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Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech

• tkahn6 16y ago
  It must have been very painful for her to continue on her path to being valedictorian after she came to this conclusion.
• kloncks 16y ago
  I would have loved to have the experience to not just hear her speech in person, but to see the reactions from everyone. The faces of her fellow students as well as teachers/parents.
  • moultano 16y ago
    At my highschool the valedictorian speech had to be approved by the principal in advance. I wonder if he ever would have let something like this by.
    • kloncks 16y ago
      Same with my school. The only way something like this could have happened is if the valedictorian writes one speech for the principal to screen but delivers a totally different speech for the actual event.
    • mseebach 16y ago
      http://dailyfreeman.com/articles/2010/07/27/news/doc4c4e6e1988751898874838.txt http://dailyfreeman.com/articles/2010/07/27/news/doc4c4e6e19...
      • AndyKelley 16y ago
        Nice find! I admire that girl's courage.
  • kadavy 16y ago
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M4tdMsg3ts http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M4tdMsg3ts
• fendrak 16y ago
  I think this is something many high school seniors realize at some point or another: had we known how easy it really was to game the system, we might have started playing the game earlier and earned more points. We aren't rewarded for interests, or how we approach things, or even for helping our fellow students; we're rewarded for scoring as many points as we can to the detriment of all other things.
  • tkahn6 16y ago
    had we known how easy it really was to game the system, we might have started playing the game earlier and earned more points. I think you completely missed the point the girl was trying to make.
    • robryan 16y ago
      Not really, he means the current system is how it is and if you want to there is a way to game it. I know people who took subjects based on their interests, the way it should work, in high school and ended up getting a much lower score than those of similar ability who sort to pick subjects to best maximise their score. Sure the people picking the interest based subjects may have learned more and got more out of the experience but they failed to get a direct path into something they wanted to do in higher education. As much as the tide is changing there are still plenty of occupations in which your not going to get anywhere without the relevant degree. But yes this is a tangent from the point being made, which is a good one.
      • fendrak 16y ago
        That was indeed the point. I took the "learn what you like" route and was not rewarded for that as much as I could have been rewarded for gaming the system.
  • kd0amg 16y ago
    Or you recognize that the game is contrary to your learning-related goals, figure out how many points you need to get what you're after, and then return your focus to learning. What would I have gained with another half point on my GPA or by moving my class rank into the top tenth? Probably not much, but it would have meant a lot more time and attention spent on work I didn't find interesting.
• potency 16y ago
  original link: http://www.sott.net/articles/show/212383-V...aduation-Speech http://www.sott.net/articles/show/212383-V...aduation-Speech
• tommynazareth 16y ago
  It is extremely validating to hear this coming from the lips of a valedictorian. I've always defended my disinterest in school by asserting that I'm way too smart for school. I struggled for my entire academic career because I naively believed that the point of school was to learn, when really, the point of school is to follow directions. Now, when I tell people that I have no interest in college, they could dismiss my disinterest as a defense mechanism. I know that most people will never understand what I'm talking about when I claim that mass education is a tool for creating workers, but at least some intelligent people will read this brilliant speech and know what I am talking about. I don't care anymore about arguing with the world, I just want to care for myself and my family, but I am glad this woman got a chance expose some truth to her class. I feel for her confusion and fear about missing out on self-discovery for many years of her life, but it is pretty clear that she is on the right path now and I can't wait to see what she goes on to accomplish in the future.
• Mrcurious 16y ago
  In other news, the sky is blue. Srsly... Valedictory speeches are suddenly no longer about embracing our individualistic spirit anymore? Thank you for the link bait.
  • invisible 16y ago
    I really hate downvoting, but if you consider this link bait I do not know what you consider good content. The author/graduate is very articulate about not supporting the current systems set in place for schools. I wholeheartedly agree with most of the speech and I think it is something that more students across the US should hear in some form. We are led to believe school is the chosen path to achieving everything in life when 90% of what school represents is memorization and homework.
  • bgentry 16y ago
    Did you read the article? The headline is a bit misleading, but the speech is very well-written and its points valid.
• TGJ 16y ago
  All my math classes felt like that. I was simply being told to memorize formulas so that later the teacher could give me numbers and I would plug them in. Rarely was I ever told why I would want to use those formulas. My best class was a chemistry course taught by a 60 year old man that used to test missiles at one point. The grades never really mattered and as long as you knew the vocabulary he would pass you. But where he made a difference was giving us examples of why stuff worked along with how. For the final we had to determine what an unknown substance was. There was no right method to do this, just simply a number of different tests that we had to do and be able to understand what the results were. We then had to 'think' as to what it might mean about the substance we were testing. He set us free and we passed and failed on our own accord because it was up to the students to read the book to try and find just one more test that might give a better result. The one lasting comment that my chemistry teacher told me was that he was not concerned with how well we memorized things because he knew we would forget. There would always be time to read up on whatever we were doing on the job. He wanted us to have the core understanding so that when we did look up the boiling point or specific gravity of a compound we would know what those facts would signify as opposed to learning stats on the more common elements. Best teacher I ever had because he didn't so much as teach me as he made me think for myself.
  • vimalg2 16y ago
    This is what i've come to experience myself. Often a solid grasp of the core fundamentals of your domain is more valuable that having a half-baked knowledge of various in-depth areas. Like the old man said, (or didn't) , You can always google it from your exobrain. I even recall Sherlock Holmes' character saying something to that effect; he says something about the human brain having finite usable storage capacity (with a low-enough access-time). I really liked reading that quote (confirmation bias. he he)
    • loewenskind 16y ago
      Yes, that was in the first Sherlock Holmes book if I'm not mistaken. Sherlock let it slip that he still thought the sun revolved around the earth. Watson was outraged at such an outdated belief but Sherlock pointed out how it had no bearing on what he did and therefor wasn't worth keeping up with. I too was partial to this because I've always worked under a similar assumption (limited space in your head for all the things you need so don't waste it with useless info like who won the super bowl 3 years ago).
• stretchwithme 16y ago
  policy makers often look at side effects of success and, not understanding how success is achieved, seek to make the side effects more likely. They see successful economies spend lavish sums on housing, so to have a successful economy, subsidize housing. Intelligent people do well on tests, so raising test scores will produce intelligent people. Never mind that the obsession with test taking make it even a more mind numbing experience. Are people truly better innovators after going through such a process? We need to study exactly this question. Actually, I would not be surprised if alternatives like the Montessori method have already been proven superior.
• malkia 16y ago
  I had exactly the opposite experience. Graduated from Mathematics/Informatics specialized High School, second worst in class - way off below the average grade. Yet I got for free in the University, because was 9th at the national computer science (informatics) olympiad, and this gave me an automatic "A" (still the high-school diploma was taken, so it was a bit of a risk). Anyhow - I hated school :) and too bad never finished university (too much parties).
  • diziet 16y ago
    New York city?
    • WingForward 16y ago
      I'm guessing not even the US. You don't go to a specialized HS (Hunter, Stuy, Bronx Sci) in NYC and graduate low in your class and get a scholarship. You're lucky to get into a school. MIT isn't looking for 12 people from the same HS, even if they're all geniuses...they want diversity.
      • malkia 16y ago
        The score system is different in Bulgaria. There was nothing like N% of the students get A. In fact - the class I've been in, graduated with 5.50 (6 is the max in Bulgaria), the other class graduated (averaged) with something like 5.75. I graduated with something like 4.40, and the other guy was 4.20, the next worst after me was 5.20 I think. About 30 people in the class. I basically skipped a lot from the school, but because I was in the computer science (informatics) team, I've got A's (6) on certain subjects, because the teachers decided not to care. Other decided that I should be present more and I've got 3 or 4 - like C or D here in US.
    • blasdel 16y ago
      "Informatics" implies central or eastern europe
      • malkia 16y ago
• sykora 16y ago
  I am sincerely sorry to say that she ain't seen nothing yet. Take a look at countries like India or China where the test is a way of life. Not only do all educational institutions - schools, universities or otherwise - produce robots off an assembly line, such robotic behavior is praised and rewarded by the society.
  • __bjoernd 16y ago
    I once gave a seminar at a Chinese university and these guys scared the creep out of me. They focussed me for hours without ever moving a limb. Anyway, we should not blame the original valedictorian for her limited views. Experience comes with time and still she's right about the things she says.
    • sykora 16y ago
      Her views aren't limited, per se. She's realized there's a problem. That's good. It's just that the situation is probably much worse than she can imagine.
• tommynazareth 16y ago
  Erica, I want to thank you for your beautiful articulation of the sad truth that makes mass education painful for so many people. Unfortunately, school very effectively destroys people's ability to act on the reality you tried show to your classmates and community, but I am appreciative nonetheless because it is better to give the truth a voice, even if it falls on deaf ears. You exposed yourself and embraced vulnerability, and that is the most powerful thing a human being can do. If you have any pedagogical theories, please share them with the world. I am all ears. Thank you.
• itistoday 16y ago
  Wonderful speech, but a bit of a misleading title on the article as she's not speaking out against schooling, but against a specific kind of schooling that's common throughout the United States (and elsewhere): 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." [.. snip ..] 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.
  • nerfhammer 16y ago
    While intriguing to think about, this teleological viewpoint which she repeats a few times is a little silly. There isn't really a shadowy cabal of plutocrats secreted away in a subterranean headquarters inside of a volcano, planning all of this. It's likely instead a series of unplanned, undirected side-effects from other things. Standardization could side-effect of trying to mass-produce education, which is a side effect of the increasing size and complexity of society. Educational institutions last for generations and stick to what they know because they don't know what else to do. It's very difficult to get feedback or to infer causal relationships or have anything resembling an experimental control over a 20 year education process and literally a lifetime. No one is directing all of this from a secret mountain lair while cackling malevolently and stroking a trained leopard.
• deleted 16y ago
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• ars 16y ago
  There's a lot of selection bias here - the majority (all?) of the readers of this site are far more intelligent than the majority. So all (most? many?) of us will probably agree with her (at least as regarding our own schooling). I know I do. But the trouble, the reality, is that most students can't do what she suggests, using our minds for creativity, and not rote work. There really is a difference in intelligence, and the sad truth is that for most students school is exactly right. The good news is that the really intelligent rise above it and succeed anyway. The lost ones are those that are just a bit more intelligent than the rest, but not quite enough to succeed on their own.
  • megablast 16y ago
    I don't agree with her, well, sure a little. The fact is, like capitalism, the schooling system is the worst system, except for all the others. And for the majority, it is great for them. I think this is one of the areas where it is so easy to criticize, because of course there are problems, unless someone actually recommends a good alternative system, I just ignore them.
    • WingForward 16y ago
      You're misquoting Churchill and objectively inaccurate. The USA version's of capitalism and schooling are not ideal for our culture or the world as a whole. There are plenty of alternatives.
      • brp22 16y ago
        ...go on
    • loewenskind 16y ago
      Total nonsense. Lots of other countries have vastly better grade schools (pg mentions this in one of his essays). Do you think all the people in those countries just have a lot more potential than most Americans? The worst thing about this ridiculous "America is the best!" attitude is that you can't fix anything if you think you've already got the best that can be done.
• deleted 16y ago
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• _mattb 16y ago
  It's hard to speak to another's educational experience (I know I've been really fortunate) but is it really as apocalyptic as some of those paragraphs suggest? "Conditioned to blurt out facts" -- "this period of indoctrination" -- "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" Nuance is important in arguments and creating pathways for dialog even moreso. But maybe that's not the goal of an 'inspirational' graduation speech.. Despite the last paragraph.
  • jff 16y ago
    Surely you, too, were once in high school--are not all of those phrases you quoted the exact sort of thing you would have said at that point? I was like that too, occasionally, and oooh did I feel like a clever fellow for thinking such radical thoughts.
• pgbovine 16y ago
  <rant> ok, for all you school-haters out there on HN, one thing that i think is often overlooked in the 'discussion' of how public schooling is such a mind-numbing rote memorization grind is the fact that it is a way of developing grit, discipline, whatever you call it ... the ability to endure through boring or tedious tasks to achieve some measurable goal. i think that for most people, the biggest determiner of 'success' or 'happiness' in adult life isn't raw intelligence or inspiring creativity, but rather the ability to just finish something! even the most anti-establishment f*-the-man entrepreneurs here on HN would never have succeeded in their businesses without GRIT. how many friends do you know who say "oh i'm so much smarter than all these tools who got good grades" but then they can never actually finish any one of their 'divinely-inspired' projects because they quit as soon as some part gets tedious or boring? in short, yes, public schooling can be improved in many ways (so can the registration process at the DMV or other bureaucracies), but i hope people out there realize the value of developing grit through doing seemingly boring rote work. </rant>
  • phjohnst 16y ago
    But why? You can develop grit by doing things that really suck, but ultimately get you somewhere you want to go, or that leads to some sort of innovation down the line. But to force people to do things that are completely unrelated to what they want to do in life, just for the sake of doing it, is a huge waste of time. You gain grit by doing things that need to be done, hopefully in pursuit of some greater goal (more than likely, just getting paid). Not by for-the-hell-of-it forced work. That just turns you off everything.
    • cturner 16y ago
      Interesting to consider the zen statement. What if you ignore the goal and focussing just on the path?
      • yason 16y ago
        You'll find yourself in some place beautiful.
    • 16y ago
• tmsh 16y ago
  Ah yes, I find myself wondering: how to explain to younglings that even more important than the realization that one needn't conform to the status quo (and indeed one might reject one's entire frame of reference) is that the truth -- rejecting only those things you can honestly, authoritatively reject -- is a much more sustainable approach, even though it takes longer and appears harder. But, within one's expanding limits, hard things are efficient. They're dense. You solve hard things, and then you can easily solve easy things. If the idea is to maximize innovation and happiness in the world -- it's a little bit trickier than everyone should start rejecting things too cavalierly and promoting their own innovative ability to quote H.L. Mencken. But that's not to knock the speech at all. I think it's a great part of the conversation about what really is the best way to prepare high school students? And how do we get there? Identification of a large problem is key. A key prick of conscience at the beginning of many large solution spaces. But if I were to say one thing it would be: Be as truthful as you can. ETA. I really shouldn't joke about 'younglings'. Although there is an argument to be made about appreciating the benefits of any situation (even misguided high schools have enviable qualities and resources, in a certain light). But it's really bad these days. Getting into college is 2-3x as hard as it was a decade ago, just on admissions rates (let alone how that factors into other qualities and explodes exponentially into other headaches). And economic hard times exacerbate things dramatically. In that sense, this speech is increasingly pertinent. It's important to jolt people into a much more focused approach to high school education. But also, in a certain light, I guess what I'm saying is that challenges are what you make of them. It's easy to make speeches as you're leaving. Even if the speeches end on the idea of coming back some day. But the key thing is to solve actual problems.
  • moultano 16y ago
    One thing I'm always struck by whenever this comes up is how much people underestimate our collective capacity for indolence. As much as I hated uninspired busywork in highschool, and did as little of it as possible, what did I do with the rest of my time? I sunk 70 hours into Final Fantasy VII. Sure, maybe I would have been more productive if I hadn't spent 6 hours every day waiting my way through the day, but I don't really think so. Most people do have an equilibrium level joy of learning that they discover when left to their own devices, but I don't think most schools stifle this. On the contrary, school just forces you to do more learning than most people naturally would, and feels like an imposition as a result. I'd certainly have enjoyed being left to explore at my own pace, but frankly, I wouldn't know nearly as much.
• __bjoernd 16y ago
  I remember Paul Graham writing sth. similar in one of his essays on education -- that school is basically only for adults to conduct their daily work while the kids are being watched and that it teaches you values you won't need in later life. Furthermore, coming from a German schooling background, I think it's much the same over here.
• vimalg2 16y ago
  This speech shook me rudely awake , reminded me of my post-college long-term life goal(one that makes a contribution to human wealth). My goal is to build a excellent institution of learning, to train the dreamers and doers of tomorrow(not mutually exclusive). This place would rival the IITs in depth of knowledge imparted but would strive to create more well-rounded individuals who would be masters of their own destiny. I feel sad when the cream of India's IITs today prefer to chase that money-minting Investment Banking career or accumulate advanced degrees state-side for a career in academia. I'm not sure if this indicates a problem with their admissions filter. (IIT = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Institutes_of_Technology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Institutes_of_Technology) In India, Education is a capital-intensive , profit-maximizing beast of an industry. The admissions racket is huge. Parents often have to 'donate' (fork out) insane amounts of cash (by Indian income standards) to 'reserve' a seat in an Engineering/medical school. (except the IITs and govt-colleges, BTW) Breaking into the market requires a large windfall and the ability to invest it wisely in order to build the foundation of such an institution. I'm thinking tech startup route naturally, since that is the only thing that comes to mind w.r.t immediate skill scope. I suffered no end of anguish when trapped in the rote-learning institutions i'd been shuffled through. At the very least, I dream of hacking it slightly for the better, for my unborn children's generation's sake. Does anyone in America have the same thought, or are your institutions of higher-learning pretty much satisfactory? This article refers to High-school and onwards, while my focus is slightly narrower : the undergraduate 'professional' education in developing countries; It changes whole families' economic statuses due to the current nature of the global market. We need more startups in India just like the US does.
  • aik 16y ago
    Interesting. We share a passion. I exited a university with a computer science degree and finally then realized how many years I had wasted. In that moment I began to understand the many ways my mind had been brainwashed and muted. Public schools in the United States are in a sad place. Luckily there are a lot of angry people and hence a lot of movements with good intents. Good luck to them all. My primary passion is to improve all this as well.
  • moultano 16y ago
• vimalg2 16y ago
  In other words, the system is tailored for good 'students', not great learners. Autodidacts are viewed as social misfits who do not like working with others. I can attest that this generalization is not true as far as I am concerned. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autodidact http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autodidact
• noonespecial 16y ago
  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. A mind that thinks this has nothing to fear.
  • aik 16y ago
    Explain? She learned how to work the system, not follow any passion of hers. Sure that's definitely a skill and a valuable one, though how much better would it be if it was better focused at something worth something a bit more?
    • praptak 16y ago
      I believe that the speech as a whole is a great demonstration of skill that goes beyond working the system. So far beyond that it even makes the speech look a little self-contradictory.
    • noonespecial 16y ago
      It shows a level of meta-cognition not normally found in the "valedictorian" types. The fact that she recognized what had happened and that she should be afraid is the reason she should not be. She's realized that there's more. The battle is nearly won with that. Just realizing that "the matrix has you" is the most important step.
      • aik 16y ago
        Definitely. Good point. I agree, the fact that she says she's scared (and if she means it) is proof that she will "cure" herself someday. Good luck to her.
• praptak 16y ago
  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?" Reading Edward de Bono has got me convinced that there are several modes of thinking and critical thinking is just one of them. Critical thinking as I understand it means looking for flaws, downsides, logic errors in ideas. It is necessary but it cannot be the only thing that you do - you need to come up with the ideas first.
• _politicalist 16y ago
  People might be interested in Chomsky's overview of the educational system, as one where even stupidity has a role -- if there's a lot of stupidity in the system, then the people who'll succeed are obedient people (including him) willing to follow the orders of someone who "couldn't think his way out of a paper bag", to get to the next rung. The rest are filtered out. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xq6lFOhLJ0c http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xq6lFOhLJ0c
• chrischen 16y ago
  I never let schooling get in the way of my education, but I'm pretty sure that's at least partially responsible for me getting rejected from all the colleges I even remotely wanted to attend. So I can't say the system is really in place to support people who do their own thing. It's not a realistic option for most people to start deviating from schooling. I mean you've got to be really above average to be able to quit or marginalize school and still succeed in our institutionalized world. You'd basically have to start from scratch (or at least start much lower than if you subjected yourself to the education system). The dilemma here is that some students when left alone can thrive without having a safety net education regiment, while some may just play games all day and waste away. And perhaps some may get too specialized and lack other basic skills a standardized education would guarantee. I think if there is going to be change, we have to start looking into whether or not those things are true. Lots of kids are home schooled right? The data should be there. If kids have to learn how to drive then they should do the driving, and school should just provide the vehicle. Can't learn to drive while sitting in a bus (but it's more economical).
  • izendejas 16y ago
    I went to a very competitive public school. They looked at more than just my grades. I'm sorry that you got rejected, but quite frankly, if you didn't get good grades, it's hard for a school to vouch for you mastering basic skills you'll need at the next level. If however, those grades are a reflection of one of many problems of obstacles you may have faced, then that's where your personal statement comes in. If you decided to do your own thing, then as someone reading applications, I'd rather give your spot to someone else and wish you well in that sense. Whether you decide to go to college or drop out is a decision I hope everyone can live with either way. At the end of the day, yes, find what you love and do what you love. Schooling is a great, great way to learn how to do many things, meet many great people, etc. It's not the only path, but it's an easier path for most people because you have the threads of people who came before you and would know how to guide you--assuming you're on the lookout.
• Ras_ 16y ago
  Testing, ranking and inspecting have become all too pervasive? In Finland national testing, school ranking lists and inspection systems do not exist. Unfortunately behind this facade it still manages to focus quite heavily on rote memorization. http://www.oph.fi/english/education http://www.oph.fi/english/education
• smiler 16y ago
  To write such an eloquent and thought provoking piece as this, her education must have taught her something more than just memorisation and facts.
  • dschobel 16y ago
    As her brain does not cease to function when she leaves school grounds, there is no reason to believe she did not gain her perspicacity elsewhere.
• arvinjoar 16y ago
  I think some of you might enjoy the "School Sucks Podcast" about compulsory schooling and its effects. http://schoolsucks.podomatic.com/ http://schoolsucks.podomatic.com/
• holdenc 16y ago
  Parts of this speech imply the valedictorian was somehow misled into working hard and graduating at the top. Well, I don't like speeches about the evils of money given by rich people, nor do I like speeches about the broken education system given by valedictorians.
• dingy 16y ago
  If I was head of the Coxsackie-Athens High School, I'd be damn proud. You've taught your students well if they end up concluding you've been doing it wrong all the time.
• speleding 16y ago
  One common remark on HN seems to be that high school is not challenging/interesting. One way to fix that would be to put pupils into different schools according to their ability. Several European countries do it that way, usually around age 12.
  • rick_2047 16y ago
    I have a huge problem with that. It sickens me to think of categorising children/pupils (and even human beings for that matter) on any basis. There are many objections that I have against it, but the most pressing is "This will lead to no interdisciplinary or inter-school-of-thought discussions." We need to understand how we categorize students. The fist thing that comes in anybodies mind is ability. But how do you measure ability? Everyone has a particular area of work she/he is good at. Then how will you measure their ability. I may am not be good with spellings, but may be I can write better prose. He may not be able to master the subjects of Mechanical Engineering but my god can he modify a car. If you put children in different schools based on there ability in different fields, then that would need to field stagnations. Sometimes a short story would inspire a few innovations in neuroscience. We need to have discussions between people from different fields. Also if you make another standardized test to test pupils abilities would that not have the same result. They would be just as bored, but with better people around them. Who is to ensure that they would not be bored by what they are taught. Also such a process would lead to elitism, similar to what we have in the current academia. If you are not from your countries best college, then you would have a bloody hard time to get research grants and such.
• nprincigalli 16y ago
  This reminds me of The Onion's "High-School Senior Marvels At What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been" http://www.theonion.com/articles/highschool-senior-marvels-at-what-a-long-strange-t,317/ http://www.theonion.com/articles/highschool-senior-marvels-a...
  • splat 16y ago
    Which, in turn, reminds me of "6-Year-Old Stares Down Bottomless Abyss Of Formal Schooling" http://www.theonion.com/articles/6yearold-stares-down-bottomless-abyss-of-formal-sc,2510/ http://www.theonion.com/articles/6yearold-stares-down-bottom...
• deleted 16y ago
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• moron4hire 16y ago
  The truly mind expanding experiences I've had in my life have come from meeting new people, engaging them in conversation, and trying to learn how to get along. Meeting people who were interesting before they ever went to college, or were interesting despite never having gone. "Well, you meet people in college!" You'd get a better experience starting a rock band, joining a community service group (or hell, joining the military, it's a similar time commitment and they pay you), all activities essentially free compared to college. If anything, the system of accreditation, the politics of the teacher-student relationship, and the financial concerns of meeting even the most modest tuition rates are nothing but impediments to "expanding ones mind".
• Ardit20 16y ago
  It is ironic that she is condemning an institution which made it possible for her to write so well and be able to think so originally and creatively. Perhaps she has forgotten, or is unaware, that without the schooling she received, without the need to complete those assignments, or prepare for those tests, she would hardly have been so motivated for the future and full of passion because whatever she might say, she knows very well that the education she has received has given her so much and will allow her so many more opportunities. She does however forget to mention how her visionary education could be? What do we do, not teach kids maths? not teach them the thermodynamic laws which personally I have forgotten but have a vague recollection of them, not teach students of biology, history, geography? Does she suppose that a seven year old, ten, 12, 14, 16, year old can so freely be creative without knowing anything whatever of the facts. Should such student be allowed to imagine what our history was, or how our biology works so that he can be "creative". Does she actually know what to be creative is? Whatever might be wrong with out educational system, unfortunately some things are basic and simply must be learned. We simply need to teach our kids to read, to do maths, physics, biology, history, art, music, sport, literature. Not simply let them imagine how it could be but yes make them memorise the facts, make them learn the fact. You might forget them the next month, but in the long run you learn the basics of each of these fields. You learn you have a heart and other organs and an immune system and the basic of history, lit, etc. It is fine to simply shout foul, and for the top in the class that is their past hobby, impatient with themselves, believing themselves to be leaders when they so immature still, but we have been teaching for more than two millennia. You can not simply discredit all this experience with some rhetoric. As for the creative part, that happens in university. If you did not learn the basics that are taught in primary school, and then on advance, you hardly would be able to independently arrive at this stage of creativity in a meaningful way, that is to gather the facts, learn them, understand them, understand how they relate, synthesise them together, and come up with suggestions as to how things can be improved. But by all means throw stones as long as your house is not made of glass.
  • temphn 16y ago
    She writes well because of her DNA. Both directly (because of her brain itself) and indirectly (because she's innately curious and was hence driven to seek intellectual stimulation just as a beaver builds a dam).
• edw519 16y ago
  Oh come on now, Valedictorian, you can find plenty of important life skills to be learned in school if you only look hard enough: kindergarden - learn how to play nicely together first grade - learn how to read and write second grade - learn how to add, subtract, multiply, & divide third grade - learn how to spell fourth grade - learn how to play a musical instrument fifth grade - learn how to appreciate great literature sixth grade - learn how we got where we are seventh grade - learn a foreign language eighth grade - learn how to type and use a computer ninth grade - learn how the world is put together tenth grade - learn about other people in the world eleventh grade - learn how to balance a job and school twelveth grade - learn how to plan for and dream about the future freshman year - learn how many other kinds of people are out there sophomore year - learn how to chug a beer, fill a bong, and get laid junior year - learn how to stand upon the shoulders of giants senior year - learn how to find your place in the world graduate school - learn how to play nicely together, all over again
  • Twisol 16y ago
    Computers are all the way up at eighth grade? Egads.
    • bpyne 16y ago
      I started in 5th grade in the late 70's. We learned binary arithmetic and punched cards to program the school system's only computer. Learning computers varies in the US. As I understand it, high schools today in the US teach basic computer skills like using a word processor, spreadsheet, browser, etc. to the general populace and may have more advanced classes for people identified as having more ability.
    • peterwwillis 16y ago
      Not everyone has the benefit of schools with computers. Getting kids in many districts to comprehend basic math or science first would be nice.
  • tel 16y ago
    Man, sophomore is a doozy. Are you sure kids can handle all that at once?
• apinstein 16y ago
  That's a pretty enlightened speech for a high school grad, awesome! Take home lesson: "What gets measured gets managed - even when it's pointless to measure and manage it, and even if it harms the purpose of the organisation to do so."
• api 16y ago
  But without continuously increasing GDP we will have deflation and will not meet our national goal of... hey wait a minute... don't our national goals look a lot like standardized tests? Maybe we were invaded by aliens a long time ago, and this is our prison.
• DennisP 16y ago
  Someone mentioned Montessori schools, which seem to do pretty well. Another along similar lines, but more extreme, is Sudbury Valley schools: http://www.sudval.org/ http://www.sudval.org/ Kids are taught whatever they ask to be taught. They aren't divided into classes, they can just wander around the campus asking for help from any teacher they like. If you start kids young in this environment it works really well; kids are hard-wired to learn as much as possible if you don't make it a miserable experience. Something else they do: every kid gets a vote in school decisions. A kid's vote counts as much as a teacher's. It's like they're teaching kids to be citizens in a democracy, instead of subjects in a dictatorship. I once read that (iirc) New Zealand used to have horrible public schools, and fixed it with this system: - Every parent can send their kids to whatever school they wish. - Each school is directed entirely by the parents, with no interference from government bureaucracy. - Each school gets $X per enrolled student. It took about ten years to shake out, then they had great schools.
  • masomenos 16y ago
    The Sudbury Valley model is definitely an extreme as far as the freedom & responsibility it invests in its students -- the school decisions you mention include expelling students, whether to rehire each teacher every year, etc.
  • pbhjpbhj 16y ago
    >- Every parent can send their kids to whatever school they wish. This is an impossible system to work if you don't have unlimited funds for education. Parents want to send their kids to "the good school" getting the better grades, with better facilities or whatever. Not all parents in an area can do this, there isn't enough room. As the good school gets fuller, it takes more of the cream and the other schools suffer. But this school is leaching the money away from other schools too as the richer parents that help to contribute time and resources and money move to the "good school". Ultimately the other schools aren't getting the pupils they need to run properly and suffer incredibly. The one school gets better the others worse. >- Each school is directed entirely by the parents, with no interference from government bureaucracy. There are many areas of running a school that can be made more efficient by using local government departments. Paying employees, insurance, grounds-keeping, building maintenance, healthcare provisions, utility purchasing, school meal provision, etc., can all be run more efficiently with a local grouping of schools rather than individual schools fighting it out for themselves. Do you know who is good at administrating such groups? Local government. Indeed things like creating syllabuses and setting exams can too be streamlined by cooperation across schools. >- Each school gets $X per enrolled student. I'm assuming here that you're not allowing x to vary from school to school. What about areas with high levels of non-native language speakers that need translators and extra helpers. Or that by some quirk have large numbers of disabled students that require special care and equipment. Or those in rural areas that pay a lot more for bus travel than inner-city schools. Do these schools have to restrict the care and opportunity they give to pupils because of costs that are out of their control?
• agentultra 16y ago
  I think she has come to the same conclusions many teenagers have come to before her. Although perhaps she frames them a little more elegantly. Most teenagers just have the instinctive realization that, "school sucks." Grading is a system that can be gamed. However, it's not a system that doesn't encourage you to learn anything. I'd say you are rather clever if you can get good grades but not very smart if you didn't learn anything along the way. In one of her criticism she claims "I excelled at every subject just for the purpose of excelling, not learning. And quite frankly, now I'm scared." She should be scared. Scared that she made a mistake to not learn anything. But of course I don't believe that to be true. She did learn something even if she is spiteful of the methods by which she came across the knowledge. I also do not believe that the system is perfect either and it is good that she recognizes this. However I think she, like the vast majority of people charged with writing a speech for an audience, got hold of a single idea and stretched it beyond its logical limits. Is the system perfect? No. By any rote definition of perfection any system wrought of the mind of a human cannot be perfect. Could it be better? Certainly. Though I think you will have a tough time educating people by removing the goal of excellence.
• InfinityX0 16y ago
  Did she really end a high school speech with the term "pedagogic movement"? Sounds like a "Curse of Knowledge" overdose to me. http://37signals.com/svn/posts/213-the-curse-of-knowledge http://37signals.com/svn/posts/213-the-curse-of-knowledge
• efalcao 16y ago
  Am I the only one detecting a "frowning on education" theme on hacker news lately? I don't necessarily disagree, but it seems like there has been an article a day about "should i go to college", "the diminishing value of a degree", etc. Is something that the country is focusing on right now or is it hacker news specific?
  • seiji 16y ago
    As Sir Ken says, education is one of the most personal experiences people have. If you ask someone about their education you suddenly get their full attention as they travel back in time to recount the good old days. The anti-education slant largely comes about from people trying to prove themselves or justify their personal circumstances. Their words: "Well, I didn't go to college and I'm doing fine." Their meaning: "You must be not as good as me if you didn't do what I did." Their feelings: "All these other people had opportunities, support, and they just went along with it. Their lives were handed to them. I know I'm better, or at least just as good, as them even though I didn't go to a fancy school. I'm going to prove it by telling everybody how school is worthless." In short, you are what you did. The anti-schoolers forget school also includes social grooming, transition periods, and growing up. The schoolers forget not going to school has different ways of social grooming, helping with transitions, and growing up.
• jgg 16y ago
  It seems like we might be heading into an era where questioning the methods of traditional Western education will become commonplace. This is exciting, as it cracks open the paradigm for smart people to analyze and modify. If we let some of the top creative, scientific minds spill their guts about schooling in a public forum, who knows what could happen? What I worry about, however, are the fools who will use specific criticism of our implementation of education to fight education in the general sense. Every time I read one of these articles, there are inevitably dozens of comments by idiots who don't have any specific criticism of the system at hand, but would rather rail against the idea that learning is important. In fact, conflating the "Platonic ideal" of education with the American school system is exactly the kind of confusion that prevents anyone from making any progress in the first place.
• kenjackson 16y ago
  The problem I have with her speech is that it is speaking in wishful grand platitudes, as most V/S-torian speeches do. I know several public school teachers and most have as their primary goal teaching students how to learn and to love learning. It's not like they want to create drones. But here is where the problems begin. How do you teach a 9th grader how to learn to think about math problems? When I first saw my first geometric proof I thought, "Big deal. Why do I need to learn the proof to something everyone knows is true?" It seemed pedantic to me. But it probably deal a great deal for teaching me how to think analytically. But as a 13 year old, given the choice, I think I'd argue that studying NWA lyrics are far more useful and enlightening. Again, 9th grade is when a lot of my friends dropped out. Not so they could go grap a copy of Apostle, because the current math curriculum wasn't challenging enough. But because sex, Nintendo, beer, and drugs are a lot more fun than just about anything you can teach in class. And here's the other problem I have with her speech. No one has been able to construct such an environment, even on the smallest of scales. No charter school, no private school, no home school that I've ever seen. I think her speech is more wishful thinking than anything else. As a child I used to wish that medical science was wrong. Eating chocolate, pizza, soda, and ice cream were actually really good for you. I theorized that they had overlooked some key facts in body chemistry. But my wishful thinking didn't change the fact that some things are the way they are... and maybe even for good reason.
• jdlegg 16y ago
  As Mark Twain said: "Education is the path from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty."
• DrillBitterMan 16y ago
  I got goose bumps!
• kadavy 16y ago
  Here it is on video! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M4tdMsg3ts http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M4tdMsg3ts