Board Member David Wood Inspires Students in Times of Tumult
Board Member and Northgate High School English teacher David Wood graciously shared with the New Literary Project his speech, given to the graduating class of 2022 on June 3rd of this year.
In light of recent events in Uvalde, Texas, David’s words serve as a greatly needed beacon of hope, even for those of us not graduating this season.
Wow… Congratulations Class of 2022! Just to let you know, I was not going to be here today. I would much rather say goodbye to you in Room 33, where we have known each other. That is our place.
But when I learned that you asked me to speak, I could not refuse. I hope you know the honor I feel—and now I am standing before you, feeling an awesome responsibility to say something real; something that, perhaps, you will remember. I know there are certain things I want to say to you, and that I wish for you as you leave here to greet the world as high school graduates.
When I look out at the audience here, I know that NHS has changed for the better. Your parents and many of you come from all over the world; your native languages, your family traditions, your gods and beliefs also span the globe. You mirror the world that you are entering. Except that you, while recognizing your distinctions, get along with and accept each other. As our world gets smaller with each passing year, I hope that we can learn from you. Because I also know we must.
For many of you, the road to this night has been marked by pitfalls that were not academic. The personal tragedies and losses that many of you have overcome—the depths of depression and abuse that some of you have battled to be here tonight—testifies to your hope and strength. Additionally, all of you have lost more than a year to a pandemic that has taxed us all, though none more than you. At a time when you should have been testing your limits and spreading your wings to fly, you had your wings clipped; your ambitions and desires for experience thwarted. As one of you said to me this week: “We should measure success not in our achievements, but in finding ourselves. We have had to go through things that have made us wiser than our years.” That you have, and it has taught you to respect and cherish each other.
As I am an English teacher, I often let the words of masters speak the things I know are true for me—and maybe they will speak to you.
So, I will start with Robert Frost, whom many regard as the finest American poet of the 20th Century. He ends his poem “Two Tramps in Mud Time” with this statement of what makes for meaningful work:
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For heaven and the future’s sakes.
I have been lucky enough to know that feeling. I love the work I do, and I know, almost every day I am in the classroom, that the work I love does become play. When you compete on the athletic field, or present music in a concert, you do not say you work football or work the piano. No, you play it. Yes, it is hard work, but it is rewarding and joyful work, and those of us who can do it are blessed. I am blessed.
For me, the classroom contains an integrity that cannot be violated. It can be one of the best and safest places in the world: a place where we learn from each other, where we grow with each other, where we accept and help one another, where we create a shared meaning. The process is never easy; it takes strength, trust and love. When it happens as it should, there is magic—and where there is magic, there is life. Many of you have given me life over the past years. For that, I will always be grateful. As teachers, we receive many thank yous, but I believe that we get much more from you than we give. In exchange for a little knowledge and respect, you give us your energy, your imaginations, your vitality and your love. Those are treasured things. I know, and as my wife who is somewhere out there in the audience will testify, because of you my life is much fuller and richer in ways that are beyond measure. Tonight, for these things, I say thank you.
I know that I want to see it differently, but I am frightened for the world you are about to inherit. About a hundred years ago a poet named William Butler Yeats wrote “the best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” I see misdirected intensity everywhere. We have not been good stewards of our planet, nor of our institutions. I see a world in a climate crisis and people in power who block the smallest steps to making it better. I see another war fought for one man’s ambitions, where again civilians and children are killed for no good reason. I see a world where making America great again does not mean working to improve our institutions and values, but scapegoating and ostracizing others because of their color, race, or sexual orientation.
And just last week, a young man carried a war weapon and more ammunition than a soldier carries into battle into an elementary school and killed 21 innocent people. A Bay Area professional basketball coach and baseball manager have said and done more than our elected leaders, who should be protecting and guiding us. And, as my students know Kurt Vonnegut’s response, is…
“So It Goes” may seem an apathetic or defeatist response, but it is not. Vonnegut wrote a book that changed the way we see war, knowing that it would make little difference. That is a heroic act. Likewise, many of you, in your senior projects, took steps to understand and take action on the crucial issues of our time including climate change and pollution, homelessness and hunger, immigration and assimilation. These are small steps, but they are necessary and important. Good for you!
One of you wrote this week: “It’s not what you look at, it's what you see. I have learned that mortality may be the greatest gift we are given. Without a clock ticking, it would be easy to exist instead of live.”
And another gives us a dream: “With everything and nothing in mind, I’m just going to go to college, learn everything I can about everything I love and find out what this life is all about. I will learn and learn and learn, and at some point when the time is right, I’ll start applying that knowledge. With any luck it will change the world. With any luck I’ll lead a life to be proud of, not only from my death bed but from now as a 17-year-old about to graduate who sees this world as an amazing place filled with things to learn and people to meet and girls to fall in love with and situations to be bettered and people waiting to love me and be loved in return.” Isn’t that beautiful?
You are inheriting a world full of terrible beauties, one where the stakes are high and the possibilities are infinite, and where redemption can only come from our commitment to love and honor each other. George Bernard Shaw, a British playwright and socialist at the turn of the last century once said: “There are those who look at the world as it is and ask why; I dream of the world as it could be and ask why not?” It is my hope that, no matter how big or small your world is—whether it be the world of business or family, whether it be the broad stage of world affairs or the small table of intimate conversation—that you can say that you have kept your capacity to dream of a world as it can be, a world where compassion and love and understanding count for everything. That you can say that you possess the right tools to forge your own dream, and that you possess the vision and power to let your torches burn bright without dimming those around you. That is the world you deserve.
And so I leave you with one other word from Kurt Vonnegut—his advice to the young:
Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside you’ve got about a hundred years here. There is only one rule that I know of babies—Dammit you have to be kind.
So as you go off to celebrate, remember what you have said. It sounds so simple, but it is not easy. Express your love. Find your passion; be gentle, dream. Dammit be as kind to each other out there as you have been to me. Go change this world.
Remember, it is not what you look at, it is what you see.
Thank you, and bless each of you.