The following is a rough draft of a speech I will give a week from Monday, to roughly 980 people. The occasion is a high school graduation, and I have been asked to represent the faculty and staff in making 5 to 10 minutes worth of time filler comments.
This is not a final draft, by any means, but fairly represents what I'm thinking about right now.
I've been through several drafts, and several themes, and left out many, many more pages than I thought possible, but in the end went for simplicity instead of my more usual complexity. Of course, that is open to interpretation, however!
The students don't know I have been selected, so I have changed the names to protect the innocent and the unwitting.
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My thanks to Kula, and NCrissieB and plf515 for the work they have done to make today as special as it can be.
Faculty and staff of The Blogistan Polytechnic Institute, thank you for the work you do every day to make this school as special as it can be.
Parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings, nieces, and nephews, and friends; thank you for being here, and for being there through all the moments and all the years that have led to what we celebrate today.
Members of the graduating class of 2000 and 9...here you are. I know it sometimes felt as if today would never come, but in a few minutes you will walk across this stage and become graduates.
I’m going to repeat that because I want you to answer a question about it. You see, you haven’t graduated yet, and I haven’t quite finished teaching yet. We get a few more minutes together and it is in my nature to use them to their fullest potential.
"In a few minutes you will walk across this stage and become graduates."
My question is, which word in that sentence is the most important to you, right now?
I think, under the circumstances, "graduates" is a reasonable answer. We are here to celebrate that achievement. We are very proud of you and what you have accomplished. Being graduates is important. But I am going to make the case for the word "become."
Today you become graduates. This is your rite of passage. Rites of passage are noted because they represent a change in a person’s life...the end of something and the beginning of something else. Today marks the end of your high school experience, at least as students, and, well, the beginning of something else.
While you have been in high school, we have continued to fight wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have suffered the most severe economic collapse since the Great Depression, we have seen politicians fall, including New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, we have seen Lebron James not move from Cleveland, and we watched the last episodes of MadTV, Pushing Daisies, and Battlestar Galactica. Ok, maybe only I cared about Battlestar Galactica...
But, Michael Phelps won 8 gold medals in the Beijing Olympics. John Legend won the Grammy for Best New Artist, an award that once went to Milli Vanilli. Myspace became second place to Facebook, and Twitter, well, that reminds me, I haven’t tweeted in 20 minutes, so if you’ll excuse me... {pulls out phone and text while speaking next line} "Giving...graduation speech. Seems to be going well."
"In a few minutes you will walk across this stage and become graduates."
We have also seen an historic American election. I mean, who could have predicted Kris Allen would win American Idol? I totally did not see that coming.
There is now a Black family in residence in the White House. President Barack Obama. Of the four major candidates for President and Vice President, only one was a White male. You have just seen the first Hispanic woman nominated for the Supreme Court, a Bronx native. Some people thought these things would never come to pass. You’ve had the privilege to be in high school when they happened. You live in a different world than that of your parents because they and the generations before them paved the way for you. You live in a world that is once again changing, that is becoming something else. A world experiencing its own rite of passage.
We have been preparing you to participate in that process. You do not need our permission to go and change the world, to make it a better place. All you need do is decide to begin. In fact, we expect you to take what you find and improve it. It is what we have been preparing you for. My 2 year old daughter is depending on you to do this.
In doing this, you are not limited by your intelligence, your creativity, or your athletic skill. These things can be developed. You do not possess them in fixed amounts like the number of socks in a drawer. Your capacity to do good in the world is not measurable by any standardized, multiple choice test. If you choose to work at it, if you choose to see yourself as capable of growth, if you choose to take that as far as you can; you will become smarter, more creative, and more athletic. Your ability to solve problems will improve with practice and increasing difficulty.
Year after year after year I have seen students do things they did not know or even believe they could do.
What are you going to do? Who do you want to become?
This graduation is but one step on a much longer journey. "Graduation" itself comes from the latin gradus, meaning "step," indicating more of a transition than a destination in itself.
If I could choose your travel companions, I would give you curiosity, empathy, tolerance of ambiguity, inspiration, ambition, humility, and skepticism.
Curiosity because it is the root of learning. With curiosity as your travel companion, you will never be bored.
Empathy, because emotions are central to the human experience, and your ability to be aware of and understand others from their own points of view will be one of your best guides for fairness and justice.
Tolerance of ambiguity because not everything on your journey will have a clearly correct solution. Some steps will be complicated and unpredictable, and you will need to navigate uncertainties while still striving for best outcomes.
Inspiration- that you may find it in others, in art, in nature, and in yourself; but that you may also live your life so that others may find you to be inspiring.
Ambition, so that you are motivated to take the next step. And that the next step you are always about to take is better than the one that came before it.
Humility, to temper ambition. So that you are never so sure of yourself that you believe you have all the answers, or fail to hear and listen to fellow travelers.
Skepticism. That you may ask the right questions, and many of them. The world is not changed by those who know the answers as much as by those who ask the right questions. "The greatest obstacle to discovering the shape of the Earth, the continents, and the ocean was not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge." Question everything.
It has been an honor and a privilege to share this much of the journey with you.
"In a few minutes you will walk across this stage and become..."