A member of our congregation sent me this high school commencement speech delivered by David McCullough, Jr., himself a high school English teacher. Apparently, I'm coming to it relatively late in webernet terms; read the first two-thirds or so, and you'll understand why. His blunt announcement to the type of privileged high school student I came to resent not only because I taught under-privileged students in inner-city Houston, but because I was one of them, that they are not particularly unique or wonderful is a delight to the disgruntled heart of the curmudgeon in each one of us. What makes this speech great, however, is not its deliberately deflating opening, but its lovely turn towards an exhortation to live the one life we have.
In 1992, my fellow Teach for America corps members and I came early on into the program, long before it became a resumé-padder for the kind of kids graduating near the top of the class at Wellesley High School. For the most part, we joined up not because TFA was a stepping-stone to something else, but because we wanted to spend a couple years helping out under-privileged kids. It changed our lives, and McCullough offers all who hear or read his speech the opportunity to stop living their lives for a distant objective, but instead for the sake of living their lives.
And while we're at it, let's take a moment to remember that despite right-wing attempts to vilify school teachers for sucking up government funds and left-wing attempts to vilify teacher unions for blocking their typically utopian and block-headed visions for school reform, there's a countless number of them out there not only successfully communicating content, but inspiring and changing lives.
God bless the high school English teachers. They just may save the language yet.
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