HT to Caitlin Muir. 
When Erica Goldston gave her high school valedictorian speech on June 25th, people were shocked at the words that came out her mouth. Instead of going the traditional route and reminiscing fondly over her four years at Coxsackie-Athens High School in New York, she took the opportunity to give her real opinion on the state of American education. She wasn’t happy with it and she let everyone know.
Watch Erica’s speech below or click here to read the valedictorian speech on her blog.
“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.” – Erica Goldston
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Well, obviously she learned something in those 18 years.
She’s over the top, for the most part, but she does accurately capture the nature of the Prussian school model that has been adopted by both the public and Catholic parochial school systems.
Also her sentiments reflect that desire among many post-Modern youths for substance. Her sentiments also highlight that today’s youth are intellectually and spiritually crippled by a materialism and pragmatism that renders all but a few of them incapable of recognizing the most substantial reality as being the Triune God. Her call for truth is wedded, unhealthily, to a denigration of tradition, thus leaving her and her peers untethered and susceptible to the ravaging winds of relativism.
In the end, I suspect, her youthful post-Modern angst will be tempered by either a discovery of traditional Catholicism or old fashioned American materialism. Without religion her pursuit for truth will end up being a fruitless chase after wind. So if she finds traditional Catholicism, we have a saint. If she doesn’t, I’m afraid she will probably end up being an investment banker.
Or a divorce attorney…?
How the {heck} did you come to that conclusion??