Thoughts on a valedictory

I was never personally in much danger of giving a valedictory speech, but this struck me; more or less, a young lady used her position on the podium to more or less make John Taylor Gatto's argument; that schooling is not the same thing as education, and modern "schooling" really serves more to make compliant subjects than anything else.  It certainly does not work to make thinking citizens, by and large.

There are any number of things which can be said.  First of all, kudos to school administrators for not pulling the plug on a fairly confrontational valedictory, and kudos as well to Miss Goldson for presenting it.  Both decisions had to take some guts.  I hope that, apart from those who already are convinced by Gatto, it receives the hearing that it deserves.

That said, there are questions as well.  What do we make of a valedictory speech that more or less mocks the very concept of a school?  Is it too incendiary, or is it speaking truth to power?  Moreover, do we know.....how well Miss Goldson thought this it?  It looks very good, but....

.....but never mind.  If Miss Goldson's speech is not an original gem, as it appears to be, she's still made the case that 13 years of schooling is not capable of generating an original valedictory.  Which brings me to my real one and only complaint about Gatto's work; he tells us admirably what is wrong with American education, but does not really give us a chance to fix it. 

To do that, I highly recommend Dorothy Sayers' essay, "The Lost Tools of Learning." 

On a similar note, one thing I learned about German culture (way back in the 1980s) was that the educated classes lamented the American pattern being implemented; teach, test, forget.  The word for it is "Verschuling," and the concept refers to taking academic (university) coursework and treating it as if it were a trade school.

In other words, the Germans, from whence we derived our Prussian style school system in part, recognize the inherent problems in it.  We should take a hint.

H/T Breathing Grace, SayAnything, others.