Great Valedictorian Speech

This is a great concept to expand on. Ironically, education in North America and Europe (“the developed world”), contains some of the most creative educational programs in the world. Many educational systems in the world are based only on rote memorization. Where is the creativity in that????

While it is completely true what this valedictorian student has said that modern North American education is geared towards producing skilled workers, towards teaching the skills to develop people that will continue to run this post-industrial society…most teachers are overworked and underpaid and forced to do more with less every year besides dealing with (at least) 30 randy middle school or high school kids that are becoming more and more ADHD every year through diet and lifestyle causing them to be emotionally and physically exhausted at the end of the day, and often leading to illness.

It is also worth noting how mass media (TV, movies and video games) often work in direct antithesis to the goals of creative learning by offering quick gratification rather than delayed satisfaction through learning a skill that takes years to develop. Also by pushing excessive and unrealistic sex and violence as the answer to everything which doesn’t happen in real life, so that kid that wants to take the time to write songs and play music often does so to get the quick reward rather than to experience the community that it creates.

In order to change the way that people learn in the world, it needs to be a concerted group effort on the behalf of parents, youth and educators. True that educators DO have the ability to include many things outside “teaching to the test”, but that also depends on their ability to grow and develop themselves.