I haven't read anything like this before (see below). This story brings to the surface what I think most of us who have been through public schools recognized hovering around the fringes of our minds - namely, that what we were learning continually bypassed the central, core issues of life. Here are excerpts from the story.
(CNSNews.com) - The valedictorian of a Blue Ribbon-awarded high school in New Jersey has left teachers and administrators with a sour taste in their mouths after using his June 20 valedictory speech to describe his education as "hollow" and one filled with "countless hours wasted in those halls."
Teachers and adminstrators might have had a sour taste, but the valedictorian said the students thought differently.
"The reaction from the students to me has been overwhelmingly positive." he continued. "For some reason, I don't know if for the same reason, I think they were all disappointed in some way or unfulfilled and I think that's what the school should be thinking about."
The valedictorian went on to say this:
"I felt like the most important questions were not asked." said Kareem Elnahal, the top rated student at Mainland Regional High School in Linwood, N.J. "Things like ethics, things that defined who we are, were ignored so in that way I thought it was hollow." he told Cybercast News Service Wednesday.
"[It is] grade for the sake of a grade, work for the sake of work." Elnahal added, according to a transcript of the speech posted on the Press of Atlantic City website.
"Ladies and gentlemen, the spirit of intellectual thought is lost," Elnahal said. "I know how highly this community values learning, and I urge you all to re-evaluate what it means to be educated," he concluded before leaving the ceremony without collecting his diploma.
Elnahal told Cybercast News Service that teachers refused to discuss certain topics because they were too closely tied to religious views. In his valedictory speech, he argued that there is a connection between a person's faith and that person's power of reasoning.
"Is there a creator? And if so, should we look to it for guidance," Elnahal asked the audience gathered at the high school graduation ceremony. "These are often dismissed as questions of religion, but religion is not something opposed to rationality. It simply seeks to answer such questions through faith."
And so, our schools continue to fail to educate on the most central issues of life, without which all the rest of life lies meaningless and hollow.