Commencement Speech

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A boy is playing in the park when he falls into a hole. The walls of the hole are too steep and he cannot climb out. As he is down there a doctor walks by and the boy yells, "Doctor, doctor I'm stuck in this hole won't you help me?" The doctor writes out a prescription, rips it off his pad, and throws it down the hole and continues walking. Then a priest walks by and the boy yells, "Father, I'm stuck in this hole won't you help me?" The priest writes down a prayer, throws it down the hole and keeps walking. Then the boy's parents walk by and he yells, "Mom, dad, I'm stuck in this hole won't you help me out?" And his parents jump into the hole. The boy says, "what're you doing; now we're all stuck down here!" But his parents say, "Yeah, but we've been down here before and we know the way out."

For the last four years, for the last eighteen years, we have relied on your guidance to help us through the very problems and obstacles you faced during your adolescence. And for the next four years, and the four years after that, and the years after that, we will take the foundation you have provided and begin to shape and craft our own lives. Today, we begin to write our own story. We will always rely on your guidance, and we will always be building off your foundation, but today the class of 2007 begins to blaze its own trail. And although we will have more independence than ever before and will have to become self-sufficient; we ask of you today, never forget the way out.

Gertrude Stein said of the generation that fought World War I: "You are all a lost generation." Some would say the same sentiment applies to this generation. A generation that is giving 152,000 of its finest to fight a war halfway around the world. A generation that has given 3,236 of its finest already. A generation that will inherit a broken social security system, a health care system that needs repair, and a rapidly depleting energy source. It could be said this generation is lost because while all of this is going on we care more now about superficial, materialistic, shallow things like the new iPhone, or the latest fashion trends than we do about the problems we will have to face. But we cannot believe that we are a lost cause, we cannot believe we have lost the battle before it has been fought, and we certainly cannot believe all your hard work has been for naught.

These are teenagers on this stage, and yes I could to tell you we are the future of this country, of this world. That we are the teachers, doctors, and leaders of tomorrow. And we are all those things even if we don't have the greatest priorities today. We will gain focus, we will gain purpose. But we don't need those priorities now, we have our goals in the back of our mind, we always have. We had those goals when we came to Highland Park. And in our four years some of us have accomplished all of those goals, some of us have done exactly what we expected to do coming in. Some of us have gone completely different directions, finding clubs, sports, and activities we never knew existed, finding interests we never knew we had. Some of us have not accomplished all our goals, have fallen short of our lofty ambitions. But there is nothing we can do about the last four years, and as much as today is about remembering the past it is about the promise of the future.

But we will eventually need to get our priorities straight. Today 1 in 5 children in America will grow up in poverty. 1 in 5 and they're children, and they'll grow up in the most back-breaking, abject, gut-wrenching poverty imaginable. And that should be a priority. Last year, 2,887 children were shot and killed, the equivalent of 206 Columbine shootings. And that is a priority, for as Dr. King said, "the ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral fostering the very thing it seeks to destroy. Responding to violence with violence only multiplies violence adding deeper and deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars." But why do we let violence plague our society? Why do we allow childhood poverty to be a scourge on our nation. The poem on the Statue of Liberty says, "give us your poor, your tired, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." But the intention isn't to keep them that way. So we are left asking why.

It's because there aren't enough schools like Highland Park. There aren't enough, not nearly enough teachers like you. There aren't enough parents like you, guardians like you. There aren't enough coaches, mentors, and role-models like you. There aren't enough. And if we can't do anything about the last four years then undoubtedly we can do something to fill that void. Because we can all be better teachers, we can all be better role-models. And because our opportunity is so great, and because our potential is so vast we must succeed, and we can succeed, and we will succeed. But what are the criteria for success?

This class can change the world, but do you have to be a CEO or a power broker to do that? No, if a person can smile at the beauty of nature or the grace of a child they have experienced success. If a person is happy and healthy, if they treat others with dignity and respect, if they put in a hard day's work, and go out of their way to help their neighbor than they are my brother or my sister and it doesn't matter if they make millions or the minimum wage. You don't have to be a doctor or a lawyer to be a success leaving Highland Park. Those are criteria worthy of the people on this stage, those aren't criteria worthy of this school, those are criteria worthy of your hard work to get us here.

So what are the criteria? Well, if fidelity to freedom and democracy is the code of our civic virtue, if adherence to the golden rule is the expectation of our community, then surely the standard of our humanity is that we will do better for our children than we have done for ourselves. All of you have met that standard, and those are criteria worthy of your hard work. And because you have done so much, because you have gotten us this far we owe it to you, we owe it to those that don't have the opportunities in a lifetime that we have in one day, we owe it to those who were taken for us too soon, to succeed, to lead a good life, to make a real difference. People from this class will make history, people from this class will have enormous financial success, but short of making millions or making the history books we can have leave our imprint, simply by passing the gift you've given us to the next generation. And that is a priority worth having. So it is with pride and purpose that I present to you the Highland Park High School class of 2007.