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Report cards are out! Unfortunately we got a grade that will forever banish our chance of getting up the stage this March for that coveted medal? I grieved a little, ok a lot, and I remembered tucked away in my files is one interesting read. It made me feel a bit better. And just in case we will be seated together clapping for those honor rolls, I hope it will do the same for you:-)
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
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.
Click this for Erica Goldson's full speech. I took it with a grain of salt though. Pampalubag loob lang:-) I think our kids should still be taught to do their best and at least come with their homework done! Grand as the speech maybe, in the end, great leaders are born from good followers.
Never Stop Dreaming and Doing,
