Xtranormal Takes the Higher Education Scam Mainstream

Here are several more xtranormal videos. I'd like to see more of these videos follow in the footsteps of the "So You Want to Go to Law School" video that has gone viral and received 660,000 hits in the last week. I'm glad to see unemployed graduates putting some of their free time to good use by creating these creative and humorous videos that will hopefully save someone from a similar fate. Enjoy and pass them along to a real life lemming contemplating law or graduate school. You could save a life.

Adorable Valedictorian Speech Critiques Schooling

What a refreshing change to see a good student understand that school isn't the only path to becoming enlightened. This bright young woman's valedictorian speech is an insightful critique of a flawed education system. I hope Erica will continue to question authority and speak out against injustice and incompetence. Just don't go to law school.

...Some of you may be thinking, "Well, if you pass a test, or become valedictorian, didn't you learn something? Well, yes, you learned something, but not all that you could have. Perhaps, you only learned how to memorize names, places, and dates to later on forget in order to clear your mind for the next test. School is not all that it can be. Right now, it is a place for most people to determine that their goal is to get out as soon as possible.

I am now accomplishing that goal. 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. I will leave in the fall to go on to the next phase expected of me, in order to receive a paper document that certifies that I am capable of work. But I contest that I am a human being, a thinker, an adventurer - not a worker. A worker is someone who is trapped within repetition - a slave of the system set up before him. But now, I have successfully shown that I was the best slave. I did what I was told to the extreme. While others sat in class and doodled to later become great artists, I sat in class to take notes and become a great test-taker. While others would come to class without their homework done because they were reading about an interest of theirs, I never missed an assignment. While others were creating music and writing lyrics, I decided to do extra credit, even though I never needed it. So, I wonder, why did I even want this position? Sure, I earned it, but what will come of it? When I leave educational institutionalism, will I be successful or forever lost? I have no clue about what I want to do with my life; I have no interests because I saw every subject of study as work, and I excelled at every subject just for the purpose of excelling, not learning. And quite frankly, now I'm scared.

...For those of you out there that must continue to sit in desks and yield to the authoritarian ideologies of instructors, do not be disheartened. You still have the opportunity to stand up, ask questions, be critical, and create your own perspective. Demand a setting that will provide you with intellectual capabilities that allow you to expand your mind instead of directing it. Demand that you be interested in class. Demand that the excuse, "You have to learn this for the test" is not good enough for you. Education is an excellent tool, if used properly, but focus more on learning rather than getting good grades.

For those of you that work within the system that I am condemning, I do not mean to insult; I intend to motivate. You have the power to change the incompetencies of this system. I know that you did not become a teacher or administrator to see your students bored. You cannot accept the authority of the governing bodies that tell you what to teach, how to teach it, and that you will be punished if you do not comply. Our potential is at stake.

For those of you that are now leaving this establishment, I say, do not forget what went on in these classrooms. Do not abandon those that come after you. We are the new future and we are not going to let tradition stand. We will break down the walls of corruption to let a garden of knowledge grow throughout America. Once educated properly, we will have the power to do anything, and best of all, we will only use that power for good, for we will be cultivated and wise. We will not accept anything at face value. We will ask questions, and we will demand truth.

I have a problem listening to people.

So, I am not the first crusader in the war against students making the retard decision to go to law school. I would be lying if I told you I was never warned. I too was warned by miserable practicing attorneys and failed to heed the warning. Now, I am stuck with debt and grim prospects in a deadend industry.

It was a beautiful winter day in 1998. It was a day where I could have turned my whole life course around. But I didn't listen. This is what happened...

I grew up in an educated, professional suburbs of a big city. My wonderful parents, although uneducated themselves, saw value in raising me "in the right neighborhood." So, at the risk of being house poor, they moved into a county with amazing schools and great neighbors and little to no crime. In my neighborhood, although my parents were not educated, it was not an option to skip college. So, I was nearing graduation and as an overachiever with nearly a 4.0 in college, graduate school was on my radar. If you have been reading my blog, you know that I decided to become a lawyer when I was 16. But I had nothing invested. I was just a stubborn asshole.

I used to work in my mother's nail salon from time to time. And it was a Saturday and I was helping out at the salon. Two of her long time customers were there at the same time--one was leaving and one was coming. Maggie and Alana were both attorneys in their 40s. Both had very young babies and were highly successful. Prior to that day, I looked at both women as examples of what I wanted to become. I was going to law school to be just like Maggie and Alana.

I will never forget what happened next.

I told them that I got into the first tier school of my choice and I it looked like I was on my way. Both women began to plead with me, simultaneously, to reconsider going. Alana was saying that she missed her daughter's first steps and first words because a nanny raiser her daughter. Her daughter even took to calling the nanny mommy and Alana, mama. She started crying. Maggie told me that she had been so focused on being an attorney that she had no time to settle down and have a family. So, her only son was a result of IVF. BOTH women told me they were still paying off their loans and that they were bogged down by these payments. Although both women had pretty prestigious government positons, those jobs didn't pay well. It was as if they were mourning the loss of their lives and the future loss of mine.

I was so fucking smart too. I said to myself, just all future law students say, it will be different for me. I am smarter and better than they are. What do they know? I did so well in college, I'll have no trouble getting exactly the type of job that I want. What a crock of shit. I wish I listened.