I thought it very timely to find this in my email box. My husband had sent it to me with the brief but loaded message - "Food for thought as you mark your H.S. Silver Jubilee" Hmmmm. The speech was written by someone known to me. Dr. Tony Dans is a wonderful doctor and an even more inspiring teacher. He works at the Philippine General Hospital and teaches tomorrow's doctors at the U.P. College of Medicine. His words resonated in my heart, most especially the last lesson on friendship. Some of the best and truest friends we have are the ones we make in High School. Yes, that holds true for me, but just as I read it and considering the recent events that have transpired I had a thought bubble that read "The ones who give you the greatest irritation come from high school as well" :) LOL Ok, ok, let's not go there. We're supposed to rise above that di ba and be mature adults so let's drop it girl! Just couldn't help myself :) Must be my midlife hormones again. For now, let me share with you this beautiful and very wise and warm speech that was delivered to the Ateneo de Manila High School Class of 2007...
“DON’T BELIEVE YOUR REPORT CARDS.”
(Speech delivered by DR. ANTONIO MIGUEL DANS (GS ‘71, HS ‘75)
to Ateneo High School 2007, 4-1-07, at the Ateneo High School Covered Courts
Fr. Hizon, revered faculty, graduates of Class 2007, parents,
relatives, and friends, good evening.
I would like to thank all of you for the rare privilege of speaking
to the graduating HS class of Ateneo.
Let me start by asking the graduates to stand up and take an oath
with me.
“DON’T BELIEVE YOUR REPORT CARDS.”
(Speech delivered by DR. ANTONIO MIGUEL DANS (GS ‘71, HS ‘75)
to Ateneo High School 2007, 4-1-07, at the Ateneo High School Covered Courts
Fr. Hizon, revered faculty, graduates of Class 2007, parents,
relatives, and friends, good evening.
I would like to thank all of you for the rare privilege of speaking
to the graduating HS class of Ateneo.
Let me start by asking the graduates to stand up and take an oath
with me.
(Please stand.) “I--state your name--hereby greet you all--a Happy
April Fool’s Day.” Thank you.
You may now take your seats. Pasensya na kayo kasi pang-anim na
akong nagsalita at inaantok na kayong lahat. Konting pampagising
lang. Where’s 4-C? Ahhhh my favorite class. They’re the only
ones who know me, so let me start by telling you about myself.
Class 4- I
I graduated from Ateneo HS in 1975. In my batch, the 6 sections
spelled out WISDOM, and I belonged to 4-I. My class was really notorious. I know. For example, 7 years after we graduated, the Prefect of
Discipline was still talking about us to students we never met.
As early as first year, our entire class was posted for a chalk war
during recess. We had no computer games then, so we had to use our
imagination to play. Chalk was amazing. Cut to the right size, and hurled with
sufficient force, it would explode and leave marks on your
hapless victims.
Unfortunately, one day, during a full scale gang war, the teacher
next door walked by to see what the noise was all about. I can still remember
it in slow motion: a classmate hurled, another ducked, and the piece of
chalk hit him right in the middle of the forehead, and exploded. Suddenly it
was over and we were convicted for war crimes. There was no trial. Our whole
class was posted, and from then on, we became known as the dishonors class.
I had my share of problems as an individual too. When I was 3rd year
high school, I was called to the principal’s office in the middle of
class. On the way to the office, I wasn’t worried. Fr. Raymond Miller was the
principal then, and he was one of the gentlest priests I knew.
I gingerly opened the door, then froze in my tracks. My parents were
there! Between them was a huge pile of fake letters excusing me from going
to school for health reasons. I confessed right there and then, and expected
to be expelled. But for some reason, the school decided to be
lenient on me, and my sentence was commuted to several hours post and 6 months probation with no allowance. (That’s the part that hurt.)
Now that I recall this, I realize that I was really lucky. I was
never able to say this before, but I say it now, I would like to thank the
school for its leniency in handling this case… and several others I had.
You know, what you do in high school will haunt you forever. I
thought I had outlived my high school mistakes when I became a
doctor, but several years ago, by the strangest coincidence, guess
who became our hospital priest?--Fr. Miller!
In his first few weeks there, he met Dr. Rogie Tangco, walking in the
corridor. Rogie is two years ahead of me. We’re about the same
height but he is not as good-looking. When Fr. Miller saw him he said--Tony Dans right? Rogie raised both hands immediately and vehemently denied it
“Father hindi ako yon! Si Rogie po ako!” Needless to say, they had a good
laugh at my expense. Rogie has been very kind to needle me in public many
times for this.
Now I understand why they invited me here today--maybe they thought
I was Rogie! I’m sure that if my records still existed, the
administration would have had second thoughts inviting me. But not to worry, they still have time to regret this.
Before I totally lose my credibility, let me get on with my talk. For
tonight, I was choosing between, one, saying something so inspiring
it would change your entire life; or two, telling you more pointless
stories of high school days. I decided to do the latter.
Survey
To give you an idea about 4-I, I did a survey of my classmates last
week—by email or SMS. I had a good response rate. There were 37 of us when we graduated. Of the 35 still alive, 30 still keep in touch regularly.
We used to see each other at weddings, where everyone became best man for
someone else. Then it became baptisms--ninong na naman lahat. But now, more
and more, we see each other at funerals. That’s the natural history of
gatherings we attend.
Other than these, we have so many reunions, you can’t really call
them reunions anymore. Imagine I received 24 responses from 30
contacts--a whopping 80% after 32 years, considering I just had a
few days to do this.
Anyway, my question to them was this: What is the most important
thing you learned in high school?
I thought this was a good question. I was sure the faculty would be
interested in the answers… and the students too. You’re going
home today with four years’ worth of knowledge, and you aren’t sure exactly
which things to hang on to, that might help you through life. Well we have
the perspective of 32 years to tell you what has helped us. So listen
well.
First let me share some responses with you at random.
Choy Cojuangco--buwisit ka ang hirap ng tanong mo at paiba-iba.
Jorge Yuzon--pare pasensya na, wala yata akong natutunan..
Hmm. Let’s look for better ones.
Jev Ramos--Kung maitim ka noon, hindi ka na puputi, kung kalbo ang
tatay mo, makakalbo ka rin.
Claro Gomez (read)--this one I have to censor.
You know what, just let me go straight to the summary, because you
may misunderstand my classmates. With these guys, you need to read
between the lines.
My summary is based not just on how my classmates responded, but
also on observations about what they did and said in HS.
What’s the most important thing we learned in high school? The
best summary of our answers would be this--“I HAVE TO GET GOOD GRADES BY HOOK OR BY CROOK.” Oops that was the Greenhills survey.
Wait…. Ah ok, here’s the Ateneo survey. “DON’T BELIEVE YOUR
REPORT CARDS”.
Teachers please don’t walk out. Let me explain myself. Despite our
notoriety, the remarkable thing about our class was our attitude
towards learning. As early as first year high school, we had this disdain for
grades, and we constantly reminded each other of its inherent
problems. Did grades really measure how good you were? Should we even bother about what we got? As a class, we didn’t believe so, and we tried our best to remind each other: focus on learning and don’t get too concerned with
grades. The phrase “grade-conscious” became a jeer for us. If you made the
mistake of publicly asking what percent of the grade came
from the final exam and small quizzes, or if you complained about the
cutoff for passing, you would regret it. You would be labeled grade
conscious and never hear the end of it for a week. Classmates would
walk by you and you would hear them say “grade conscious”, soft enough
to seem like a whisper, but loud enough for you to hear. This ideology became
inculcated in us, so by our 2nd year, some of us felt ashamed when our grades
were too high.
Now I am sure that to a certain extent, this was just
rationalization for low grades, but in retrospect our disdain may have had some basis. There are three reasons I say this.
1. Knowledge vs. curiosity/creativity
Grades, by default, measure mainly knowledge. Multiple choice, true
or false, enumeration, fill in the blanks--they’re designed to
measure how much knowledge is in your head. But in education, knowledge is just a decoy. It is NOT the most important intellectual faculty. My mother
was an art teacher in grade school for many years, and she believed that
creativity and curiosity were more important.
I laughed at that thought for a few years, until I learned that
someone else said exactly the same thing-- Albert Einstein. My mom doesn’t
know it, but she was a genius. With knowledge alone you become stagnant like
an old textbook. With curiosity, and creativity you can actually discover
new knowledge, and write the books yourself!
Unfortunately, creativity is harder to grade, and curiosity--almost
impossible. They don’t give credit for asking questions right? If
they did, I would have been valedictorian.
When you realize that knowledge is a decoy, sometimes you notice
funny things in the curriculum. I cringe when I hear my children memorizing
things like DOST or SEC or CSI. I have often told them, to their
consternation, forget memorizing. Just fail the darn subject.
Criticize what you’re being taught. But when I see them doing projects,
organizing affairs, and planning for events, I heave a sigh of relief and say--
their tuition is worth every cent.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that Ateneo hasn’t taught you
creativity or intellectual curiosity. In fact these are
distinguishing traits of our education. All I’m saying is that these are
difficult to measure, and therefore your report cards underestimate your worth.
4-I was a bundle of curiosity and creativity. We looked at things
under the microscope that would have shocked the teacher. We had long distance spitting contests, and trash paper basketball tournaments, and other
things I cannot mention. Juvenile delinquence, you might say. I prefer to
view them as exercises in creativity, and I treasure them as much as
lessons inside the classroom.
2. Effort vs. passion
The other thing measured by your report card is effort--how hard you
work.
Now this looks innocent but there are several traps here.
First, it is very difficult to grade effort. If you’re super smart
and math is effortless for you, shouldn’t you get a low mark in effort?
Second, assuming you could put a valid score on effort, do we really
want to emphasize hard work? While it is often espoused as a virtue, it
can also lead become a vice. We need balance in our life. I have seen people
work so hard, they neglect their family, their spirituality, and even their
own physical health.
Third, hard work makes life sound like a prison sentence.
Congratulations graduates, from now on, you are condemned to a life of hard work! You see, dear graduates, the report card plays tricks on you! Hard work is
OK, but
Ateneo has given you something better--passion.
There’s a big difference.
Hard workers do things because they have to.
People with passion do things because they want to.
Hard work consumes energy, but passion builds it up. When
you have passion for your work, then it isn’t really work!
Fr. Hizon, I have a suggestion. Next year, in the report cards,
let’s remove the column on effort. Instead, let’s put in a column on
passion.
3. Misbehaving vs. rebelling
And then there’s this third thing measured by your report card--
conduct. Conduct is measured by the degree to which we conform to acceptable
behavior. But there are 2 reasons why people don’t conform. Either
they’re rebelling or simply misbehaving. On the surface, they look the same.
But when you rebel, you’re expressing a belief or fighting for a
cause. When you misbehave, you are simply being obnoxious. Is it important to
distinguish the two? Of course. We discourage misbehavior, but
rebelling--that’s what you’re in Ateneo for--to prepare you to
rebel and change the world.
Sometimes it’s not so easy to tell the difference. When a student
asserts his right to hairstyle--is that misbehaving or rebelling? When he
wears slippers to school because it is in fashion, is that misbehaving or
rebelling? Do we listen to their views to distinguish the two? While
we implement rules of conduct and grade how well students conform, I
agree that we are nurturing discipline. But sometimes this may be at the
cost of suppressing their other half--the one who wants to be different.
The one that wants to rebel against society, change the status quo,
and fight for a better world. We honor conformists in school because
they have discipline and they don’t rock the boat--but after school, it’s
the rebel we honor--the people who saw what is, and tried to change it into
what ought to be--people like Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jose
Rizal, and Ninoy Aquino.
I’m not saying we remove conduct from the report card. I’m
saying we need to be careful in dealing with apparent misconduct. Sometimes we may be suppressing exactly the values and characteristics that we espouse.
In summary, we have given you three reasons why you shouldn’t
believe your report card. It misses measuring the important things:
creativity and curiosity, rather than knowledge per se,
- passion for work, rather than effort, and
- the desire to be different and change things, rather than
just proper conduct or good behavior.
In fact, these lessons, which aren’t in your report card--they are
the ones that my class thought would help you in the future.
Hard workers will burn out, but you, because of your passion, will
run circles around them.
Knowledgeable people will land decent jobs earlier, because this is
what most employers evaluate, but because you are curious and creative,
you will soon fly past them in the rank and file.
The conformists will stagnate in the past, while the rebels, like
you, you will create the future.
Jesuit history, after all, is a story of curiosity and creativity and
passion. The early Jesuits were not bookish scholars, they were
explorers and philosophers. They debated science and religion. And they
charted the earth and the universe. And they were rebels, too. They were
expelled from the Catholic Church by the Pope himself, for many years. This is
worse than any post any of you got while you were here. But the Jesuit order
survived the storm, and believe me, you will too.
The simple fact of the matter is that your education has brought you
where you are now and no report card has been invented, that can measure
the depth and breadth of what you have learned and what you have become.
It doesn’t matter if you received the highest score, or if you barely
made it. Don’t believe your report card! You are far better than what it
says.
Fourth reason
To end, dear graduates, I would like to give you a fourth reason why
grades underestimate you. When I fielded my survey to my classmates last
week, I received many different themes on what was the most important lesson
in high school. Can you guess what the most common answer was?
I assure you, nobody said “Kreb’s cycle,” or “quadratic
equation.” By far the most common answer was--the lesson of friendship. This is
something we didn’t get from books or lectures, this is something we learned
from each other. For sure, it can never be measured by grades.
So savor this last moment of HS and look around you. Look at the
wonderful friends you found.
You don’t know this yet--your HS friends are unlike any. They will
last forever. You may be parting ways now, but your paths will cross
again like ours has, regardless of the profession you have chosen.
How many of you plan to be doctors? Remember them. They will take
care of you when you’re sick, and they will not charge you.
And how many are leaving the country? Remember them as well. You are
going to live in their homes when you travel. Free!
There might even be a priest in here somewhere. He will preside at
your wedding, baptize your child. I’m not sure you would want to
confess to them. What a horrible thought.
There will be politicians amongst you too--governors, mayors, cabinet
members, maybe even a president? Even they will seek refuge in your
reunions, because it is only there that they can be themselves, with
people they truly trust.
It doesn’t matter what they do, when you are down and out, your
classmates will get together to pull you up. They will chip in for your hospital
expenses, or help send your kids abroad, even when they themselves
are in need.
I can spend the entire day with you talking about high school
friends. My main difficulty preparing for this talk was choosing which anecdotes
to share just to show how close we were 32 years ago, and how much
closer we’ve become since then.
The point is this--I, am immensely proud of the people I grew up
with in high school. When I hear stories of principles they have had to
stand up for in their life, I can see the same principles we nurtured
together as classmates. Our futures have diversified us, but our values remain
one and the same.
Today, we remain comrades in the same rebellion, fighting the battle
in different zones.
Savor this moment. Say your goodbyes for now… but know that your
paths WILL cross again. With graduation, your friendship has become more
binding than marriage. Remember, you cannot divorce a HS classmate, even if it is ordered by the Vatican. It’s illegal.
Savor this moment dear graduates, no matter what your grades. You
have Ateneo behind you, and your friends beside you, so you have no
choice. Like the blue eagle that has symbolized you, you WILL fly high.
Congratulations to one and all!
April Fool’s Day.” Thank you.
You may now take your seats. Pasensya na kayo kasi pang-anim na
akong nagsalita at inaantok na kayong lahat. Konting pampagising
lang. Where’s 4-C? Ahhhh my favorite class. They’re the only
ones who know me, so let me start by telling you about myself.
Class 4- I
I graduated from Ateneo HS in 1975. In my batch, the 6 sections
spelled out WISDOM, and I belonged to 4-I. My class was really notorious. I know. For example, 7 years after we graduated, the Prefect of
Discipline was still talking about us to students we never met.
As early as first year, our entire class was posted for a chalk war
during recess. We had no computer games then, so we had to use our
imagination to play. Chalk was amazing. Cut to the right size, and hurled with
sufficient force, it would explode and leave marks on your
hapless victims.
Unfortunately, one day, during a full scale gang war, the teacher
next door walked by to see what the noise was all about. I can still remember
it in slow motion: a classmate hurled, another ducked, and the piece of
chalk hit him right in the middle of the forehead, and exploded. Suddenly it
was over and we were convicted for war crimes. There was no trial. Our whole
class was posted, and from then on, we became known as the dishonors class.
I had my share of problems as an individual too. When I was 3rd year
high school, I was called to the principal’s office in the middle of
class. On the way to the office, I wasn’t worried. Fr. Raymond Miller was the
principal then, and he was one of the gentlest priests I knew.
I gingerly opened the door, then froze in my tracks. My parents were
there! Between them was a huge pile of fake letters excusing me from going
to school for health reasons. I confessed right there and then, and expected
to be expelled. But for some reason, the school decided to be
lenient on me, and my sentence was commuted to several hours post and 6 months probation with no allowance. (That’s the part that hurt.)
Now that I recall this, I realize that I was really lucky. I was
never able to say this before, but I say it now, I would like to thank the
school for its leniency in handling this case… and several others I had.
You know, what you do in high school will haunt you forever. I
thought I had outlived my high school mistakes when I became a
doctor, but several years ago, by the strangest coincidence, guess
who became our hospital priest?--Fr. Miller!
In his first few weeks there, he met Dr. Rogie Tangco, walking in the
corridor. Rogie is two years ahead of me. We’re about the same
height but he is not as good-looking. When Fr. Miller saw him he said--Tony Dans right? Rogie raised both hands immediately and vehemently denied it
“Father hindi ako yon! Si Rogie po ako!” Needless to say, they had a good
laugh at my expense. Rogie has been very kind to needle me in public many
times for this.
Now I understand why they invited me here today--maybe they thought
I was Rogie! I’m sure that if my records still existed, the
administration would have had second thoughts inviting me. But not to worry, they still have time to regret this.
Before I totally lose my credibility, let me get on with my talk. For
tonight, I was choosing between, one, saying something so inspiring
it would change your entire life; or two, telling you more pointless
stories of high school days. I decided to do the latter.
Survey
To give you an idea about 4-I, I did a survey of my classmates last
week—by email or SMS. I had a good response rate. There were 37 of us when we graduated. Of the 35 still alive, 30 still keep in touch regularly.
We used to see each other at weddings, where everyone became best man for
someone else. Then it became baptisms--ninong na naman lahat. But now, more
and more, we see each other at funerals. That’s the natural history of
gatherings we attend.
Other than these, we have so many reunions, you can’t really call
them reunions anymore. Imagine I received 24 responses from 30
contacts--a whopping 80% after 32 years, considering I just had a
few days to do this.
Anyway, my question to them was this: What is the most important
thing you learned in high school?
I thought this was a good question. I was sure the faculty would be
interested in the answers… and the students too. You’re going
home today with four years’ worth of knowledge, and you aren’t sure exactly
which things to hang on to, that might help you through life. Well we have
the perspective of 32 years to tell you what has helped us. So listen
well.
First let me share some responses with you at random.
Choy Cojuangco--buwisit ka ang hirap ng tanong mo at paiba-iba.
Jorge Yuzon--pare pasensya na, wala yata akong natutunan..
Hmm. Let’s look for better ones.
Jev Ramos--Kung maitim ka noon, hindi ka na puputi, kung kalbo ang
tatay mo, makakalbo ka rin.
Claro Gomez (read)--this one I have to censor.
You know what, just let me go straight to the summary, because you
may misunderstand my classmates. With these guys, you need to read
between the lines.
My summary is based not just on how my classmates responded, but
also on observations about what they did and said in HS.
What’s the most important thing we learned in high school? The
best summary of our answers would be this--“I HAVE TO GET GOOD GRADES BY HOOK OR BY CROOK.” Oops that was the Greenhills survey.
Wait…. Ah ok, here’s the Ateneo survey. “DON’T BELIEVE YOUR
REPORT CARDS”.
Teachers please don’t walk out. Let me explain myself. Despite our
notoriety, the remarkable thing about our class was our attitude
towards learning. As early as first year high school, we had this disdain for
grades, and we constantly reminded each other of its inherent
problems. Did grades really measure how good you were? Should we even bother about what we got? As a class, we didn’t believe so, and we tried our best to remind each other: focus on learning and don’t get too concerned with
grades. The phrase “grade-conscious” became a jeer for us. If you made the
mistake of publicly asking what percent of the grade came
from the final exam and small quizzes, or if you complained about the
cutoff for passing, you would regret it. You would be labeled grade
conscious and never hear the end of it for a week. Classmates would
walk by you and you would hear them say “grade conscious”, soft enough
to seem like a whisper, but loud enough for you to hear. This ideology became
inculcated in us, so by our 2nd year, some of us felt ashamed when our grades
were too high.
Now I am sure that to a certain extent, this was just
rationalization for low grades, but in retrospect our disdain may have had some basis. There are three reasons I say this.
1. Knowledge vs. curiosity/creativity
Grades, by default, measure mainly knowledge. Multiple choice, true
or false, enumeration, fill in the blanks--they’re designed to
measure how much knowledge is in your head. But in education, knowledge is just a decoy. It is NOT the most important intellectual faculty. My mother
was an art teacher in grade school for many years, and she believed that
creativity and curiosity were more important.
I laughed at that thought for a few years, until I learned that
someone else said exactly the same thing-- Albert Einstein. My mom doesn’t
know it, but she was a genius. With knowledge alone you become stagnant like
an old textbook. With curiosity, and creativity you can actually discover
new knowledge, and write the books yourself!
Unfortunately, creativity is harder to grade, and curiosity--almost
impossible. They don’t give credit for asking questions right? If
they did, I would have been valedictorian.
When you realize that knowledge is a decoy, sometimes you notice
funny things in the curriculum. I cringe when I hear my children memorizing
things like DOST or SEC or CSI. I have often told them, to their
consternation, forget memorizing. Just fail the darn subject.
Criticize what you’re being taught. But when I see them doing projects,
organizing affairs, and planning for events, I heave a sigh of relief and say--
their tuition is worth every cent.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that Ateneo hasn’t taught you
creativity or intellectual curiosity. In fact these are
distinguishing traits of our education. All I’m saying is that these are
difficult to measure, and therefore your report cards underestimate your worth.
4-I was a bundle of curiosity and creativity. We looked at things
under the microscope that would have shocked the teacher. We had long distance spitting contests, and trash paper basketball tournaments, and other
things I cannot mention. Juvenile delinquence, you might say. I prefer to
view them as exercises in creativity, and I treasure them as much as
lessons inside the classroom.
2. Effort vs. passion
The other thing measured by your report card is effort--how hard you
work.
Now this looks innocent but there are several traps here.
First, it is very difficult to grade effort. If you’re super smart
and math is effortless for you, shouldn’t you get a low mark in effort?
Second, assuming you could put a valid score on effort, do we really
want to emphasize hard work? While it is often espoused as a virtue, it
can also lead become a vice. We need balance in our life. I have seen people
work so hard, they neglect their family, their spirituality, and even their
own physical health.
Third, hard work makes life sound like a prison sentence.
Congratulations graduates, from now on, you are condemned to a life of hard work! You see, dear graduates, the report card plays tricks on you! Hard work is
OK, but
Ateneo has given you something better--passion.
There’s a big difference.
Hard workers do things because they have to.
People with passion do things because they want to.
Hard work consumes energy, but passion builds it up. When
you have passion for your work, then it isn’t really work!
Fr. Hizon, I have a suggestion. Next year, in the report cards,
let’s remove the column on effort. Instead, let’s put in a column on
passion.
3. Misbehaving vs. rebelling
And then there’s this third thing measured by your report card--
conduct. Conduct is measured by the degree to which we conform to acceptable
behavior. But there are 2 reasons why people don’t conform. Either
they’re rebelling or simply misbehaving. On the surface, they look the same.
But when you rebel, you’re expressing a belief or fighting for a
cause. When you misbehave, you are simply being obnoxious. Is it important to
distinguish the two? Of course. We discourage misbehavior, but
rebelling--that’s what you’re in Ateneo for--to prepare you to
rebel and change the world.
Sometimes it’s not so easy to tell the difference. When a student
asserts his right to hairstyle--is that misbehaving or rebelling? When he
wears slippers to school because it is in fashion, is that misbehaving or
rebelling? Do we listen to their views to distinguish the two? While
we implement rules of conduct and grade how well students conform, I
agree that we are nurturing discipline. But sometimes this may be at the
cost of suppressing their other half--the one who wants to be different.
The one that wants to rebel against society, change the status quo,
and fight for a better world. We honor conformists in school because
they have discipline and they don’t rock the boat--but after school, it’s
the rebel we honor--the people who saw what is, and tried to change it into
what ought to be--people like Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jose
Rizal, and Ninoy Aquino.
I’m not saying we remove conduct from the report card. I’m
saying we need to be careful in dealing with apparent misconduct. Sometimes we may be suppressing exactly the values and characteristics that we espouse.
In summary, we have given you three reasons why you shouldn’t
believe your report card. It misses measuring the important things:
creativity and curiosity, rather than knowledge per se,
- passion for work, rather than effort, and
- the desire to be different and change things, rather than
just proper conduct or good behavior.
In fact, these lessons, which aren’t in your report card--they are
the ones that my class thought would help you in the future.
Hard workers will burn out, but you, because of your passion, will
run circles around them.
Knowledgeable people will land decent jobs earlier, because this is
what most employers evaluate, but because you are curious and creative,
you will soon fly past them in the rank and file.
The conformists will stagnate in the past, while the rebels, like
you, you will create the future.
Jesuit history, after all, is a story of curiosity and creativity and
passion. The early Jesuits were not bookish scholars, they were
explorers and philosophers. They debated science and religion. And they
charted the earth and the universe. And they were rebels, too. They were
expelled from the Catholic Church by the Pope himself, for many years. This is
worse than any post any of you got while you were here. But the Jesuit order
survived the storm, and believe me, you will too.
The simple fact of the matter is that your education has brought you
where you are now and no report card has been invented, that can measure
the depth and breadth of what you have learned and what you have become.
It doesn’t matter if you received the highest score, or if you barely
made it. Don’t believe your report card! You are far better than what it
says.
Fourth reason
To end, dear graduates, I would like to give you a fourth reason why
grades underestimate you. When I fielded my survey to my classmates last
week, I received many different themes on what was the most important lesson
in high school. Can you guess what the most common answer was?
I assure you, nobody said “Kreb’s cycle,” or “quadratic
equation.” By far the most common answer was--the lesson of friendship. This is
something we didn’t get from books or lectures, this is something we learned
from each other. For sure, it can never be measured by grades.
So savor this last moment of HS and look around you. Look at the
wonderful friends you found.
You don’t know this yet--your HS friends are unlike any. They will
last forever. You may be parting ways now, but your paths will cross
again like ours has, regardless of the profession you have chosen.
How many of you plan to be doctors? Remember them. They will take
care of you when you’re sick, and they will not charge you.
And how many are leaving the country? Remember them as well. You are
going to live in their homes when you travel. Free!
There might even be a priest in here somewhere. He will preside at
your wedding, baptize your child. I’m not sure you would want to
confess to them. What a horrible thought.
There will be politicians amongst you too--governors, mayors, cabinet
members, maybe even a president? Even they will seek refuge in your
reunions, because it is only there that they can be themselves, with
people they truly trust.
It doesn’t matter what they do, when you are down and out, your
classmates will get together to pull you up. They will chip in for your hospital
expenses, or help send your kids abroad, even when they themselves
are in need.
I can spend the entire day with you talking about high school
friends. My main difficulty preparing for this talk was choosing which anecdotes
to share just to show how close we were 32 years ago, and how much
closer we’ve become since then.
The point is this--I, am immensely proud of the people I grew up
with in high school. When I hear stories of principles they have had to
stand up for in their life, I can see the same principles we nurtured
together as classmates. Our futures have diversified us, but our values remain
one and the same.
Today, we remain comrades in the same rebellion, fighting the battle
in different zones.
Savor this moment. Say your goodbyes for now… but know that your
paths WILL cross again. With graduation, your friendship has become more
binding than marriage. Remember, you cannot divorce a HS classmate, even if it is ordered by the Vatican. It’s illegal.
Savor this moment dear graduates, no matter what your grades. You
have Ateneo behind you, and your friends beside you, so you have no
choice. Like the blue eagle that has symbolized you, you WILL fly high.
Congratulations to one and all!
3 comments:
Thank you for sharing. This was a really good speech. I agree with his point on friendship. Your high school friends will really be your best friends for life. Life is all about memories and connecting. =)
This is really good to share with a lot of parents. I, myself, is guilty of being grade conscious sometimes. Is it possible to get a hold of a copy of the speech? Thanks for posting this.
you can get the youtube version of the speech by searching "tonydans" on youtube. one word. some of the jokes are better.
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