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Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech

Editor’s Note: I’ve expressed my firm belief before, and will express again, that any serious attempt at reinventing society — to make systemic design adjustments to how our society/economy functions — necessitates a serious overhaul in our educational systems. Without this overhaul, I do not hesitate to state, I fully expect humanity to comprehensively fail. We are still educating people into a world that was, and which will never be again. Our education systems are thus obsolete. Worse, they are ever-increasingly being privatised and financed by corporate interests, rather than with the purpose of meeting the needs of society, and the individuals within it. Holistic, practical and historically-appropriate lines of study which could/should be pursued, are thus instead supplanted with a profit-based, short-term agenda — just to meet the needs of Big Industry. With this in mind… please consider the following speech from yet another victim of our current education system. It was delivered by top-of-the-class student, Erica Goldson, during the graduation ceremony at Coxsackie-Athens High School, New York, on June 25, 2010. There’s a video of the speech at bottom — although reading the transcript is definitely the better way to go. Kudos to Erica for making the brave decision to candidly share what she has below.

Here I stand

There is a story of a young, but earnest Zen student who approached his teacher, and asked the Master, "If I work very hard and diligently, how long will it take for me to find Zen? The Master thought about this, then replied, "Ten years." The student then said, "But what if I work very, very hard and really apply myself to learn fast — How long then?" Replied the Master, "Well, twenty years." "But, if I really, really work at it, how long then?" asked the student. "Thirty years," replied the Master. "But, I do not understand," said the disappointed student. "At each time that I say I will work harder, you say it will take me longer. Why do you say that?" Replied the Master, "When you have one eye on the goal, you only have one eye on the path."

This is the dilemma I’ve faced within the American education system. We are so focused on a goal, whether it be passing a test, or graduating as first in the class. However, in this way, we do not really learn. We do whatever it takes to achieve our original objective.

Some of you may be thinking, "Well, if you pass a test, or become valedictorian, didn’t you learn something? Well, yes, you learned something, but not all that you could have. Perhaps, you only learned how to memorize names, places, and dates to later on forget in order to clear your mind for the next test. School is not all that it can be. Right now, it is a place for most people to determine that their goal is to get out as soon as possible.

I am now accomplishing that goal. I am graduating. I should look at this as a positive experience, especially being at the top of my class. However, in retrospect, I cannot say that I am any more intelligent than my peers. I can attest that I am only the best at doing what I am told and working the system. Yet, here I stand, and I am supposed to be proud that I have completed this period of indoctrination. I will leave in the fall to go on to the next phase expected of me, in order to receive a paper document that certifies that I am capable of work. But I contest that I am a human being, a thinker, an adventurer – not a worker. A worker is someone who is trapped within repetition – a slave of the system set up before him. But now, I have successfully shown that I was the best slave. I did what I was told to the extreme. While others sat in class and doodled to later become great artists, I sat in class to take notes and become a great test-taker. While others would come to class without their homework done because they were reading about an interest of theirs, I never missed an assignment. While others were creating music and writing lyrics, I decided to do extra credit, even though I never needed it. So, I wonder, why did I even want this position? Sure, I earned it, but what will come of it? When I leave educational institutionalism, will I be successful or forever lost? I have no clue about what I want to do with my life; I have no interests because I saw every subject of study as work, and I excelled at every subject just for the purpose of excelling, not learning. And quite frankly, now I’m scared.

John Taylor Gatto, a retired school teacher and activist critical of compulsory schooling, asserts, "We could encourage the best qualities of youthfulness – curiosity, adventure, resilience, the capacity for surprising insight simply by being more flexible about time, texts, and tests, by introducing kids into truly competent adults, and by giving each student what autonomy he or she needs in order to take a risk every now and then. But we don’t do that." Between these cinderblock walls, we are all expected to be the same. We are trained to ace every standardized test, and those who deviate and see light through a different lens are worthless to the scheme of public education, and therefore viewed with contempt.

H. L. Mencken wrote in The American Mercury for April 1924 that the aim of public education is not "to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence. … Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim … is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States."]

[Comment: The full passage reads: "The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States, whatever pretensions of politicians, pedagogues other such mountebanks, and that is its aim everywhere else."

To illustrate this idea, doesn’t it perturb you to learn about the idea of "critical thinking." Is there really such a thing as "uncritically thinking?" To think is to process information in order to form an opinion. But if we are not critical when processing this information, are we really thinking? Or are we mindlessly accepting other opinions as truth?

This was happening to me, and if it wasn’t for the rare occurrence of an avant-garde tenth grade English teacher, Donna Bryan, who allowed me to open my mind and ask questions before accepting textbook doctrine, I would have been doomed. I am now enlightened, but my mind still feels disabled. I must retrain myself and constantly remember how insane this ostensibly sane place really is.

And now here I am in a world guided by fear, a world suppressing the uniqueness that lies inside each of us, a world where we can either acquiesce to the inhuman nonsense of corporatism and materialism or insist on change. We are not enlivened by an educational system that clandestinely sets us up for jobs that could be automated, for work that need not be done, for enslavement without fervency for meaningful achievement. We have no choices in life when money is our motivational force. Our motivational force ought to be passion, but this is lost from the moment we step into a system that trains us, rather than inspires us.

We are more than robotic bookshelves, conditioned to blurt out facts we were taught in school. We are all very special, every human on this planet is so special, so aren’t we all deserving of something better, of using our minds for innovation, rather than memorization, for creativity, rather than futile activity, for rumination rather than stagnation? We are not here to get a degree, to then get a job, so we can consume industry-approved placation after placation. There is more, and more still.

The saddest part is that the majority of students don’t have the opportunity to reflect as I did. The majority of students are put through the same brainwashing techniques in order to create a complacent labor force working in the interests of large corporations and secretive government, and worst of all, they are completely unaware of it. I will never be able to turn back these 18 years. I can’t run away to another country with an education system meant to enlighten rather than condition. This part of my life is over, and I want to make sure that no other child will have his or her potential suppressed by powers meant to exploit and control. We are human beings. We are thinkers, dreamers, explorers, artists, writers, engineers. We are anything we want to be – but only if we have an educational system that supports us rather than holds us down. A tree can grow, but only if its roots are given a healthy foundation.

For those of you out there that must continue to sit in desks and yield to the authoritarian ideologies of instructors, do not be disheartened. You still have the opportunity to stand up, ask questions, be critical, and create your own perspective. Demand a setting that will provide you with intellectual capabilities that allow you to expand your mind instead of directing it. Demand that you be interested in class. Demand that the excuse, "You have to learn this for the test" is not good enough for you. Education is an excellent tool, if used properly, but focus more on learning rather than getting good grades.

For those of you that work within the system that I am condemning, I do not mean to insult; I intend to motivate. You have the power to change the incompetencies of this system. I know that you did not become a teacher or administrator to see your students bored. You cannot accept the authority of the governing bodies that tell you what to teach, how to teach it, and that you will be punished if you do not comply. Our potential is at stake.

For those of you that are now leaving this establishment, I say, do not forget what went on in these classrooms. Do not abandon those that come after you. We are the new future and we are not going to let tradition stand. We will break down the walls of corruption to let a garden of knowledge grow throughout America. Once educated properly, we will have the power to do anything, and best of all, we will only use that power for good, for we will be cultivated and wise. We will not accept anything at face value. We will ask questions, and we will demand truth.

So, here I stand. I am not standing here as valedictorian by myself. I was molded by my environment, by all of my peers who are sitting here watching me. I couldn’t have accomplished this without all of you. It was all of you who truly made me the person I am today. It was all of you who were my competition, yet my backbone. In that way, we are all valedictorians.

I am now supposed to say farewell to this institution, those who maintain it, and those who stand with me and behind me, but I hope this farewell is more of a "see you later" when we are all working together to rear a pedagogic movement. But first, let’s go get those pieces of paper that tell us that we’re smart enough to do so!

Further Reading:

10 Comments

  1. What an insightful young woman! How fortunate she was released from the bonds of homogenisation by her Grade 10 teacher to be able to share with all of us!
    I’ve home educated my 4 children (my youngest now 11) on a farm. I’m going to print this out and pin it up for the days when it feels exhausting, to remind me why we chose this worthwhile path!

  2. Education: we can walk through life or understand it.

    Thank you, for defining my heart feelings in an elaborate vivid beautiful manner.

    Rock on,
    Douglas Meyer

  3. This article immediately reminded me of my very own high school graduation. A good friend of mine was obviously much more intelligent than me, and was valedictorian. His speech was very similar to this one. He talked about mediocrity, lack of ingenuity, much like this young lady. My school responded to that with no longer allowing the valedictorian to give speeches; but rather, a contest where students would write in speeches that the administration would pick from.

  4. I totally agree. But regrettably, there are far too many people who have invested far too much (of their careers, their time, their money) in the formal education system to admit that the whole thing is a massive fraud. So it goes on limping from year to year, while only a few brave souls manage to free themselves from its clutches.

  5. This young woman’s speech expressed what many/most of the students currently going through institutionalized education know in their hearts, but cannot put into words like this. What makes her exceptional is not necessarily the speech that she gave, but that as someone who strove to “succeed” according to the dictates of the system she was able to realize how it was shaping her to its ends instead of encouraging her to realize her gifts and potential.

    Sadly, the current system cannot be reformed by committed teachers and administrators. They are as trapped within the system as the students they teach, burdened with rules and regulations that, by and large, govern what to teach and how to teach. Certainly these educators can reach and affect individual students, as this young lady’s English teacher reached her. But the inertia and machinery of the system will march on, largely oblivious to these outliers — because the system is doing what it was designed to do. John Taylor Gatto himself recognized this basic fact, as he was continuously persecuted by administrators who sought out any reason they could to have him fired throughout his career for simply daring to challenge the logic of institutionalized schooling.

  6. I commend this young lady on both her insight and her courage to express it!

    To me, she deserves to have the recognition she was given, not because she ‘learned the system’ and passed all the tests, but because she truly achieved the original and true aims of education – she learned to really think clearly, critically and analytically for herself. She learned, to observe, question, and draw accurate and meaningful conclusions about her world. She learned to understand long-term consequence and to see the ‘big picture’.

    From what I’ve seen, many students can go through university without ever learning to really think. In contrast, the whole purpose of the learning centres of the ancient world was to cultivate fine minds and promote learning excellence. So true, education has been hijacked by vested interests to create ‘human resources’ for corporate consumption, not to cultivate brilliant minds!

  7. Incredibly intelligent young lady, she has single handedly inspired me to view generations to come with significantly more optimism.

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