Bill Gates has ‘complained that feelgood, politically correct teaching has created a generation of kids with no concept of reality.’ The Daily Mail
We say ...
Allison Pearson, the Daily Mail columnist, suggested that a “recent speech to American high school pupils” by the outgoing Microsoft founder would resonate with those who had concerns about education in Britain.
She then went on to reprint 11 rules Bill Gates had apparently given to students, including that “if you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss”.
Cute stuff - except that the supposed Bill Gates speech has been circulating on the internet for more than a decade and is a notorious urban myth.
The list was actually produced by one of Ms Pearson’s American counterparts, conservative writer Charles J Sykes, author of Dumbing Down our Kids. He included the list in an article for The San Diego Union-Tribune in 1996.
Mr Gates’ views on education are utterly different and far less reactionary. It may be certain columnists, rather than pupils, who have “no concept of reality”.
