In other words "prepare them for adulthood" where those skills will serve them well. It's hardly like those guys have discovered a deep secret. They tell you t

In other words "prepare them for adulthood" where those skills will serve them well. It's hardly like those guys have discovered a deep secret. They tell you to develop a deep, spiritually enriching knowledge of a field and faculty for critical thinking that you can use to solve social problems. But none of that is going to help you when you are alone, taking the exam, so you just memorize crap for the exam because you need that to get hired at the job. Your boss tells you to write fewer bugs, but it's clear that they reward shipping features fast so you sling code fast instead because it's your job to anticipate your bosses desires, not listen to what he says.. When the bugs blow up, you roll up your sleeves and do some heroic debugging, especially working long hours, and win a medal and a 21 gun salute at your funeral. Developing that instinctive understanding of who is in charge and what they really want and then dedicating yourself to the task is the primary adaptive strategy you can have as an adult.