In the final week of May, 222 graduates from one Ohio school district flung their caps in the air while claiming the same title: valedictorian. One in every five graduates from Dublin City Schools went home with that highest academic honor. The district’s valedictorian roll has been rising for years. In 2014, I graduated as one of 72 valedictorians from Dublin Jerome High School.
Understandably, these numbers confuse a lot of people. How can more than one student earn the highest GPA? How can more than one give the valedictory speech at graduation? Every class can have just one highest achiever, right? Generally, that’s true. But the administrators of Dublin school district, and a growing number of school districts across the country, see things differently. In Dublin, every student earning a GPA above 4.1 is deemed a valedictorian. Traditionalists argue that this system degrades the distinction. Maybe so, but the merits of this approach are far greater. Creating a system that promotes personal achievement over unhealthy competition and that rewards hard-working students without hindering anyone’s ability to succeed should be applauded.
I love how he starts out trying to defend this policy that is clearly based on the Leftist/Regressive/Socialist idea of “Everybody gets a trophy”, by saying in his title, “The rise of multiple valedictorians is not a product of the “everyone gets a trophy” era.” And then he tries to rationalize it later on by saying, “Recognizing multiple valedictorians eliminates the unhealthy competition created by a system that awards just one winner.”
Dude, if there is not a singular person or team that is THE WINNER…then there is no such thing as A WINNER!! And if there is no way to WIN, that means there is no way to LOSE. And if there is no way to determine who won or lost…then what the heck is the point of doing it!! Seriously, if you can’t win (or lose), why bother even keeping score? And if you don’t keep score, or measure or track something, how can you know if you’ve even made any progress?
This young man is approximately 19-20 years old. So, he was born around 1995-6, and he is right on the cusp of that “Gen-Y”, “Gen-Next”, “Millennial” generation, and being one of the Gen-Z’ers.. It’s really tragic, because this kid (and virtually everyone in his generation) has been SOOOOOOOOOOOO DEEPLY INDOCTRINATED, that he doesn’t even know…that he doesn’t know!! He doesn’t realize that he has been taught to believe that UP is now DOWN, and DOWN is now UP.
Back in August 2014, I wrote an article entitled, “Redefining Words = Redefining America”, where I said:
So when we see that The Left is actively seeking to redefine words in that manner, it is cause for great consternation by us, because we know that he who controls the language, controls everything in the debate, because they can control the past, the present and the future. If you can redefine words…you can redefine America.
Folks, at least for now, until Leftist get around to redefining it, the 1828 Webster American Dictionary of the English Language, the modern Merriam-Webster American Dictionary of the English Language, and the Oxford English Dictionary all say the “Valedictorian” is:
the student who has the highest grades in a graduating class and who gives a speech at graduation ceremonies
Did you notice that they all made it clear it was the student?!?! The very definition of “Valedictorian” is singular!! I feel sorry for these Millennials, because they really are woefully unprepared for adulthood. Maybe we need to have them go back and watch old episodes of THE HIGHLANDER, because they need to understand that when it comes to things like being a champion, or the Valedictorian…THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!!