For my husband, teaching is so much more than a job. Sure, he teaches high school students critical thinking skills as they analyze and write about literature, and he spends many weekend hours grading papers and writing lesson plans. However, he cares about more than his students’ scores on the International Baccalaureate exam. He cares about more than their future plans and whether they get accepted at top-tier universities.
He cares about them. As people.
I felt so proud when I heard that the senior class at International School Nido de Aguilas had voted for him to speak at their graduation ceremony. I felt even prouder when I heard his speech at the ceremony last night. He delivered his remarks in the same style he teaches his classes – with passion, conviction, and no small amount of sarcasm. I loved seeing the reactions on the faces of his students, especially when they shared an inside joke.
I actually enjoyed the whole ceremony, which included speeches in both Spanish and English (with written translations on the screens). The two student speakers were eloquent and poised with powerful messages for their peers. Seniors represented more than 30 countries and spoke about 14 languages. Their accomplishments at Nido, their bright futures, and their big smiles filled me with optimism. It’s such a cliché, but I feel like they really might make the world a better place.
Here’s a video of Tony’s speech, complete with Spanish subtitles.
And here’s the text.
Thank you.
I am truly honored to be speaking to you today. But, before I begin my speech, I would like to say something to Nido’s graduating class of 2018 that is actually important.
Simply put, I care about you. I’m fond of you. I’m proud of you. You’ve earned my utmost respect. And when you are gone, I will think about you. I’ll remember you, and I’ll miss you.
Starting Monday, when you definitely should be gone.
OK… the speech.
I feel like the youth of today isn’t ready for, or capable of, tackling the problems of tomorrow. I weep and fear for the future.
Socrates expressed these thoughts more than 2400 years ago. Fool. He was wrong then. He is wrong today. Getting to know these students, as I have over the last two years, has instilled in me a sense of hope and optimism for the future.
Actually, it isn’t really like me to speak ill of Socrates. When I was about your age, I learned two important things from him that have shaped me and made me the man I am today.
Socrates teaches us that “the unexamined life is not worth living.” I literally agree. One of Nido’s most important values is to cultivate a desire to be lifelong learners. I see that in these students; they have adopted this value, not as a mandate, but as a blessing and a virtue.
The other thing that Socrates teaches us is that “Wonder is the beginning of knowledge.” When Socrates says “wonder,” he doesn’t mean it like, I wonder what’s for dinner? He means it the way men in the Bible wondered at the angels, or small children wonder at their first rainbow or snowstorm. The way the Romantic poets wondered at Nature or the way Moses wondered at the burning bush.
Forget everything else. If you leave this place valuing learning and looking at the world with joy, enthusiasm and wonder, then your lives will be full and complete.
Nowadays, I prefer more optimistic philosophers, like Thomas Aquinas, Cicero, Franco, and Arturo Paz. Men who seem to know the secrets of what it means to be a good person and men who find happiness and joy in this world.
Earlier this year I forced many of these students to read the French play No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre.
It is a fun play about a group of people trapped in a room in hell together. A metaphor for my class? Perhaps.
Now, before I could teach this play, I had to teach Sartre’s most core belief. You see, Sartre was an existentialist, and so Sartre believed that who we are, our essence, is a product of what we say, what we think, and what we do… and nothing else. You are the choices you make. That’s it.
And if you want to know something about me, I wholeheartedly agree.
These philosophical beliefs– I call them Truths– are why I teach English literature. I have done so my entire adult life because I know that the study of literature in any language has always been a study of what it means to be a human being.
Great authors and poets reflect truths about humanity, and the very greatest authors, from Shakespeare to Cervantes, define what it means to be a human being.
From my life of teaching and studies of literature, I have discovered one universal truth that hangs in the aether above everything else: Your character is your fate.
Who you are defines what will become of you. Everything I’ve ever read, from the Bible to Waiting for Godot, confirms this.
Sometimes, when teachers forget to write a lesson plan, we guide students in a ridiculous argument about fate vs. free will. Was Oedipus fated to kills his own father or did his choices lead to. . .
We were just messing with you… just killing 22 minutes. We know that Macbeth’s or Willy Loman’s or Harry Potter’s character is what leads to their eventual fates.
The same is true for us.
You see, whom you choose to be defines what will become of you. Thus, your character is your fate.
And knowing you, Nido’s class of 2018, like I do, your futures will be glorious.
Tomorrow is standing before you all; it is bright, like the sun.
That said, life isn’t always easy. I’m not sure if anyone has ever told you this before, but our lives are only a collection of days . . . and all of those days are valuable. A few of those days will be filled with sorrow and loss, but those days will be balanced with times of joy and blessings.
Many of your days will be filled with work. Not quite so many if you are a teacher, but please don’t do that to yourselves.
In your darkest hour you may wonder if life is worth living. You may wonder if it is noble to “suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” as Hamlet asks.
Hamlet . . . poor Hamlet. He failed to see what Shakespeare knew and taught so well: life is precious. It is not a philosophical question! Being is better than not being. Every tragedy I’ve ever taught you, indeed every tragedy ever written, confirms this point.
The French philosopher Albert Camus, despite being the voice of nihilism, agrees with me. During World War II, Camus wrote his most famous work about the ancient myth of Sisyphus. In this philosophical treatise, Camus sought to answer the question: How should we confront the absurdity of life? How can we make our lives both meaningful and joyful? His answer guides me, and so I want to share it with you.
Sisyphus was punished by the Gods for his hubris and deceitfulness. He was forced to roll an immense boulder up a steep hill, only for it to roll back down the instant he reached the top, and maddeningly, Sisyphus was forced to then take a new batch of know-nothing 9th graders and once again start pushing them back up the hill.
What we are celebrating here today is the fact that you have just pushed a really big rock up a really big hill.
In a half hour, everyone will take your picture as you toss your hats into the air.
Those pictures never come out, by the way.
Go head, celebrate, hoop and holler, and be happy. But a few minutes later, as you are crawling around trying to find your mortar board because you forgot to take the tassel off before you threw it, remember…
You’re a freshman again… off to push another rock up another hill.
And don’t go thinking that college is the greatest or last boulder of them all.
Sisyphus’s punishment was eternal: mortgages, marriage, children, businesses, jobs, taxes, owning a cat. Life never ends … until it does.
Camus, knowing that Sisyphus is a symbol for us all, concluded his work writing:
“The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”
Camus and Sartre teach us that we can choose to be happy.
Sure, Sisyphus’s life was a never-ending series of challenges and frustrations, which is not so hard for a teacher to imagine, but imagine a man full of joy despite this daily toil. Imagine Sisyphus smiling.
My profound hope and prayer for you all is that you will be happy.
And so, in my last words to you, I want to share with you what I’ve discovered about happiness.
First, I hope you all live in the moment.
Forgive the circular reasoning, but to be happy, you have to be happy. You can’t schedule your happiness for later. You can’t spend your whole life saying: “I’ll be happy when school is over, or when it’s the weekend, or when my child finally goes away to college.”
Be happy now! Choose it for yourself. Make it part of your character and let that define your fate.
Also, you need to understand the secret of happiness.
Happiness is beyond the grasps of the shallow, the selfish or the spoiled. True happiness is a paradox. It belongs to those who care about others more than themselves.
You can have everything. Why you could even be The President of the United States of America, but if you only care about yourself, you can not be happy.
If you are unhappy, work to make others happy, and you will find happiness for yourself.
Lastly, forgiveness. It is the most noble of all human traits. These are pessimistic times. Fight it. Make your lives meaningful. See the best in people. Choose to let go of anger, wrath, envy and pride.
As I close, I need to give you your two homework assignments:
Number 1: Change the world and make it better. It is what we prepared you for, and it’s what is expected of you.
Number 2: Love your neighbor because it is both a guarantee of your own happiness and the path to a blessed life.
I wish you all the best. Thank you.
