"Vacaville Valedictorian Chooses Faith Over Speech"

Parents Forum
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<p><a href=“http://www.thereporter.com/news/ci_18214655[/url]”>PG&E boss says company wasn’t fully ready for California outages – The Vacaville Reporter;

<p>Traditions in Conflict: Vacaville valedictorian’s speech saved
By Melissa Murphy/ <a href="mailto:MMurphy@TheReporter.com">MMurphy@TheReporter.com</a>
Posted: 06/06/2011 01:04:07 AM PDT</p>

<p>Vacaville High School Valedictorian, Carolyn Fine is observing the Jewish holiday of Shavuot on graduation day, and will not be using electricity. Not only will she be walking to the ceremony, her speech is prerecorded and will be played during the event. (Rick Roach, The Reporter)
Vacaville High School’s 2011 valedictorian will graduate Thursday with the rest of her classmates, but she will not stand before the crowd to give the usual graduation speech.</p>

<p>In observance of the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, 18-year-old Carolyn Fine will not use electricity, even that which powers the microphone. Nor will she ride in a car to her graduation; instead, she’ll walk to the ceremony.</p>

<p>To accommodate Fine’s observance of Shavuot – a two-day biblical holiday commemorating the giving of the Torah to the Jews at Mount Sinai – her speech was recorded in a sound booth at the high school and will be played Thursday before the crowd.</p>

<p>“I was nervous about what to do,” Fine said, referring to the weeks leading up to graduation. She believed she wouldn’t be able to give a speech at all. That’s when the high school’s administration stepped in. “They really took good care of me. They’ve been very understanding.”</p>

<p>Fine’s observance of Jewish religious practices has been a gradual process, one she said was up to her, but supported by her family.</p>

<p>“The more I learn about the Jewish religion, the more connected I feel,” she said. “I’ve realized I can’t live without it.”</p>

<p>Recently, she has started wearing skirts and always keeps her elbows and collarbone covered. She added that there is a lot to remember.</p>

<p>“The more I learn, the more aware I am of what I don’t know,” she said. “It’s a very deep religion.”</p>

<p>[Vacaville</a> Valedictorian Chooses Faith Over Speech - Yahoo! News](<a href=“http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_localsfo/20110608/ts_yblog_localsfo/valedictorian-chooses-faith-over-speech#mwpphu-container]Vacaville”>http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_localsfo/20110608/ts_yblog_localsfo/valedictorian-chooses-faith-over-speech#mwpphu-container)</p>

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<p>Shrinkrap - Just fyi, this was covered in a thread called “What’s this education worth anything?” started by ParentofIvyHope and subsequently closed. Just so you know :-)</p>

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<p>Ok, thanks!</p>

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<p>Man - that thread was awful…I got angry just reading it. Never posted, because it wouldn’t have done any good.</p>

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<p>And if you think Parent of Ivy Hope is a well, you know, take a look at some of his fellow-travelers’ comments on the Yahoo link. It’s enough to make you cry.</p>

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<p>I think some folks are just very black and white concrete thinkers, they have great difficulty with perspective taking (lack ‘theory of the mind’ if you will), and struggle to anticipate others’ reactions to their words and behavior. Indeed, they find such reactions perplexing. Often such folks fit well in a more technical environment, but they have challenges navigating the social world.</p>

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<p>I just want to give a shout out to our city. We have four high schools, and “diversity” that rocks!</p>

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<p>As others have mentioned, there was already a thread about this article with a lot of discussion that has since been closed by the moderators. If you want to read that discussion, it can be found here:</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/1159897-whats-education-worth-anything.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/1159897-whats-education-worth-anything.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Thus, this new thread will now be closed. Thank you for your anticipated understanding.</p>