Thank you, ARHS staff, parents, family, friends, and community members—and most importantly, the class of 2010. It is my great pleasure to address you tonight.
I want to begin with a story set in my classroom, last year, on a sunny afternoon when I stayed after school to help a student with a paper. After we had finished our work, she packed up her bag, looked me in the eye, and asked me how I had ended up a high school English teacher. As her line of questioning continued, I realized that my job choice was the worst form of torture she could envision for her future life. Going back to high school and staying there forever? I seemed like an interesting, passionate person, possessing some unique talent. Wasn’t I wasting my life? Although I wanted to take back all the help I had given her on her paper, I gave her a half-hearted answer that I can barely remember about loving literature.
But since then, my answer has come to me. Now, I do understand why I have spent sixteen years of my life in high school instead of the usual four. Every day, every hour, every minute I have spent in the sublime, sassy, salty midst of adolescence, I have learned what it means to live, to reside somewhere in the state between young and old, asleep and awake, terrified and fearless. Here you sit, in this room tonight, filled with more humor, bravery, creativity, brilliance, generosity, sensitivity, and power than it seems a whole planet could muster.
There is no one I would rather spend all my working days with than you.
In related news, as many of you know, a few years ago, my wife and I welcomed twins into the world. In one month they will turn four. I have noticed, in truly funny, enlightening moments, that toddlers have as much to teach me as teenagers. They are making the jump from babyhood to childhood, just as you are leaping from adolescence to adulthood. They will get on the bus, right as you are about to get off the bus. Meanwhile, I, like your parents, am beginning the first steps of letting go of their hands and feeling dual emotions of great excitement and also sadness. I cannot imagine how I’ll feel when they are 18. I know that your families must be bursting with pride in your accomplishments tonight, though some of them are probably ready to kick you out of the house.
So, what have you and my own children taught me?
First of all, no matter what you call yourself or others call you, you are you. And housed within is a being so special and unique no one can quite label you. I re-learned this lesson about six months ago, when my 3-½ year old sons Jackson and Henry decided that they no longer wanted to be named Jackson and Henry. Instead, they wanted to be called Kevin and Jeff, after the narrators of the famed John Deere Tractor "videos for kids." They began saying things like, "Jackson and Henry are never coming back," introducing themselves as Kevin and Jeff to new people, refusing to respond to the names on their birth certificates, and beginning conversations by belting out, "Hello, I’m Kevin, and this is Jeff! As always, we have a great show for you tonight! We’ll begin with a song!" They followed their perky routine with rhyming tunes about the virtues of row-crop tractors. At first, I was baffled, embarrassed, adamant that they respond to the names I picked out. Then, I thought of Kahlil Gabran who said, "Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They came through you but are not from you and though they are with you yet they belong not to you." I think it bears mentioning that I have NEVER spent a moment’s thought on tractors and all my kids are longing for is a good tractor show. So they have hit on something important, that many of you know as well. Despite the names your parents gave you and everyone else in this room may have given you—and many of them are glorious, unique, and perfectly suited to you—you have already begun to make your very own names in the world, some of them far beyond others’ imaginations. I have certainly been wowed by the sneak preview. You, class of 2010, are a spunky bunch.
Just try to remember, as you move out into the world, to embrace technology with open arms but with the awareness that it is not a substitute for deep, abiding human connection. My son Jackson (also known as Kevin) recently woke up in the middle of the night during a fever, crying that he was having a nightmare. He wailed, "Satan is in the sky, flying on a cloud, covered in fire. He locked a girl in a cage and is looking for his scary pet dragon." "Where did you hear about this Satan guy?" I asked, "And the girl in the cage?" Very matter-of-factly, he said, "Satan lives in Mommy’s iPod!"
Actually, he was right. There is a game buried there in which a fiery devil strikes a guy with lightning, turns him into a frog, and then traps his girlfriend in a cell; he has to leap from level to level to rescue her. The perfect game for toddlers! And though little ones skillfully navigating iPods—and the fact that you have 10,000 more friends on Facebook than I do—doesn’t really shock me, I was a little surprised to learn last week that many of you consider yourselves experts at texting while driving.
So....if you survive, I have one small request. PLEASE don’t be the generation that completely exterminates the post office! In one of my English classes this year, an extremely bright senior who is sitting here tonight, held up a stamp in his hand and asked me, "Which side of the envelope does this go on, the left or the right?" I stopped class right then and there. We put our books down (which was not such a bad thing, because, as one of you said, "Virginia Woolf needs to get over herself"). I walked down the hall, gathered a pile of envelopes and paper, and we took 15 minutes to write real letters, address them, take up a monetary collection, buy stamps, and send them. It was a sight to see—some of you writing to your sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers, boyfriends, and girlfriends with real pens. One of you even wrote to me. One of you found an envelope with a return address from The Principal at Amherst High School and sent a big valentine to your friend which you signed, in calligraphy, Love, Mr. Jackson. You laughed when I told you that you really will want to have love letters saved in a box somewhere, not saucy emails, but I was serious, even if it’s just one real letter a year.
And while you’re writing beautiful prose, stay clean and remember moderation. Recently, I was thrilled to get a date-night out, and being the schedule-oriented person I am, left strict instructions with the boys’ godmothers about bathtime, storytime, bedtime, and more. The next day, when our kids briefed us on the previous night, they squealed with delight. "They wouldn’t let us take a bath! We ate icecream! And the babysitters drank wine!" In reality, the kids had wheedled their way out of getting clean and forced the babysitters, who never drink, to read nearly 20 books before they fell into bed at 10 p.m., two hours past their bed time. Interesting, I thought. Toddlers know that breaking the rules means being covered in dirt and drinking wine. Hold onto that. Right now, you all look very clean and beautiful are hopefully even more sober, and I want you to remember that is the way I like you best.
And I like you smart. You are so smart. When you were little, you probably found nothing more exciting than sticking your hands in the earth, your face in the snow, and your nose in a book. Malcolm X, upon finding a meaningful education, reflected, "I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity." I know that whether you go on to college, a career, the military, or world travel, you can sit in a chair anywhere in the world and travel to the other side of it, for free, simply by turning the pages of a book. Or by asking questions, questions that lead you to a deeper understanding of, or even love—for those around you. I have to say, the questions you have asked me are ones that I will never forget, though a few of them I would pay lots of money to erase from my memory forever, right Keegan?
When I started working at Amherst High School, I was not much older than you. I told myself and everyone that I met that I was going to do the teaching thing for a little while and then really figure out what I wanted to do with my life. But after having traveled the world, married the love of my life, faced shocking prejudice, given birth, experienced the tragic death of a family member, and much more, I can say, with more certainty than I have said almost anything, that all of you, who sit here tonight have wedded me to this work for the rest of my life. In such a short time, you have taught me a lifetime of lessons about compassion, patience, and justice.
The only advice I have for you is simple: find out who you are and be unashamed of that person, write a beautiful letter once a year, stay clean, and ask deep questions—always. It will probably lead to the most glamorous life imaginable, which is not one where you are surrounded by a lot of money and many hotties. Instead, it is one filled with honesty, quiet meaning, and boundless joy, one where will find yourself sitting in a room, helping someone else, and they will ask if this is all you’re good for.
When I wake up each morning, I take an early morning jog with my dog. I breathe in the fresh air. I give thanks for my life and for yours. Is this really what I want to do with my life? You are the answer. Yes. Yes. Yes. Now, go find out what wonders you’ll do with yours!
See the video of this address (suitable for high speed connections only)