It has become a tradition of mine to write a speech for each of my graduating classes at Emerson. Our award-winning speech and debate program has elevated the standard of the form, and I use this as a model as students craft their own unique oratories for the occasion. My first was about the value of living in the moment, something I learned from the class of 2015 after my mom passed. Last year, I wrote a speech for the class of 2016 after a scare with an open-shooter on the UCLA campus about sharing our stories. This year, my speech is about the hope my students provided in the wake of challenging political times.
Be a Trumpet
When the bell rang and the 2016-2017 school year began, I
started my twentieth year teaching. In many ways, it was like every other year,
but it was also completely different.
One new thing I did this year, was start each week with a
quote and a question. Every Monday, my students would walk or stroll or bounce
into my room, and some would immediately write answers to the question of the
week on the board. Then, we would discuss the questions and quotes during
class.
American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson says, “Select and
collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you
like the blast of a trumpet.” I kept this is mind while selecting quotes and we
heard blasts from Nelson Mandela, John Wooden, Gloria Steinem, and Michelle Obama.
My students sounded off to these words, and our
conversations cracked my students wide open. They shared answers to questions
like: what do you hope, what is your biggest fear? They shared their thoughts
about technology, school, their parents, and friends. We discussed oppression
and prejudice, politics and depression, love and betrayal.
I participated in these conversations too, but mostly, I
listened, to you, my students, these graduates, as you shared your brave and
unique perspective of our world. You took time-worn themes like carpe diem and
nature versus nurture and made them new again. You applied the golden rule and
taking a stand to today’s triumphs and challenges.
Some days, you reflected on election results, or
executive orders, or you shared your personal experiences as immigrants, or
children of immigrants, as Christians, Muslims, or Jews, as girls, boys, or
some gender in-between, and through you I heard from America like the blast of
a trumpet. Because this year, unlike any other, America is struggling to figure
exactly what kind of country we want to be.
As we read To Kill
A Mockingbird this year, the scenes just after the Tom Robinson verdict
spoke to me in new ways. Jem was brought to tears by the outcome. He thought he
knew his neighbors. He thought they were good folks: that they were kind, and
just and fair and now he wasn’t so sure anymore. This made me think about this
year’s election results, about my friends, my neighbors, and my students.
Because in much the same way Atticus tells Jem that one day, when he can sit on
a jury, things might change, I look at you and see that same hope Atticus saw in
his son. In your empathy, and your compassion, and your ability to think about
how to see things from someone else’s point of view, I see a brighter future.
In President Obama’s farewell speech, he also looked to
Atticus from To Kill A Mockingbird. He
said, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his
point of view... until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” In our classroom
discussions, you breathed these words. You saw our world and one another with a
compassion the rest of our world could learn from. And, you are looking forward
to 2020, the next presidential election, when many of you will be voting for
the first time.
So, that’s what I’m counting on. This group of graduates
has spoken to me like the blast of a trumpet about Feminism and privilege,
about hard-work and determination, about fairness and justice. As you make your
way across this stage and into a world, a country, and a city grappling with
its identity, you know who you are, or at least you're honest about trying to
figure it out.
I believe that whatever experiences life hands you, you
will be thoughtful. You will determine what is real and what is fake, and you
will work toward what is right.
It has been such a privilege to get to hear your voices, to
listen to and read your stories, and to learn from your many different points of
view. Now, it’s on you. Carpe Diem, and be that trumpet. Make your lives, and our world,
extraordinary.
