As promised, I have wrestled Gil’s speech from his hands so that I could post it here. 🙂
My husband is a truly gifted teacher. And his students love him, which is probably why he was chosen (by them) for the second year in a row to be the graduation speaker. He usually doesn’t write out what he teaches more than just outlines, so when I found out that he had written out this speech, I had to post it. It’s pretty awesome, and it comes from 12 years of working with high school and college students.
I have
titled today’s commencement speech: How To Go To University and End Up Dumber
Than When You Started.
Now let’s be
honest for a second here. What is all the celebration really about?
If teenagers are known for anything, they are
known for calling things the way they are. If
something is boring, they will let you know. If you dress funny, they will let
you know. I can appreciate this blunt
honesty, even if it hurts the ego a little. So let’s be honest. This graduation
is more than just having accomplished 13 years of work and even more than
passing your exams. It’s about never having to put on the HOPAC shirt again. Never
having to sit in homeroom again. Ride the school bus, or take another memory
verse test. If we are honest it is about freedom and fun. It’s about getting
out of the house and living life for yourself. It’s about not having someone there to tell
you when to go to bed, to do your homework, not to stay out late, to study for
exams. No teachers hounding you for missed assignments or being out of dress
code. It’s the Promised Land. The land
of freedom.
Now don’t
get me wrong. It’s not because you don’t
love and appreciate your parents. You just want to go out on your own. You want
to live life your way now. You have
spent the last 18 years living by their rules and now you want to do it your
way. Now I loved my family, but I can remember sitting in my cap and gown about
to graduate, counting the minutes till freedom. I chose my university based on
which one was furthest away from home. I
vividly remember getting in my car packed with my stuff, blasting the music
with the windows down and on the road to freedom. For some it’s felt like being baby-sat far
too long, for others a gradual development towards this final stage of release,
and if we are honest for others, more like a prison sentence. And now it’s here. Freedom awaits you as you
step off this stage with your diploma in hand. A certificate of independence. An adult ready to make your own decisions. Freedom.
The question
is: Freedom to go where? Freedom to do what?
Where will you be in 4 years? What will you have accomplished? What will
be next? If you are anything like the majority of college graduates, I can tell
you exactly where you will be. The place you would least expect to find
yourself in 4 years. You will end up right back here! Not here as in HOPAC… but
here as in back at home with your parents. The most recent college survey found
that last year four out of five graduates moved back in
with Mom and Dad. Seven in ten did not have a job lined up when they graduated
university, having just spent $100,000 and 20 percent of their lives. So
parents, don’t pack up your child’s room quite yet…they are likely to be back.
Shocking,
right? How is that possible? How is it that 4 years at some of the best
universities will land students back right where they started? There is a
dangerous trend in western culture today where we promote the idea of prolonged
adolescence. Sure you want to get a car, move away from home, and not have
people checking up on you… but many of you don’t want the responsibility that
comes along with it. University used to be a place where people went to
discover their careers, the passion, and calling in life. Now for most collegiates,
it is one big party. It’s a fantasy land of grown up children who love the
freedom but skirt the responsibility. The majority of college students will pick
up few hundred thousand dollars in debt, a few of STD’s (and noy that’s not a synonym
for a PhD.), a little more educated but a lot more stupid. 42 percent of the 2006 graduates surveyed said they’re still
living at home.
Now I know what you’re thinking. Hey, isn’t this guy supposed
to say few nice things about us; congratulate us on our accomplishment? It seems most commencement speeches come at
this all wrong. They are supposed to challenge you and tell you how to make the
most of your future. Well, if there is anything I’ve learned about high school
students, it’s that they are more likely to do the opposite of whatever you
recommend. You tell them to do something and now they want to do anything but
that. You tell them not to do something then they want to do that even more. So instead, let me just tell you what you
really want to hear: How to have the most fun in University and how you can
educate yourself to be stupid.
Here are 4
simple ways to go to university and end up dumber than when you started:
1.
Major on the minors. In other words, let the smaller insignificant things
in life become the most important. Put
God and your faith in the back until it slowly fades away. 70% of college age people walk away from their
faith. A conscious decision convinced by empirical evidence and logic? Or more
likely distracted by the simple pleasures in life to remember God? Hanging out
with friends, staying up late, going to parties, watching movies, Facebook.
Many college guys spend more time on video games then they do in class. Most
college girls spend more time getting ready in the morning than they do on
homework. So the easiest ways to fail your classes, lose
your faith, abandon your principles is to get caught up with the minor things
in life and allow them to squeeze out the major things. If you want to want
ensure failure, learn to succeed in the things that don’t matter. Best FIFA player, having the hottest boyfriends,
skipping the most classes and still managing to pass (most of the time). You
see 30 percent of university students drop out after their first year, and half
never graduate.
2.
Answer the wrong questions the right
way. I’ve known too many students who
had did an outstanding assignment but for the wrong thing, and there is nothing
worse than wasting precious minutes on quiz question you don’t have to answer. Same
principle applies to life. If you want guarantee failure, then learn to answer
correctly the wrong questions. You have heard your whole life that there is no
such thing a dumb question. How do we know the person who said that wasn’t
dumb? In fact, if I was dumb, that would be the perfect thing to say to help
cover up my lame questions. Now it’s true teachers say that to students to
encourage them to ask questions but we all know there are such things as dumb
questions. We get them all the time. It just warms our hearts to see students
raise their hands in eager anticipation. I love that moment in teaching when
you’re in the zone. You’re passionately explaining an important concept.
Students are engaged, soaking it up, on the edge or their seats. A hand shoots
up waving around confirming to you that students are desperate to understand
what you are explaining. So eager with anticipation and a smug look you call on
the student. The question: Is this going to be on the test? (translation- do I need to pay attention or can
I keep tuning you out), or the classic, Can I go to the bathroom? And my all time favorite: When someone asks
the exact same question someone just asked. Talk about stealing the moment.
Close your books, might as well call class over.
Well if you want to end up dumb in
university, then learn to ask the right questions to the wrong subject. There
is more to life than grades, papers, diplomas, and PHDs. More to life than
money, fame, and success. If you want to be dumber when you leave school than
when you entered, never learn which questions are the most important ones to
answer. Meaning of Life? God? Calling? Values?
Beliefs? Miss the opportunity to engage and discover wisdom by settling for
just knowledge. Rather than discovering who you are, and what you are meant to
do, settle for asking where the best pizza place is, where to find the cutest
girls, and which teachers give the least amount of homework. Go for fun and hope for a diploma, and tell
mom and dad to get your room ready. You just spend the last few years learning
to be dumb.
3.
Step
3: Let your friends choose you, and then choose
for you. Proverbs is quite clear how bad company corrupts good character. So if
you want to make college easy and fun, then follow the crowds and let your
closest friends choose you. Blend right in. Forget who you are, what you
believe, be tolerant of everyone and everything until nothing is right and
nothing is wrong. Lose your identity and let people tell you how you have to
live and how to be accepted. Don’t stand
up for what you believe and don’t find people who share the same values and
beliefs. Learn that image is everything. Believe everything you see and hear.
Don’t test it. Follow the rat race. Buy the right shoes, get the right phone,
act the right way. Doesn’t matter what’s inside, focus on the outside. Grades.
Friends, money, spend more time looking good than being good. Don’t focus on
true relationships; go for the quick and easy. Find friends who are more than
happy to get drunk with you but not around when you really need help. Surround
yourself with people who will use you and pretend to like you but never really
know you. Don’t be picky about who you spend time with because we all know the
most important thing in life is to have the most friends possible on Facebook. Then
you will have succeeded in university but failed in life.
4.
Last
but not least on your path of educating yourself to be dumb: Learn to waste the
opportunity and gifts that have been given to you. Believe that you have made
it to this point all on your own. You did it all. Neglect the fact that God
created and gifted you with your abilities and opportunities. Forget the years
of sacrifice your parents and family have invested in you to get you to this
point. Mock the opportunity given to you that so many millions in the world
would die for. Take all that potential and waste it all. Waste your body
through any number of eating disorders. From anorexia to the Freshman 15. Kill
your brain cells with drunkenness and drugs. You don’t need them for the class
you’re ditching anyway. Why go to class if the teacher doesn’t take attendance? Something to think about next time you consider sleeping
through a class: If a semester of college costs $12,500 (not counting room and
board), and you take five classes, that’s $2,500 a class. If the class meets
three times a week for fourteen weeks, that’s about $60 a class period. Each
minute has a value of $1. By all means, throw the money away.
Learn to sacrifice your heart by engaging in the hook up culture that
80% of college students have adapted as their life style. Try to fill the
emptiness with immediate gratification that will leave you empty and hopeless.
Finally, abandon your beliefs and values that your family and HOPAC have tried
to instill in you. Take all those gifts and blessings and waste them on 4 years
of fun. Then you will be like the majority of college graduates who end up
educated to be dumb.
Proverbs 14:12 There is way that seems right to man and in
the end it leads to destruction.
We have all
heard the saying “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting
different results.” Well, welcome to this generation of overgrown children.
Ready for freedom but not ready for responsibility.
If you want
to go down that path, the choice is yours. It’s easy. As Proverbs says, it
should be more about finding wisdom than educating yourself to be dumb. Choose
right now what path you will take. Those that don’t choose will have it chosen
for them. There are two types of people. Those that understand that fear of the
Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the fools who despise wisdom and
instruction. Those fools major on the minors, answer the wrong questions the
right way, Let their friends choose them, and waste the amazing opportunity
given to them. The majority of your college classmates will follow that path.
If you don’t, if you want something more, then make the most of these next few
years. Get the right answers to the right questions. Discover truth. Find
purpose and meaning. Today is more than just finishing high school. It’s about
starting the next phase of your life. As your family, friends, and teachers are
gathered here, we will be hoping and praying the best for you in this
adventure. We wish you all the best, Haven of Peace Academy Class of 2012.
