Quote:
Originally Posted by Itse
"Climb the mountain to see the world, not so that the world can see you."
This was one of my favourites.
As to the demand that he should have been more encouraging, to me that attitude is precisely the problem we are discussing. It's basicly a demand that the teacher should have delivered yet another round of pampering, that what was said is less important than how nicely it was presented.
If that hurt someone, so what? If it wasn't what they wanted to hear, so what? School is not there to cheer you up and make you feel good, it's there to teach you stuff. The kids were not there to be inspired, they were there to receive a diploma and receive one last piece of advice.
That was good advice delivered in a way that it will propably be rememberd by many. What feelings it may have stirred is irrelevant in the long run, because it will all be long gone anyway by the time they get over their celebration hangovers.
Besides, I propably would have felt good after that speech. Not everybody feels special anyway. Some feel that no matter how much they try, there's always going to be somebody better, smarter, cooler or just bigger than you or more money to start with. That I'm constantly handicapped and the odds of winning are so small that why even try. That line of thinking hurt me a lot at a certain age.
It took me a long time to notice that when I stop worrying about the right thing to do, the smart thing to do and the best way to succeed, everything just rolls along much better and in the end I'm happier with the person I am and I even have more measurable success in my life.
To me that was kind of the point. You can't be special, but you can dream and reach those dreams through hard work. Just like everybody else.
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If you think encouraging=pampering, you are VERY confused... if you were referring to me, I wasn't saying the speech should be pampering.
I also see graduation as a celebration, not somewhere to get one last bit of advice. But then again, I also skipped my high school, univ undergrad and grad school graduation as well...