Tag Archives: Graduation

A message for graduates 

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No one’s asked me to speak at graduation, but I’ve prepared a message for seniors anyway. 

Theme: Values you’ve been taught in school—forget them. 

1)     Play fair. In sports and group projects you’ve been taught to work cooperatively, follow the rules, and lose gracefully. Forget it. Look out for Number One, remake the rules to guarantee your success, and never admit defeat. 

2)     Always tell the truth. Forget it. Presenting supporting evidence and documenting sources apply only to student research papers. Adults know that the truth is whatever they want it to be. 

3)     Don’t resort to name calling. Forget it. Go with “socialist elitists,” “Pocahontas,” “Sleepy Joe.” Name calling is a very effective way to create negative associations that stick. 

4)   Respect and uphold the Constitution. Forget it. Hug the flag and interpret the Constitution to suit your purposes. 

5)   Value the scientific method, which includes knowing the difference between theories and hypotheses. Forget it. If you benefit, declare that human behavior has nothing to do with global warming.

6)    Understand and value our nation’s history. Forget it—especially if you’re white and have children. You don’t want them feeling guilty about injustices of the past. 

7)  Respect those from different ethnic and racial backgrounds. Forget it. Close the borders. Real Americans (i.e., white) should be winning our national spelling bees, representing us at the Olympics, and be the ones honored for their scientific and technological contributions. 

8)    Share what you have. Forget it. What’s yours is yours. Accumulate all you can.

Graduates, in case you haven’t noticed, the education you’ve received has little relationship to the culture you’re stepping out into. You can, of course, adjust to the real world. Or you can envision a better way, put what you’ve learned in school into practice, and work for change.

My advice to graduates

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No one’s asked me to speak at graduation, but I’ve prepared a message for seniors anyway. The theme? The values you’ve been taught—get real. Nobody practices that stuff anyway.

Graduation

Graduation (Photo credit: Joe Shlabotnik)

1)     Like those exercises that required you to cooperate, group projects where you practiced team work. Wasted time, given today’s attitude: My opinion is the right one; I refuse to compromise.

2)     And admonitions to always tell the truth.  “I did not have sex with that woman,” one President said. All around you leaders bend the truth to support their point of view or make their opponents look bad. Documenting sources applies only to students.

3)     Remember being punished for name calling? In this political season you hear “Socialist elitist,” “King of Bain.” It’s the adult way.

4)     Countries you had to identify on a map. Their languages and cultures. Who cares? America is superior to them all.

5)     And what about the scientific method, all those pesky definitions about the difference between theories and hypotheses? Even if pains-taking research shows otherwise, the current ethos lets you believe whatever you want: human behavior doesn’t account for global warming, and evolution is just one of many theories to explain the physical world as we know it.

6)     Ever since kindergarten, teachers urged you to be more compassionate. But you’ll find that acceptance of difference, especially if others are homosexuals or immigrants, is so out of fashion.

7)     Sharing, too. What’s yours is yours. People living below the poverty level are too lazy to work, undeserving of food stamps or Medicaid. Tax money is better spent on the military.

Yes, graduates, in case you haven’t noticed, the education you’ve received has little relationship to the culture you’re stepping out into. You can, of course, adjust to the real world. Or you can envision a better way, put what you’ve learned in school into practice, and work for change.

In his inauguration speech in 1961 President John F. Kennedy said, “Let the word go forth from this time and place…that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans….” Every generation has the option—no, the obligation—to pick up that torch and put its own imprint on what it means to be an American. May yours bring a return to civility and respect for community.