Tag: commencement

Posted on

More Than Memory

We throw hats. And then we lay flowers.

What an odd weekend we’ve given ourselves here.

It’s easy to miss. Heaven knows I usually do. On the one hand, we send our young people into the world with love and benedictions and way too many recitations of “Oh, The Places You’ll Go.” And then we’re asked to stop a moment for those who have already left the world, wanting to protect it and to build a better one.

Graduation day. Memorial Day. We set them side by side: the flag and the Mylar balloon, the endless drone of “Pomp and Circumstance” and the quiet sound of “Taps.” It’s the strangest of couples, as if someone wanted to talk about Batman and Hammerstein, or Ernie and Juliet.

And yet, it does fit.

It all starts with the quiet.

That may sound even stranger. After all, between graduation parties, backyard grills, and the Indy 500, this can be a loud and busy time. Too busy for some. From the 1870s to today, it’s been traditional to lament that the fun side of Memorial Day (and Decoration Day before it) has overwhelmed the call to stop and reflect, that we’re doing it wrong.

Which, now that I think about it, is a strange way to put it. Because uniquely among American holidays, we’re not asked to “do” anything on Memorial Day. Not buy presents or string lights. Not fire rockets and sing songs. Not pass around cardboard hearts, or drink green beer, or talk like a pirate from a bad Errol Flynn movie.

What we’re asked to do is remember. But that’s only the start.

Because memory unacted on is lost.

Our recent graduates can attest to that, or soon will. Most spent hours trying to memorize as much as possible for their final exams. (Or desperately wishing they had.) At this time next year, most of those answers will be gone – except maybe for some lasting embarrassment at writing “Lin-Manuel Miranda” instead of “Alexander Hamilton” on a history test.

What will stay, or should, is the memory of how to think, how to research, how to organize, how to interact with others in a productive way, and even how weird and amazing other people can be. Why? Because that’s what you did. That’s what you practiced. That’s what you learned.

So this Memorial Day, after memory – what next?

It’s good to remember the fallen. It’s necessary to tell the stories, to raise the ghosts, to bring their memories to life again. But if the sun sets and the memory falls back into the dust until next year, how much respect have we really shown?

Memory unacted on is lost. And the way to act is to build.

Build the world they wanted to see and never did.

Build anew the freedoms that were worth their life – including the freedom to argue and disagree, to challenge and question, to preserve the nation by daring to examine and even improve its underpinnings.

Respect, yes. Live together as a nation, yes. But even more so, live together as a free nation, recognizing how many ways there are to live in freedom. And stand together against those would abridge even an inch of it.

Just as those we honor once stood.

It’s not about glory and uniforms and parades. It’s not about watchfulness and fear. It’s about carrying on a promise.

Remember. Then act. That’s how we learn. And it’s how we create something worth remembering.

Shall we commence?

Posted on

Teacher, Teacher

Ladies and gentlemen of the class of 2013, congratulations.

You’ve done a lot to get this far. You’ve sweated over finals. You’ve dodged cars in the school parking lot and marveled at “snow days” that lacked even the smallest touch of white. You’ve even survived the ultimate indignity – the disclosure of your middle name in a graduation program to all and sundry. (“Hey! Guess who’s named Chauncey!”)

Before long, you’ll be on your way, far away from infinite loops of “Pomp and Circumstance” and commencement speakers who think quoting from “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!” is an original idea. Some are bound for college. Some for the military. Some might not be thinking about anything beyond the great backyard party at Steve’s in a few hours. (Psst – bring the sunscreen, OK?)

It’s going to be interesting to see where you guys end up. I know it was for us. My own class has seen actors and cops, photographers and engineers, even some poor soul who thinks newspapers are still a good job opportunity. I don’t expect to see anything less here.

But I’ll dare to make one prediction now. Each and every one of you will be teachers.

What’s more, you always have been.

For me, it started early. I was about five when I helped teach one little sister how to read; by the time I was in college, I was editing papers for my other sister at weird o’clock in the morning, hours before they were due. In between were a lot of study sessions and book-cracking with friends and family alike. (To this day, I suspect one of my high-school friends will never forget how to pronounce Von Steuben.)

But it’s funny. As I look back, tutoring has been the smallest part of the teaching and learning I’ve done in a lifetime.

The fact is, we’re teaching at every moment.

Regular readers of this column remember my wife’s disabled aunt Missy, whom we care for. From her, over the past two years, I’ve learned patience, wonder, an appreciation for simple things and a slower pace. (I’ve also learned how to overcome bedtime resistance and early-morning waking-up grouchiness, but that’s another story.)

I’ve learned reliability and a certain odd sense of humor from my parents. I’ve learned tricks and habits, good and bad, from colleagues in the newsroom or on the stage. I’ve learned in hundreds of interviews and stories, often with amazement, what people are really capable of. Sometimes it’s led me to a little soul-searching of my own – if a grade-school student can rally a small army of folks behind Hurricane Katrina relief or a teenager from small-town Kansas can learn math well enough to be accepted by Yale, what might I be capable of that I’ve sold myself short on?

And what am I teaching now? Are they lessons I want others to learn?

Every action teaches something, sets an example for what we think is good, bad or irrelevant. That has consequences. Some of them you see in the headlines. Maybe a president, or a CEO, or an attorney general had nothing to do with a controversial decision that was made. But what tone did they set, what unspoken lesson did they teach by their own behavior and attitudes that told a subordinate “This is OK. Don’t worry about what you’re doing”?

Stephen Sondheim, as usual, had a word for it. (Actually, he usually had several words for it, interlaced with an intricate rhythm to a deceptively simple tune, but we won’t go there.) In his musical Into the Woods, he concluded the fairy-tale action with one simple reminder:

“Careful the things you say, children will listen.
Careful the things you do, children will see – and learn.”

Careful. Not fearful. Not with anxiety or fret. But not without thought, either. Children are watching, and more than children.

School’s out. But class is in.

Teach well.