Erica Goldson. the valedictorian of Coxsackie-Athens High School's 2010 graduating class, didn't give your standard valedictory speech in June. Instead, she decried the educational system for its flaws and called herself a "slave" of the system, a move which has made her a minor celebrity in the "unschooling" movement.
Footage of her speech has been making the rounds on the internet. The YouTube video of the speech has been viewed over 400,000 times, and Goldson has been interviewed by multiple outlets, including the Washington Times.
Here's an excerpt from her speech:
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.
(Hat tip to Tom Roe at WGCX for discovering that Goldson had gone viral.)
Interestingly, although the Daily Freeman covered the graduation, they didn't seem to notice Goldson's revolutionary speech, and instead included an innocuous quotation that she didn't deliver. This is because wiley Goldson prepared a fake speech beforehand, which she gave to her principal, who gave it to the Freeman. From an interview with the Washington Times:
"I knew my principal would not approve my speech... She wanted everyone to submit their speeches ahead of time and I submitted a fake speech... then I did the real speech at graduation. But when the Freeman [the local newspaper, a subsidiary of the Daily Mail] asked about my speech - they wanted a copy of my speech - [my principal] sent my pseudo-speech." *
The Freeman later ran a correction:
A June 26 article about the Coxsackie-Athens High School graduation quoted a speech prepared by valedictorian Erica Goldson and given by her in advance to the school district’s administration. The administration in turn provided a copy to a reporter, who used it to prepare a short item on the graduation exercise.
On Monday, Goldson said she did not give that speech during the graduation ceremony. She said she submitted a fake speech to the administration and then gave a different address during the ceremony.
On Monday, Goldson provided to the Freeman a copy of the speech that she said she gave at graduation. In the speech that she said she gave at graduation, Goldson questioned the value of the American education system saying, in part, that it conditioned students to create a complacent labor force, rather than to support their potential.
All in all, it's a pretty awesome graduation stunt.
*Update, 1:21pm: Despite what you may read in the Washington Times, the Kingston-based Daily Freeman is definitely not "a subsidiary of the Daily Mail."
**Update, 2:31pm: The Daily Mail got it right, since their reporter actually attended the graduation. But they didn't focus on Goldson's "slave" comments, either:
Erica Goldson, the Class of 2010 valedictorian, encouraged her classmates, and those who will come after them, to question authority and push the boundaries.
“Focus more on learning, rather than on getting good grades,” she said. “Step up and ask questions.”
