Tag Archives: Quote

Education

Commencement: Words on Friendship

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Over the weekend, I had the very great honour of being one of two teachers to give a speech at our class of 2025 graduation.

These were my words to these young people, and to young people everywhere:

Thank you for the honour of speaking to you today. A former colleague once told me that for a teacher, this is as good as it gets. I’d have to agree.

But the thing about giving a speech is that one must know what one wants to say. And, feeling rather like a student presented with a long-term writing task, I didn’t. So I did what many of the young people sitting before us have done in this situation, and, despite what I have told you all, either as your I&S teacher, psychology teacher, or EE Coordinator, I procrastinated. For months. Naturally, I collected ideas along the way, but the writing itself happened in a relatively short amount of time in a sort of self-imposed IA jail. Like I’ve been saying, we’re all in this together.

When I first met this group of young people in August 2021, it did not take long to realize that something very significant was afoot here. After a short time getting to know you in the classroom, we spent four nights together in the Thuringian Forest and by the time we came back I was convinced: This was a group of friends who bickered like siblings, deliberately pushed each other’s buttons, and loved each other in ways that demonstrate what love is – a verb.

Fast-forward to your trip to Munich in February of this year. Once again, I watched as you looked out for each other and spoke up for one another. Even in the moments when you split off into small groups, you kept track of everyone’s whereabouts and plans. You knew who had internalized a city map and who could find the best restaurants. You knew who had extra cash for transport tickets and who was running a few minutes late. In short, you cared about each other.

Care is a verb. Love is a verb. It’s not enough to call oneself a friend. One must act like a friend in order to be a friend. Many of you know my thoughts on social media, and it will probably not surprise you to hear that I believe “friend” is a word we throw around too often without thinking about what it really means. I like the description by poet Mary Ann Evans, better known by the pen name George Eliot: “A friend is one to whom one may pour out the contents of one’s heart . . . knowing that gentle hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.”

Friends look at our best qualities and forgive us the rest. They care about us enough to be honest, which helps us become better than we are. We need those people sometimes. And we need to be those people for others. Imagine what type of world we could live in if we acted with kindness, if we looked for the best in individuals, seeking to build one another up rather than tear each other down. In the family that is this class, you have experienced just that. My hope for you is that you continue to create that community wherever it is that you go next.

Friendship is, writes poet David Whyte, “the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another, to have walked with them and to have believed in them, and sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.”

It is having and being a friend that allows us to navigate this complex world, one in which negativity frequently demands our attention and feeds off exactly that. The counter to this is the very real positivity and joy that we find in one another. These are our opportunities to love others, to care for them, and give our attention to those who deserve it. It is with one another that you have learned true friendship, an art that has shaped you and will stay with you. Some of the people beside you today will walk with you for years into the future. A beautiful thing about real friends is that they give us the courage to be ourselves. Be there for them and let them be there for you. For those who will let each other go after today, be gentle when you meet again, for these people, too, have shaped you as an individual.

Today marks a metamorphosis, the beginning of a new chapter in the journey of your individual life. It is as individuals that we are able to motivate, nurture, and challenge one another to be the best people that we can be. I’d like to take a moment to celebrate the very individual people that you are.

[Here followed a few words to each of my psychology students. My colleague spoke to the other half of the students, who had taken the business management course.]

Dear graduates, it has been a joy to observe your true friendships with each other, and the way you have embraced the individual that is each one of you. The world needs more people who are friends like you are.

Congratulations, Class of 2025. I can’t wait to see who you become.

Jena, Germany – April 2025
Education

No Straight Lines

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Beginning at the parking lot and continuing along the walking trail leading to my favourite climbing spot are whimsical painted stones giving life advice. One that I particularly like reads, in translation, “The crooked tree enjoys life. The straight tree becomes a board.”

I have to smile every time I see this modified teaching from Daoist philosopher Lao Tzu. Indeed.

Consider an individual who carves their own path versus one who unquestioningly follows a straight line. Think of creatives, often revered for their skills, who report having had difficulty fitting in. There are whole communities of “alternatives” who are so similar to one another as to not be “alternative” at all. As an educator, I find this important to keep the spectrum of difference in mind in working with students. To some extent, I need them to “play the game” of school because of the way society is structured, but there is wiggle room between adherence to instructions and stamping out individuality.

I can see my life path reflected in the saying, too. I spent my childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood occupied with, out of a combination of intrinsic and extrinsic factors, what I was “supposed to” be doing. I had a plan and followed it, pretty predictably, until I didn’t. When I stopped the relentless, goal-oriented drive towards some imagined end, I realized that I didn’t actually want what the end had come to symbolize. I’d foregone the opportunity to “take chances, make mistakes, and get messy” in the words of Ms. Frizzle, everyone’s favourite science teacher, and came a little late to self-discovery.

But I got there, which is what had me in the forest climbing rocks in the first place.

This particular sign is placed so that you catch a glimpse of it on your way into the forest and see it full on when leaving. A little something to think about on the drive back home. I walked that way once with a friend whose oldest son is a good example of the crooked tree. He does not fit into any model called typical and things are hard for him that are not hard for everyone. But he can carry on a conversation like an adult, has genuine interests, and is afraid of nothing. My friend and I stopped together at the tree. Neither of us needed to say any more.

Thüringer Wald, Bad Tabarz, Germany – April 2024
On My Mind

Old Ideas

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In a tea shop the other day, which also sells feminist-leaning books on topics ranging from sex to career, I came across a postcard that read (in German but I’ve translated it to the original):

I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones. – John Cage

I bought the postcard and taped it up when I got home. The last time I had the feeling of Yes, this upon reading a quote, I bought the piece of art on which it was written and hung it near my bed, where it has stayed for three apartments and two countries. Sometimes something just speaks.

But the more I think about it, the more I recognize that I need to pay very close attention to that gut reaction.

I’ve been thinking a lot about old ideas over the past several months, thinking, writing, and talking with about the way we grapple with such ideas. Some ideas from a different time remain at the forefront of how we conduct our lives today, and in this case perhaps it is unfair to think of them as “old”. Perhaps the fact that they still serve for us has given them a new life, a new understanding. So maybe these are just “ideas”.

However, there are also ideas that we discard when they no longer help us, ideas that belong in a different time and, we’ve decided, should remain there. People have diverse opinions on which ideas fall into this category, which has been the focus of recent discussion. At what point should we let an old idea go, and when are we right to cling to it?

Let’s say a traditional idea clashes with a modern view on how people should behave, or treat others, or be part of a group or society. Let’s say this old idea fits well into certain environments but sticks out uncomfortably in others. Where does this idea rightfully belong? And if it doesn’t belong anymore, where should it go?

Cage writes of fearing ideas, and it is important to acknowledge that old ideas are not bad ideas and new ideas are not good ones. There is certainly danger in blindly following new ideas, but fearing them does not mean they won’t eventuate. Rather, fear often prevents seeking to understand and this is a different danger. A new idea needs to be opened, dissected, examined before we can pass judgement. And then, once we know, we can like or dislike, accept or reject. And yes, in the case of some old ideas, we can know them well enough to fear them. But we should not fear what we do not yet know.

If we handle new ideas with caution, careful examination, and thoughtfulness, perhaps old ideas should be given the same treatment. We need not hold onto something just because it has always been this way. This, I believe, many people find threatening. And when considering certain ideas of my own, this thought makes my heart feel heavy and I can feel tears prickling in the back of my throat and behind my eyes. This contradiction is called cognitive dissonance in the language of psychology, and we are already well-acquainted.

On seeing the postcard, my gut instinct spoke in a way that, upon reflection, asks a lot of me. And I bought the postcard to remind me. I am certainly not afraid of new ideas, because I don’t know them yet. On the other hand, there are old ideas that should absolutely be feared. But, as I asked, how do we define that line? And once we reach a decision, what does that mean for the way we live our lives?

I cannot yet draw a conclusion here. But I am indeed looking for one.

Berlin, Germany – December 2021