Principal: Every Challenge Presents a Teachable Moment

It is with great pleasure and pride that I address the Fox Lane High School Class of 2012.  I’ve had the honor of getting to know you as individuals and as a class for three of the four years that you’ve been at Fox Lane.  You are a class of high achievers.  You are a class of scholars, artists, musicians, thespians, athletes and first class citizens.  I know the skills you’ve mastered and I can attest to your great potential.  As Dr. Seuss said, “Oh, the places you’ll go.”

As I’ve shared with others before, this single speech, the principal’s address to the graduating class, is without question the single toughest speech I write each year.  I search long and hard for just the right inspiration. I comb the newspapers, I watch old movies, and I read and study anything I can get my hands on hoping to find the one hook that will move you, motivate you, and that you might even remember after we leave this tent.  Michelle Knoll, a freelance writer, wrote an article earlier this month, titled, “The Most Memorable Commencement Speeches.”

Recognizing that often graduation speeches are way too long and boring, Knoll identified a number of factors that could make the difference and turn that same speech into a truly memorable moment.  The good news is that I think I nailed it.  Her first advice, find a celebrity or dignitary to deliver the speech. I hope you caught my appearance in one of this year’s award winning Lip Sync videos, so, here I am, a rock star.  And then, find a message that will hopefully resonate with the audience.  Easy! So, I checked to see what other celebrities used as their graduation themes in recent years, as each sought to create that one most meaningful message.

Knoll cited the speeches given by such celebrities as Ellen DeGeneres, Conan O’Brien, Amy Poehler, Denzel Washington, J.K. Rowling, and Steve Jobs. Ellen spoke at Tulane in 2009, to students post-Hurricane Katrina. 

Her message was that even the most devastating circumstances in life have the potential to teach us the most.  Conan O’Brien, at Dartmouth in 2011, talked about how he turned his life around only after he faced his own fear of failure upon learning that he would no longer be hosting the Tonight Show, actually calling it one of the best things that ever happened to him, as it provided him the opportunity to reinvent himself. 

At the University of Pennsylvania, in 2011, Denzel Washington told the graduates that they need to have the guts to fail. And, Steve Jobs, speaking at Stanford, in 2005, told graduates to follow their dreams, while describing circumstances in his own life that actually allowed him to embrace and grow from what first presented as defeat.  To quote Jobs, “The dots you enounter in life will eventually connect…believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leaves you off the well-worn path.” 

As I read through these speeches, here’s what I heard and here’s the message that I hope might resonate for each of you.  Pardon the education jargon, but those of us who spend our lives teaching and leading schools often talk about finding the “teachable moment.”  The teachable moment is that unplanned opportunity when something presents itself that causes the teacher to stop the clock, maybe even skip a day of algebra, digress just a bit, allow oneself to go off on a tangent, and hopefully help students find some new meaning in what might emerge from what first presents as the least likely of places.

So, when Ellen DeGeneres talked about Hurricane Katrina to students attending school in what at that moment presented as one of our most devastated cities in America, she asked Tulane graduates to see that moment for what it might teach all of us about finding true purpose, creating community, and identifying new opportunities.  When Conan O’Brien talked about facing defeat as he lost one of the most coveted jobs in television, he wanted students to see that he allowed himself to turn that moment into a new opportunity, one that never would have happened had he not been open to the possibilities.  And Amy Poehler, speaking at Harvard in 2011, talked about the many messages and lessons learned that presented after our nation came back after the most unthinkable attacks of 9/11. 

I hope that there were teachable moments that you’ll all remember from your last four years at Fox Lane High School.  In fact, I found evidence that these moments were recognized by you even before you arrived at our door in September 2008.  I took a moment last week to watch your “moving up” ceremony as you left Fox Lane Middle School this same week four years ago.  First, you all looked so ready to accept the challenges awaiting you at our high school. And, as your parents and teachers will I’m sure agree, you were pretty cute back then. I listened carefully to the addresses of your three student speakers. 

Jared Pesetsky, representing East House, recalled the journey of middle school and the many obstacles you all overcame, like learning how to manage your middle school lockers, but how ready you all were for high school because of the lessons learned and all you achieved at middle school.  Anthony Grasso, speaking for South House, talked about looking at life as one big novel, as you were each about to write the next chapter at Fox Lane High School.  He talked about the challenges you all overcame, including his own, and noted that while you all may look different, you were leaving the middle school as a “family of Foxes,” as “people who can make the changes to effect the world in a positive way.”  And Victoria Day, representing West House, and after recalling what I guess was a pretty devastating and embarrassing loss to your middle school teachers on Sports Day, said it all, when she said “before you know it, in just four years, we’ll be celebrating our high school graduation.”  And here you are.

I hope that as you recall your days at Fox Lane High School, you’ll not only see the value in the written curriculum that I know we taught you, but that you’ll also remember both the successes as well as the defeats as truly teachable moments. To see the teachable moment, you have to be able to suspend your assumptions, be open to possibilities, listen to others, ask important questions, and dig down deep to find the message waiting to be uncovered and discovered.  I hope we’ve taught you these skills.  Actually, I know we have, by the conversations we’ve had and the activities we’ve participated in together during your Fox Lane days. 

When, after some horrible cases of lives lost in other communities due to bullying, and sparked by changes in laws and policies, we took the time to share our thoughts on the level of bullying at our school, as we saw this as a teachable moment and an opportunity to make Fox Lane a safer place for all.  When the town of Joplin, Missouri was literally destroyed by a tornado, some of you stepped forward to raise funds to help rebuild Joplin High School, seeing that moment as teachable in recognizing the power of community service and appreciating how fortunate we are while we witnessed the unbelievable resilence of the citizens of Joplin.

Just this year, when our school community faced the terrible loss of Coach Mac to pancreatic cancer, you seized the teachable moment as we transformed one of our fall spirit days to a day in pink, as the Foxes faught against cancer, and as we raised funds and consciousness at a wonderful community fair led by members of your class this spring.   In September, our school remembered 9/11 as a teachable moment, as we came together to ponder lessons learned, planted trees, and each of us shared “I will” statements, commiting to use the memory of those lost to making our world a better place.

Even though we sparked some pretty heavy debate, some of your passion created a teachable moment as some of you advocated for a Christmas tree in our Commons, and we together talked about the constitution, public schools and how to learn about and recognize religion in our diverse community. In anticipation of the introduction of a SAIL IV class at Fox Lane this year, we created a teachable moment as we all learned about autism and how to genuinely welcome this new and very special program to our school.

Two exchange students from China joined us this year, a teachable moment for all of us as we discovered what we all have in common as one global community through this new personal connection.  We found teachable moments as we stopped the clock to talk about race relations and closing the achievement gap.  I hope the memories you take from our school are as much from what you learned when we stayed on schedule as you take from the times we stopped the clock, took a leap of faith, and engaged in so many moments of planned and unplanned learning together.

Here’s my takeaway this afternoon.  I know you’ve learned so much from the books we’ve given you, the great teachers who taught you and the engaging courses and experiences you’ve had. 

There is also so much to be learned from those moments when you least expect it.  Everything we do, everyone we encounter, every challenge we accept presents another teachable moment. Your first semester at our high school saw the election of President Obama, a truly teachable moment as we became witnesses to history. 

This November presents another teachable moment when you recognize that you are no longer an observer, but a voter who can change the outcome of the election if you choose to do so. I don’t know where each of you will be this November, but I hope you’ll add your voice and exercise your right to vote in our next national election. 

For all of us a teachable moment came just last week as President Obama, thanks to the persistent protests of so many young people your age, in particular, announced a major shift in our nation’s immigation policy, as young illegal immigrants for the first time will be eligible to stay in the US without facing deportation.  Politics aside, this is a truly teachable moment, right here under this tent, as some members of this Fox Lane Class of 2012 now have options available to them that they might not have had just last week. Many of you will leave here for some of the most prestigious colleges in America, some of you will enter the military to serve our country, and others will contribute to our nation by entering the world of work. 

My hope for each of you is that, whether in formal education or on the clock, wherever you land and whatever you do, that you will always see life as endless opportunities for teachable moments.   Read a lot, study hard, explore the world, challenge convention, question everything, and as Gandhi is so often quoted, “be the change you want to see in the world.”

Are there teachable moments right here at Caramoor this afternoon.  Of course there are.  When faced with extreme heat, quick, what do you do?   More importantly, look around you and take the moment to think about what graduation from high school really means to you.  Are there people in this tent to whom you owe a debt of gratitude for helping you make it to this day?  Have you said thank you?   Are there memories that you now recall when you witnessed acts of real kindness, when someone said or did something that made our school just a little safer and much kinder than it was before?   You sit together as the Class of 2012.  What does that mean to you? 

What opportunities presented because you’re not just individuals working hard, but because there is true power in numbers.  Did you get to make a difference during your years at Fox Lane, not just in your classrooms, but in the life of our school and community?  How are you different today than you were when you moved up from the middle school four years ago, not just academically, but in the other important life skills of perseverance, diligence and determination?  Has your world view changed and do you believe you can make a difference in the world? 

Earlier in my remarks I shared that I often search for inspiration in old movies.  Several members of this class did some of the searching for me, as I discovered in our yearbook, by quoting Ferris Bueller, who said, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”  To you, the Class of 2012, I quote a line that was voted as the 95th greatest movie quote of all time by the American Film Institute, a quote from1989’s Dead Poet’s Society, “Carpe diem.  Seize the day. 

Make your lives extraodinary.” At your moving up ceremony on June 26th, 2008, the moving up chorus sang the song, “Do I Make You Proud,” and Mrs. Berardi declared at that moment that eveyrone in our gym certainly knew the answer to that question. Today, on June 21, 2012, I congratulate each of you and I can confidently declare for everyone in this tent that I know you’ll continue to make us proud.

Congratulations, Class of 2012!