unlearn to survive in the real world.<\/p>\n
So today’s freedom question: In what way(s) did your school years totally mislead you about adult life?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n Comment away …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On a financial forum a while back I encountered a twentysomething who didn’t understand why his credit score sucked so badly. Asked to lay out the details so others could analyze the problem, he boasted of his “90% on-time record” of paying his bills, which he thought should have given him a big boost. He was flabbergasted to hear, “Well, there’s your problem. You have to pay your bills 100% on time to have good credit.” He thought that because 90% would get you an “A” on a test in school, it was also terrific in all other aspects of…<\/p>\n