Staff Board of Trustees
Graduates, as I prepare to officially accept you as a graduating class please know that I am deeply honored to be in your presence this evening.
I find it symbolic that we are here together-staff, students, families, and friends- to celebrate and honor an incredibly wonderful event in your young lives. In many ways, this evening represents your transition into adulthood as you join the rest of us as travelers in life: trying together to understand who we are and what life may bring us and trying together to craft a productive and happy place for ourselves in a complex world.
We are here this evening to celebrate the end of one chapter in your life and the start of another. I suspect you are doing so with a combined feeling of anxiety and excitement. I also realize that, in these times and on this day, there's bound to be a lot of talk about what you are going to do with the rest of your life. What are you going to be? I hope that you can confidently say, “I don't know” and that's okay. For you are about to embark on a road of discovery- finding out who you are, what you believe, what is important to you, what you can contribute to this amazing world.
You are full of secrets. You have lives and interests and talents that exist independent of math, and English, science and social studies. Your secrets lie in the shadows of assemblies, football games, clubs, sports, dances and homework.
You have friends who paint murals, write poetry, build cars, manage computer networks, work long hours, train for a sport, and help others in their daily struggles. Underneath those goofy caps you are wearing this evening are talents and dreams, ambitions and hopes -- enough to last decades, to build families, to change communities, to change lives. Your real destinations are secret and that's okay. You may have an idea, a plan, a passion. But none of us can be sure. And that's okay.
You will arrange flowers, electrons, words and water. You'll shape ideas, images, politics, missions and metal. You will create new friendships and new loves, and will also leave some friends behind. You'll be productive and worthwhile, but where do you start? In this stage of your life you are still discovering yourselves and the world around us. You have the capability to design your life in a way that honors your family and yourself. Know- that every decision you make- can significantly alter or mold who you become.
Because of technology, your generation communicates easily across the world. As you continue to strive for greater opportunities and a better life, you must aspire to personally interact with the outside world. The Internet and other modes of communication can only provide a window or a seat in the theater of life. You must provide the meaning. Striving for knowledge and perfection is admirable, but please have the courage to maintain your personal identity. By emphasizing the qualities that define your individual personalities you can contribute positively to our diversity.
As you venture along your own paths, please do not forget the challenges that you have already faced successfully. Use your education to develop a quality of life which puts emphasis on our human ability to understand and empathize. For while technology can connect us, it is only our hearts, the trademarks of our humanity, that can righteously bind us together.
We must do good things for the right reasons. It may not be glamorous, but it's genuine. You may not build monuments, but you have and will continue to make memories.
Seriously, for all the things that change tonight, you have an achievement that can never be compromised. Tonight, most of you will graduate "With Honors." I am not talking about grade point averages when I speak about the honors you have achieved. When I talk about the honors for which you will be recognized, there are important distinctions.
In your first 18 years of life, you have earned honors as human beings. There is honor in the time you dedicated to a common goal. There is honor in the respect that you earned as students, athletes, artists, volunteers, friends, and citizens. There is honor in the compassion that you have shown to each other and to those in need. There is honor in the people that your lives, experiences and education have touched. There is honor in the lives that you have helped to make better. There is honor in the ways you have met some very difficult moments and have resolved those issues in order to get on with your life. There is honor in your hearts.
You see, beyond the academic achievements you have earned or the subjects you have passed, even behind the state testing program, you are walking away from Cleveland Heights High School this evening with a personality that has been formed. You have demonstrated your capability as a human being- compassionate enough to help others along the way. Now, you must continue to create the highest, grandest vision possible for your life because you become what you believe.
Now, I have a favor to ask of all of you. Tonight is your moment and this is your families' moment as well. After the graduation ceremonies, don't rush past them to go to that party tonight. Run to them first and hug them and tell them how much you love them. And, in the future, continue to rely on them for support and guidance and love. Your friends and family will continue to sustain you because life can sometimes be hard.
In closing I leave each of you with the hope that, as you make your own choices over time, you will choose in such a way that allows your drive for achievement to be balanced by an equal commitment to love and play, to family, to friends and community. It is this wish I leave with you, along with my heartiest congratulations on this day that means so much to you and to your families. And so, graduates of the class of 2005, I wish you years of joy, years of serenity, years of friendship and years of love. Most of all, I wish you peace.
