<p>What’s wrong with hippies?</p>
<p>I agree with her on some points. My school is pretty much the same; it’s a test-prep school. How is test prep going to help me later on in life? I want to actually learn about history and math rather than just memorizing dates and facts and formulas. How does it all work? Why? I want a better understanding of everything I’m being taught in school. I don’t want to do it just to ace a test or get high grades. I wonder if I can talk about this at my school.</p>
<p>By the way, this is similar to the TED conference about how schools are stripping away creativity, which is a very interesting video.</p>
<p>Wasn’t there a poster here a while back who was asking if he/she should do exactly this?</p>
<p>There was one thinking about pretty much complaining about every other person giving a speech as being cheaters or something</p>
<p>idk if that’s the one you remember</p>
<p>She is just such a progressive person (sarcasm).</p>
<p>I kind of agree with her overall message against the school system’s approach to learning. I personally hate the idea of going to school just to get good grades and tests scores. I’m sick and tired of teachers who think that the only point of learning is to get good test scores, and who completely ignore other types of learning and develpoment. School should be a place to learn and not merely a place to prepare you to get a job.</p>
<p>on the other hand I just think she is WAY too extreme about it. You can still do what you want creativity and educational wise on your own time, so the speech also seemed like a cop-out to her inability to pursue her own interests during school</p>
<p>My solution work with and tolerate the system until I’m in a position to change it from the inside, instead of ignoring the system, living a hard life and screaming at it form the outside.</p>
<p>I remember a while someone on CC proposed to do something similar LOL.</p>
<p>I can understand what Erica is saying, that the educational system makes everyone read the same book and take the same tests will undoubtly create like minded individuals. I do not see the aim of the educational system to be simple indoctrination. Instead this is an unfortunate side effect of a good thing. It’s like saying chemists who create medicine to want you to have nausea, headaches, or diarrhea.</p>
<p>The whole speech comes of as hypocritical to me. She bashes the educational system that rewards those who word hard and excel. Sure knowing that Columbus “discovered” the Americas in 1492 won’t help you in life short of winning Jeopardy. The intangibles are what should be appauled. If she really wanted to show that you did not need to be first in your class to succeed, then why did she work her butt off and be valedictorian. Practice what you preach girl. I am not valedictorain of my class. I am in the top 5 and do not think that the valedictorian is “smarter” than me. (the defintion of intelligence is another story) However, he works his butt off and should be honored as being top of the class. (He’s also one of my good friends so I would know)</p>
<p>No one is forcing you to get a degree or work in a factory making Nike’s. If you don’t want to get an office job or be a part of the material culture, then pull a Chris McCandless and do whatever you want to do. He died alone in the Alaskan wilderness, but at least he liked what he was doing.</p>
<p>If you want to not be “indoctrinated”, no one is saying you can not read books and educate yourself outside of school. Most of the “geniuses” did exactly that. Bill Gates quit Harvard because he did not like what he was doing and instead followed his passion. Erica should do this too if she is so upset with the evil that is public school education.</p>
<p>In summary, could the educational system be improved, yes. Is it an abomination, far from it.</p>
<p>
Well, I don’t think we should be placing all the blame on the teachers here. It is the administration/state legislatures who enforce a curriculum that “teaches to the test.” Let’s not presume that teachers have much of a choice in this matter.</p>
<p>Very very interesting and I applaud most of the elements of her speech. She was a tad bit over the top though and for many of the same reasons the other posters have mentioned, I disagree with.</p>
<p>I was definitely warned that if I said anything that wasn’t in my pre-approved speech, they would cut off the mic LOL. I’m known to be quite vocal and especially with the mess happening within my school district now, I would’ve cost some people their jobs!</p>