Valedictorian speech

[nerdy_guy]

The following speech was delivered by top of the class student Erica Goldson during the graduation ceremony at Coxsackie-Athens High School on June 25, 2010. (Abridged)

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 cinder block 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 whatever pretensions of politicians, pedagogues other such mountebanks, and that is its aim everywhere else."

[Sonrisa]

are you bored?

[nerdy_guy]

Yes, I finished 90% of my work 2 yrs ago in the company that I'm currently working so I'm basically paid for doing virtually nothing.

[Sonrisa]

Yes, I finished 90% of my work 2 yrs ago in the company that I'm currently working so I'm basically paid for doing virtually nothing.

why won't you play with me then if you got nothing better to do than post here?

[Gribble]

I agree absolutely with the above. Assuming this is true, that gal is leaps and bounds smarter than her peers. Smarter than her elders, too. She's one of the precious few who sees reality for what it is.

[nerdy_guy]

why won't you play with me then if you got nothing better to do than post here?

Play what?

[IndiReloaded]

I agree absolutely with the above. Assuming this is true, that gal is leaps and bounds smarter than her peers. Smarter than her elders, too. She's one of the precious few who sees reality for what it is.

Not really. The smartest ones already left the system and set up things like Google, or other profitable businesses. Actually, the smartest ones set up companies, make them profitable and then sell them for an immense profit. Do this a few times, invest well and you basically do what you want at 30 - 40. They tend to keep a low profile, tho.

Recognizing the problem is only the first step and relatively trivial. Its what you do with the knowledge that makes one smart, IMO.

[Sonrisa]

Play what?

[url=http://piratesonline.go.com/#/community/community-home.html]Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean Online[/url]

[Mish]

This girl sounds like she is talking about 18th century. Yeh, it was this bad back then (even worse), but since then things have changed. People have choice now. They can be little robots or they can be slaves studying some boring repititious substandard degree or work for a slave driver. Or they can do something they really love, they can expand their horizons find out what motivates them in life and then study or work in the field that they really enjoy or that inspires them.

Where did this girl graduate from? Is she criticizing a compulsary school system or a university. If the former then surely everyone agrees that a minimum, entry level standard in field like mathematics, physics etc is necessary for children? If the later the fact that this girl feels like a slave is less indicative of the said "oppressive system" and more indicative of wrong personal choices she made. If she is so full of spirit and hates being cornered or "enslaved" she could've been an artist or a musician or a writer. She could work for an organisation that helps others and does something meaningful, or for a university in the field she enjoys. She didn't and now carries the chip on her shoulder blaming every one else besides herself for the wrong choices that she's made.

[nerdy_guy]

[url=http://piratesonline.go.com/#/community/community-home.html]Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean Online[/url]

I wish I can, unfortunately, I'm mixed in along with the other grunts here. So I can only do text, not graphics. Otherwise I'd be in big trouble. Would've been fun though.

[Sonrisa]

I wish I can, unfortunately, I'm mixed in along with the other grunts here. So I can only do text, not graphics. Otherwise I'd be in big trouble. Would've been fun though.

what, they don't make advanced computers in the mountains?

[nerdy_guy]

Our cave do have a blade server. What I'm trying to say is that our cave is open-plan style. not cubicle. Other cavemen will get to see that I'm just playing around. and I'm also sitting close to where the medicine men gather. If I play games, they'll report me to the chieftain and I'll be tonight's dinner if they find out.

[Mish]

Can one play games in the cave during the clubbing? (of women over the head)

[nerdy_guy]

nope, although during lunch hour, some of the cave women do come to our area to open facebook. The only part of the village where we can secretly play games is the server cave.

[hurt_confuzd]

Not really. The smartest ones already left the system and set up things like Google, or other profitable businesses. Actually, the smartest ones set up companies, make them profitable and then sell them for an immense profit. Do this a few times, invest well and you basically do what you want at 30 - 40. They tend to keep a low profile, tho.

Recognizing the problem is only the first step and relatively trivial. Its what you do with the knowledge that makes one smart, IMO.

Yes, because intelligence is directly measurable by one's ability to generate revenue.

Simpleton.