Coxsackie-Athens HS Class of 2010 valedictory speech that went viral on the web, thus proclaiming Erica as the 'valedictorian who spoke out against schooling.'
Here I Stand
Erica Goldson
June 25, 2010
"...I am supposed to be proud that I have completed this period of indoctrination... those who deviate and see light through a different lens are worthless to the scheme of public education, and therefore viewed with contempt.
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...
...The majority of students are put through the same brainwashing techniques in order to create a complacent labor force working in the interests of large corporations and secretive government, and worst of all, they are completely unaware of it..."
http://americaviaerica.blogspot.com/p/speech.html