Bainbridge Band of Brothers Journal EntriesAdvice to Graduating High School Seniors
by Donald B. Kaag
2006 COMMENCEMENT SPEECH
Madam Superintendent, Principal Celebrezzi, School Board Members, distinguished guests, parents, families and friends, and…most importantly…Moscow [Idaho] High School graduates of the Class of 2006:
I am here tonight to talk to you one last time before I retire from the teaching business and you graduates go off into real life to do great things. History is made up of cycles. You are finishing one, and about to start another.
I can remember 44 years ago, in June, 1962, when I was sitting where you are, in a rented cap and gown, and graduating from high school. After having twelve years of public education inflicted upon me, it was a major rite of passage. I was excited because one part of my life was over and another was beginning, and I was scared to death. What would happen next? Would I be successful or would I fail? Would I ever see the people in my senior class again?
Sadly, the answer to the last question was, No”. Look around you and try to memorize the faces of your friends and classmates, because you will never see all of them in one place again after tonight. Whether you are off to a job, to college, or to the military as I was when I graduated, this ceremony really does mark a major turning point in your life.
As you know, most old people want to tell teenagers how to live their lives. And although I know that you are really tired of hearing us do it, since I am an “old guy” I guess I am obligated to take a last shot at it.
Your parents may seem like really boring people to you. They weren’t always that way. Once upon a time they were young and carefree and did all kinds of crazy and interesting things. Then they had you! And their lives changed. They got boring by having to be responsible for you, and getting real jobs, and buying and paying for a house for you to live in, and paying doctor’s bills, and for minivans and music lessons, and fielder’s mitts, and books, and food, and clothing, and all of the other stuff that parents have to do and get and pay for their kids.
Your parents and I got to be old people by figuring out how to survive through our teenage years, and all of us remember that being a teenager is a tough racket. I know that it isn’t always apparent to you, and sometimes you would rather we just left you alone, but we care about you a lot. We agonize about you making mistakes that will affect your entire lives, but we know that you have to make many of them… that we can’t save you from most of the stupid things we did ourselves. Because that is the way you learn… just like we did… from your mistakes.
We try to give you good advice, and to be there for you when you need help, or someone to talk to. And since I have a captive graduating class audience, I will try to give you some advice to get you successfully through the rest of your teenage years and on into your adult lives. Here are seven tips for surviving your teenage years, and enjoying the rest of your lives.
1. Don’t grow up too fast. When I was a teenager, I couldn’t wait to be 18, and then when I was 18 and graduated from high school, I couldn’t wait to be 21. After I got out of the Marines and started college, I couldn’t wait to be graduated so I could start my “real” life. All of a sudden I looked at myself in the mirror and I was 62! When you are a teenager, the days of your life seem to stretch ahead of you forever. Looking back at them from my perspective, mine seem to have gone pretty fast. Slow down and enjoy every day of your life, because you will never get any of those days back.
2. Adults keep telling you to enjoy your teenage years because they are the best years of your life, but they lie. Being a teenager is mostly going to school, doing homework, insecurity, unrequited love, self-consciousness, and personal loathing, with a few brief moments of fun hanging out with friends. If it wasn’t all of that for you, and you actually enjoyed your high school years, I am very sorry, because it means that you may have “peaked” in high school, and it’s all downhill from here! For those of you that fit the aforementioned description though, I promise, it does get better. Being a grownup, if you do it right, and work at it, is much better than being a teenager. Particularly if you find someone to love, and to love you. Robert Browning once wrote, “Grow old along with me/The best of life is yet to be/The last of life, for which the first was made.” Besides, being old certainly beats the alternative!
3. Take risks, and don’t be afraid to fail. If you don’t take risks, you will never reach your full potential, and you also won’t have much fun. Teaching is my second career. When I was a young Marine, I jumped out of perfectly good airplanes, and mean people shot at me, but I survived my military service, and it made me a better, stronger, more disciplined person. Academically speaking, the class I learned most from when I was doing my Masters degree at UI was the one class I got a “B” in. It was completely outside of my field, and I had to talk myself into it because I didn’t have the prerequisites for it. I worked my butt off, learned an immense amount, and still remember what I learned. George Bernard Shaw once said, “A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.” Risk and hard work pay off, mostly, and if they don’t, you will have still learned from the experience, or at least have become a horrible example to others!
4. Focusing on grades is a trap. I know that many of you are headed off to college and are heavily motivated by grades. Here is a horrible secret… “A”s don’t mean a whole lot if you don’t learn or retain anything. If your parents send you off with money in your pocket to get an education, you need to bring something home from the store. The ability to reason, the skill of synthesizing ideas and facts into a coherent theory or writing of your own… the ability to think beyond what’s in a textbook, and to see the connections of dry facts to the world around you… is much more important than a 4.0 average in the grand scheme of things. The world is littered with bright people who are failures because the only thing they were good at was school, and after they graduated with straight “A’s” they flunked real life.
5. Believe in something. If you are not passionate about something in your life, you are missing something essential, and you are just breathing air and taking up space. Find something to believe in, and when you do, work for it, sacrifice for it. When you get to be my age---and I hope all of you do---you should have two lists: a list of friends and a list of enemies. If you don’t have a reasonably long list of both, you have not had the strength of character to have really stood for anything.
6. If you want to have good friends, you have to be one. A good friend is someone that you can call at 2:30 in the morning, when you are miserable, broke and lonely, and even after five years they will still be glad to hear from you. A good friend is someone who, when you call them and tell you that you are in deep trouble, doesn’t ask, “Is there any way I can help”, but simply, “Where are you?” If you are a good friend, you will find that other people will be one to you. If you put their welfare above your own, they will do the same for you. It’s a good thing.
7. …And finally, Give something back. All of you were blessed with brains, skill and a drive to succeed, or you would not be sitting here tonight in those caps and gowns. You don’t simply own those traits… you also owe those things to your parents, your community, and to your country. You are obligated to use those gifts for something other than your own aggrandizement and enrichment. In his song, Diamonds on the Inside, Ben Harper sings, “Make sure the fortune that you seek/is the fortune that you need.” Here’s a secret: I have known some rich people in my life. Most rich people have a lot of stuff, but they are not happy. The people I know who are really happy are those who have followed their own muse, and lived their lives in service to others. Do something useful with your lives. Make a difference in other peoples’ lives. Leave something behind when you leave this earth, not just because you should, but because it is the surest way of living a good and fulfilling life, and it will make you happy.
Being a public school teacher is not the most highly paid job in the world, especially in Idaho. It does, however, have its compensations. When I look out at you, and I remember the good times I have had with you in class, and how you have impressed me, and how you have awed me with your insights and your laughter, and how much you all mean to me, I don’t mind getting old teaching you so much! One of the things that I am proudest of in my teaching career is that many of my former students have gone on to Honors programs at colleges and universities and nominated me to Who’s Who Amongst American Teachers, which is the teacher equivalent of winning the playoffs. When I look out at you, and I think about you, and about all of the other students I have taught in my teaching career, I consider that the 16 years I have been a teacher have been a pretty good investment. Barbara Tuchman, one of America’s preeminent Historians, once wrote, “Teaching History is telling stories”. I have told you a lot of stories over the years, and I hope that you pass some of them on to your kids when you become parents. Or teachers. It’s not just your parents who have invested in you---your teachers have too.
The preamble to the Constitution says “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”. There are no guarantees in life: many people spend their lives pursuing happiness, and never achieve it. Find a way to do work that makes you happy. One of my favorite Robert Frost poems says: “Two paths diverged in a wood/ I took the one less traveled by/And that has made all the difference”.
Take chances, stand for something, be a good friend and give something back. You will be “taking the road less traveled by”, and that will make all the difference. And you will make us all proud.
I am almost done. As many of you know, I am a published poet as well as a teacher and a warrior. Here is one last Mr. Kaag poem to speed you on your way from graduation and into the rest of your lives. It is titled simply, Seniors:
I'd wish youA nice lifeIf I didn'tCare about youSo much…What I wishFor youIs freezing coldSo you willAppreciate warmthReal hungerSo foodWill taste wonderfulWhen you get itLonelinessSo that when you find aTrue friendYou will appreciateThe workThe difficultyOf earning…Keeping…FriendshipI wish youLoveAnd lossAnd love again…That you findSomething so preciousYou would giveYour life for itAnd then the sense…The heart…To live for itInsteadI wish you fearSo you canConfront itConquer itAnd a lifeLived…Earned…A life ofChallengeCaringDespite the costGiving your bestWhatever it takesStandingFor what you believe inWhatever it isGivingMore than you takeI wish you toBrave the stormsOf lifePay the costIn woundsTearsScarsAnd I wish youThe most preciousGift you can everPossessThe characterYou fabricateAlong the wayDon'tHave a nice lifeMy KiddosBuild good onesBeing your teacher has been a privilege.
Thank you.
© 2006, Glenn B. Knight
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