Best Speech Eva!

I realize I am a little late in sharing this, as I hear it is all over facebook and such already, but some friends here had not heard about it, so here ya go!

http://americaviaerica.blogspot.com/2010/07/coxsackie-athens-valedictorian-speech.html

Here is a taste :

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, quoting John Taylor Gatto, she wrote:

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."

I have just finished reading John Talyor Gatto's newest book, Weapons of Mass Instruction, and have all things school-y on my mind. My question to those whose kids go to school is do you even know what you are doing? There is probably nothing I have spent as much time researching and thinking about as how to educate my kids. I knew nothing of what was in this book when I decided to keep them out of school. Now that I do know, all I can say is thank heavens I did! Anything to save them from the type of experience that young woman spoke of in her speech. At least she woke up and now knows what happened to her.

Oh, and if you think college is any better, check this out:

http://www.academicevolution.com/2009/01/dear-students.html

Oh, oh, and here is a blog post by an unschooling mom who had a chance to have a conversation with Erica. She links to the audio on the blog:

http://kelly.halldorson.com/blog/?p=1454

So cool!