Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech

Last month, Erica Goldson graduated as valedictorian of Coxsackie-Athens
High School.

Erica originally posted her full speech on Sign of the Times, and without
need for editing or cutting, here's the speech in its entirety:

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."

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!