Why I declined giving the valediction

We are back in 1986. I had just passed the exam for the Higher Trade Degree, when the chairman of the student council approached me and told me that I was selected to give valediction.

Some would see this as an honor. However, this was not the case for me. Descending from the working class in Denmark, it was a task I couldn't take. Most people properly know that Denmark is a Kingdom. Still to this day a lot of people decline to accept distinctions from the Royal house. Even knighthood. In Denmark we don't have the same tradition as they have in the United States and some other countries where it is the student who had the highest-performing student at a certain school year, who gives the speech. At my school it was the chairman of the student council. I was not the chairman nor the highest-performing student.

We have a strong tradition to acknowledge our social heritage. Recent research revealed that 30 years of effort to reduce this tradition had failed.

People descending from the working class are still less likely to get a high school diploma than people with parents who have high school degrees themselves.

I broke this pattern. I was among the few from my generation in my family, who earned the higher trade-degree. I am proud of this accomplishment.

But from obtaining a certain degree and challenging our entire social structure by taking on a role I wasn't born to, there was a certain distance.

Back then I wasn't ready to challenge what our peaceful society is built on: The fact that everybody knows his or her place!

So I declined the offer and just to make sure that I was not risking destroying the ceremony, I managed to impress my father by offering him to take a shift on the very day the graduation took place (He was my employer at the time).

It was properly one of those days where the bond between father and son was close. It was one of those days where I showed that I respected his background and that the prospect of filthy lucre did not make me disown the cultural and social heritage he had given me. On that day I wasn't a graduate. On that day I was the son of a true worker!

Some might state that by selecting duty and obligation toward the family business over a day of celebration including the traditional drive on the back of a truck around to all the families and parties on that day I might have missed out on something. I don’t see it like that. For my account family, duty and honesty against your heritage is everything. It is more important than any party. Regardless of missing out on the celebration, it cannot remove the fact that I became a student. Here is a photo taken some days later where I am together with my grandmother who came down from Finland. I was so young and unaware about the torment and harshness, life would offer me later on.