She reminds me a lot of a young, astute, female John Gatto—working within the system while at the same time decrying it.

This is a great article. As a homeschooling mom, I have to fight the urge to “institutionalize” our learning. It’s easier when kids conform, right? I have to visit—and revisit—the words of William Butler Yeats (you know them, I know): “Education is not the filling of a pail but rather, the lighting of a fire.”

Alas, as is all to common, the diagnosis is more astute than the prescription.

I went to a great public school and I worked very hard to do well. Not everyone is as gifted as she is. Everyone that I knew in HS went on to college, not so for many of the home schooled kids I knew. I actually don’t know a single kid that was home schooled, that went on to college. What does that say? They should go on to college and even do especially well on the ACT and SAT tests because they are tested vigorously to make sure they are being taught well. I am not at all against homeschooling but it’s good to look at both sides of the coin honestly and openly.

In my experience I learned far more by reading voraciously outside of school, but I did certainly learn things in school as well! I learned how to write very well and I persevered in things I’m not very good at. Home schooled or public schooled children MUST read more outside the classroom. Reading develops a curious mind and a lifetime love of learning!!!!! Also I have never once been put down, demeaned or silenced in any classroom because of my conservative views.

The good news is she realized that she wasn’t really learning anything.  I’m a chemistry professor, and more and more I see students that think ‘doing well on the test’ means you learned something.  For many people, the two are absolutely equivalent.

However, if you ask them to explain how they got an answer to a particular question, you get blank stares.  “That’s just how you do it.”  Yes, but why did you that… what was your reasoning?  More blank stares.

It seems there’s an emerging generation of students that have no idea what it genuinely means to learn something.

In regards to Natlie’s post:

Hi. My name is Keith. I was home schooled. Not only did I go on to college, but I graduated with honors.

So you can now say you know a home schooler who went on to college…

(there’s actually a lot of us who do that)

This young person went to public school for 13 years.  In K-6 she would have been taught by at least two teachers each day, and 7-12 perhaps four or five.  At a minimum, then, she had perhaps 36 different teachers.  She finds not one—not one—of the 36 worthy of even a soupcon of gratitude?  Not one?

Mack, click on the link and read the whole speech she thanks her english teacher.

This young lady is at least as much to blame as her parents and her teachers. Perhaps her parents are the most culpable. Where were they when she was grinding through every assignment? Did they not instill a love of learning?

As the parent of 3 extremely bright and gifted public school students, I can tell you that it is a team effort. Parents, teachers and child. Our children go to school ready to learn with a love of learning and we demand (nicely) that the curriculum be suitably challenging for each child. My 15 year old is in a wonderful program at his public school. A program that takes advantage of his love of learning, ability to handle challenging material and desire to go deeper on as many subjects as he can take. He pursued this program with our support.

Please get off your home school high horses. There are problems with either approach. Each family has to discern what path the Lord wants for their family. We have discerned that our children belong in public school. If the situation changes then so will our path. I am continually astounded at the snarky comments from home school parents. Is that what you teach your children?

I found the speech sad. Maybe her education didn’t inspire her but my children did well with the experience of public school.  They excelled in music (grade six level orchestra), competed in sports and excelled in academic classes (AP and honors).  One of my sons was valedictorian and is a physician today?  Was her school just mechanical and uninspiring in its teaching?  My other children also did well in college.  On the other hand my niece was home schooled and went to a wonderful Catholic college but failed miserably there.  I think she was never prepared to handle all her college classes.  Learning to juggle academics, music, extracurricular activities, and sports like the students who attend traditional schools, gives them skills to succeed in college.  Good for the home schooled children who do well, but I don’t think it prepares some of them for the rigors of college based on what I have observed.  But I understand the desire to home school as it protects them from the negative influences of the world.  I guess it is a trade off.

WHile this young woman has some valid points and certainly deserves credit for her hard work, I don’t think we should continue to make that same mistake that society has been making for the past 40 years - the mistake of thinking that the young are on to something, so therefore the world needs changing. 
Speaking as a 57 year-old baby-boomer - we tried that attitude and look at the mess we’ve made of so many things - especially child-rearing and education!
An 18 year old does NOT have the answers.  She expresses her observations and her feelings, but she doesn’t yet have the life experience to put it all into context and perspective.  My experience as a student, mother, nurse, teacher, wife, sister, employee, neighbor, etc, tells me that she doesn’t have all the pieces for a full picture, yet.  I’m still looking for the pieces….

Boo hoo, “all in all I’m just another brick in the wall”.  I heard all of this nonsense spewed by Pink Floyd on the radio when I was in high school. Maybe she listened to the album recently.  I wouldn’t jump to any great conclusions about the public school system over an 18 year old’s sudden enlightenment.  I am a public school product and wish I had the benefit of home schooling or parochial schooling. I think both are better than most public schools but not always.  However, to take this speech too seriously and to use it to suggest that the public schools are a mess seems irresponsible.

I’m a professor of mathematics at a public university. If I may abuse Churchill’s famous quote, the current testing regime is the absolutely worst way of educating a large group of people, except for all the other ways that have been tried in the past.

Of course, if everyone prefers, we can go back to the 1970s, where young adults were suing the public school system and winning because they had received all B’s and C’s, graduated from high school diploma—and couldn’t read their own diploma, let alone get a job.

However, if you ask them to explain how they got an answer to a particular question, you get blank stares.  “That’s just how you do it.”  Yes, but why did you that… what was your reasoning?  More blank stares.

At least they knew how to read the test. That gives you something to work with. Of course, if they refuse to read the books you give them, let alone think about them, you can’t really expect much more.

In mathematics, things were never better than that: kids learned basic mechanics, if never why the mechanics worked. Now that 50 years have passed since the New Math, then one educational reform after another, and most of them can’t even compute with fractions even on their calculators, let alone understand why we compute that way with fractions.

At least we have tests to show us who can do a little bit of math. Of course, all those ACT-20 kids think that their B in high school Calculus means that they ought to pass a real Calculus course… if not for the AP exams we’d have a much harder time convincing people of that.

Too many skeptics about home schooling, IMHO!  The real facts are that, on average, the home schools students tend to do BETTER.  Yes, there are anecdotal examples of unsuccessful home school students, or “average” home school students ...just like there are MASSIVE cases of failures of public school systems where there is a 50% or greater drop out rate!!

And another anecdotal example of success - my 3 home schooled kids are successful - 1 graduated from the Naval Academy (and Naval Postgraduate School with a MSEE) and completed Nuclear Power training to be a submarine officer, the 2nd has her BS Nursing and is an ICU nurse for the Army, and the 3rd did 2 years of college and entered the Army at age 18, and is the Army with the Airborne Infantry.  All in all - not too bad!!

The other students that Erika now “envies” are just a “step ahead” ...or “behind.” Just because they pursue an interest doesn’t mean they know who they are, why they exist, that they are happier or more afraid. In a moment of incertitude and while she is admitting what others dare not admit, Erika has succumbed (only later) to the same illness that the others may have: individualism and hopelessness. It’s always easier (and naive) to look across the fence and think that everyone else has it better. Maybe Erika does need to enjoy life a bit more and discover more who she is…however, she does have ingredients that contribute to a successful life: discipline and perseverance.

I agree with those who purport discernment regarding the many educational options as it is not a “one size fits all,” but “what does God want for this child and our family.” Each educational option has pros and cons; Each family may have a different call.

“Teaching often becomes a communication from the notebook of the teacher to the notebook of the student without ever passing through the minds of either” - Fulton J. Sheen

Our valedictorian has compose a well structured speech that is at once empty and preposterous. The class doodlers she describes will not go on to create an artistic Renaisance and if statistics are any guide they will be among the multitude who cannot make change and who believe I do not jest that Napoleon was a 19th century president of Italy and the Vietnam war led to the hostilities of World War I.

This is nonsense.  For this young person to suddenly declare that she is free and not a slave is ridiculous.  Are there certain requirements that need to be met in our education system and are they, at times, not too enlightening…yes.  However, I would like to know what she did to change that during her time as an education slave.  Did she pursue anything that would expand her intellectual capabilities?  To chastise the program at a commencement is childish, immature and hypocritical to say the least.  Simply put…good for you…I get it…but what did you do to make a difference?

Our young scholar has written a well structured presentation, in no small part due to the efforts of her teachers.  It is an adolescent complaint. I doubt that the students who doodle in class are likely to be the creators of a new Renaissance. It statistics are any guide they will be part of that class of intellectual failures who cannot make change, believe Napoleon was President of Italy and that the Vietnam conflict led to the unpleasantness that was World War II.

The ultimate duty to expand one’s mind, to seek wisdom it with the individual. What is thing thing that the student should demand to be interested. Is she not curious. Does she claim that she was so oppressed with studies that she could not get herself to a library.  Has she exhausted the works of Shakespeare. Has she read a line from any of the Great books.

No, I think this is the usual complaint draped in the usual sell pity. I think that national education is a disgrace and the National Education Association an infamy. That does not excuse this young lady’s attempt to shift blame form herself where it rightly belongs to a bureaucracy which will fail her every time.

Let me throw a monkey wrench into this discussion, if this had been said about the Church and how it “instructs” its faithful, would this column and its responders be as positive????

I don’t think this is indictment of public school at all. No one made this young woman do what she claims to have done—work on extra credit she didn’t need at the expense of finding out what she was interested in, etc. If that is even true.

I have no idea of the state of public education in her district and school, but I have a pretty good idea of her character. What a slap in the face to everyone else who wanted to be valedictorian but didn’t score QUITE as high as she did. It’s the rant of an adolescent who ought to be ashamed of herself.

Good article,amazing to read.

http://www.sandfordhighschool.com

In the early nineties, I student-taught at a Catholic “inner city” elementary/jr. high—about a third white, third black, and third hispanic. I was taking education classes at a local Catholic university.  I am a graduate of public high school and my BA is from the Catholic university (though not in education—I just took education classes later after the degree and after graduate school at a large public university). My mother taught elementary school in a small town Texas district for almost thirty years.  She is a public high school graduate with a teaching degree from a Catholic college.  So I have been exposed to public and Catholic education.

There were a few differences between public and Catholic elementary school that I observed. One was the presence of official religion classes and weekly daily Mass at Catholic school.  This is good, but to assume public school students are all heathens probably means you never went to public school.  The are plenty of morally upright students and teachers there doing their best to live a Christian life, whether they are Catholic or not.

Another difference was what I considered the excessive amount of homework required of Catholic school students.  Whatever happened to childhood—going home and playing ?  You can get a good education in public school if the students and parents put out the effort —which they would put out in Catholic school anyway.  There are also some very excellent and concerned teachers and administrators in public school.

Also the public schools do a MUCH better job of addressing what the Church calls “social justice.”  Nuns may teach a few lucky ones in the “inner city”  but most if not all public schools provide free breakfast and lunch for needy children.  Public school also is required to take the profoundly disabled/learning impaired child.  Those are the FIRST children the Catholic schools should be taking but supposedly “can’t” because they can’t afford it.  I say they could afford it if they took those students first.  Everyone else could go to public school if Catholic school couldn’t accomodate them and do the job the lay Catholic is supposed to do which is to evangelize society and Horror of Horrors, maybe occasionally suffer for their faith—something Catholic schoolers and home schoolers apparently only read about in books.

The kids/families in public and Catholic school are the same in my experience.  Kids are kids no matter what school they are in. There is just as much divorce and other problems in Catholic school as there are in public school.  One of the fathers of one of my students when I was a student teacher in a Catholic school actually left the family during my time there.  I don’t know how his son managed to make it through each day.  I remember that poor kid still.

It’s too bad public education and their students/teachers/administrators are either ignored or put down by the Church.  It has a lot to offer and the alternatives—Catholic school and homeschooling—are not necessarily any better.  I know a homeschool student who received a full college scholarship, but I also know a homeschooling family who had kids who still hadn’t finished high school and they were at least twenty (20) years old.

At her Coxsackie-Athens High School graduation ceremony, valedictorian Erica Goldson delivered an anti-schooling speech that must have raised more than a few eyebrows in the audience: 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