Gary Weisserman

Graduation Speech, Oakland Early College

The following speech was given at Oakland Early College's recent graduation ceremony:

So. Here we are.

As you know, this will be my last graduation as Head of School at Oakland Early College. Normally it’s the graduates and their families who cry at these events, but I understand a couple of the underclassmen are attempting to supplement their summer incomes by taking book on how long it’ll be before I turn into a blubbering idiot at the podium.

That’s fine. I make no secret about how much I love this school, or how special it has become. Certainly it’s difficult for me to leave. I have had the privilege of working with the most exceptional group of young people, and the most remarkable educators, I could possibly imagine. I include in this list not only our own teachers, but the amazing staff and administration at OCC.

This school, as far as I’m concerned, is a sanctuary, a beacon of opportunity, and a symbol of opposition to the forces of institutionalization and standardization that threaten to dehumanize education. There’s much work yet to be done before we are what we might one day be, but I am exceptionally proud of what we’ve already become. It is, in sum, a wonderful place, and this is a wonderful family. Leading it has been a unique, amazing, transformative experience for me, and I am delighted to pass the keys to the school to a dear friend and accomplished leader in her own right, one who will take OEC to places it never knew it could go.

But in the meantime, I’ll happily accept the microphone one last time. I promise, I won’t take long.

It’s not often you get to deliver one more speech, and so I originally compiled a fairly lengthy list of anecdotes and advice I would like to pass on. But I have been emphatically informed by our students and staff that I have no more than 15 minutes, and that in the event I should go as long as 20, Officers Seder and Daniels will quietly but insistently remove me from the platform. Besides, I’m assured that no one would listen that long or remember all of that anyway.

So I trimmed my advice down to three main points: one for our parents and families, one for our faculty and returning students, and finally one--the most important advice I have to dispense, the single pearl of wisdom I’ve stumbled upon--for our graduates.

I’ll speak to the parents first, because as a parent myself, I, too, worry about my kids all the time. It’s in our human DNA, on that wonderful gene that kicks in the moment we conceive. We begin worrying about our children long before they’re even born, and we don’t stop until--well, if someone can figure out when we stop worrying, I’d appreciate it if you’d let me know.

But if my suspicions are correct, even as you celebrate your children’s accomplishments, you’re bound to have at least a little angst about what the future holds for them. How will they transition to college, or to work, or to service? Will they be able to cope with heartbreak? Do they know how to do their own laundry? Will they find happiness? Are they going to eat enough? Most importantly, will they be able to support us when we get old?

We’ll keep worrying because it gives us something to do, but trust me on this: our kids will be just fine. I know this with absolute certainty, and I’ll tell you why. I’m going to let you in on a little secret, one you’ve probably suspected for quite some time: they’re better than us.

I mean that. They really are. I spent some time this week thinking back to my own high school graduation. Looking back, I can’t believe they let me graduate. Granting me a diploma these days would have been akin to malpractice. I was so self-centered, so small-minded. The world I was concerned with extended no further than the distance I could drive on a tank of gas. It would never have occurred to me to worry whether my education had adequately prepared me for the future, because the future was a concept I considered only to the limits of next weekend. Come on, now, tell the truth. You were the same way. It was something in the water.

But not our kids. For starters, they care about the people around them. Oh, sure they may have forgotten to make the bed this morning, but really, where the big things are concerned, their sense of responsibility is as big as can be. I’m thinking back to the very first Town Hall meeting we held, some three years ago, where we talked about what student activities our kids wanted to do. There I was, thinking dances and clubs, and sure, they were on the list, but the first three suggestions were about community service. Talking with our seniors the past few weeks, they think most fondly about the times at school when they’ve been able to make a difference: Gleaners, Laughing Yoga, book drives. Tomorrow is Relay for Life, and I’m willing to bet dollars to donuts that a substantial number of our graduates will spend the morning after graduation helping raise money to fight cancer. Our kids get it. They know they have a responsibility to make a difference.

And what’s really remarkable is that they can make a difference--and not just in the distant future, either, but now. This is a group with unique tools, unique skills, and a broader perspective on the world than any generation of students to come before them. They are strong, they are knowledgeable, and they are resolved. They want to be game changers, a generation of “yes-but-ers” who are not satisfied with the way things are. They may not be familiar with the phrase, but deep in their hearts they have a passion for Tikkun Olam--healing the world. I can think of no higher praise to give any group of human beings than that.

So don’t worry about them, parents. Encourage them, celebrate them, keep helping them grow ... and then watch with pride as they fix the mess we’ve made of their world.

My second piece of advice is for our faculty and current students, as well as for our new Head of School, and it has to do with how we build on the legacy started by our graduates.

I’m going to start by saying something a little bit controversial, and I hope everyone will hear it in the spirit it’s intended:

We are not a high school, so let’s stop pretending we are.

That’s right, I said it: we are not a high school. That’s a very strange declaration as I’m about to grant you your high school diploma, but I think you know what I mean. We are an early college. It is a very different thing. Anyone who has spent any time here knows that. We are different in important and profound ways. Sure, our students accomplish the requirements for a high school diploma, but as one important step in a larger journey. Our goals our different. We’re aiming for students to succeed beyond high school--in college, of course, but also in work, and in the larger world around them. So let’s stop using the traditional high school as our point of comparison, let’s stop using the same old tired measuring sticks of test scores and proficiency ratings, and let’s evangelize what we do as being fundamentally different, and better, than the schools that have served our children for the past hundred years.

More than that: we are not just an early college. We are an early college founded on a creative, non-coercive ideology, one that is open to all kids as a universal access school, one that has a unique culture of caring and honoring young people for who they are, rather than forcing them into preconceived ideas of what they should be.

For three years, now, we’ve flown under the radar. That’s understandable. However, our academic and affective results have been such that I suspect it’s no longer possible, nor even desirable, for others not to notice what our graduates have accomplished. You look at the list of colleges our students will attend, the catalogue of honors they’ve achieved, and--most excitingly--the calculus of growth they’ve undertaken, and you wonder why more people don’t know about this place. It’s not fair for us to keep your light hidden under a barrel.

So let’s let others know about our successes. Celebrate them, share what we learn with other schools, use it as a lever for change elsewhere. In the excitement of celebrating what we’ve accomplished, don’t forget that there’s never a single best way to do this work. Experiment. Try new things. Fail colorfully, memorably, and above all else, thoughtfully. Continue to make beautiful music here, but remember that the great thing about this school is that it’s improv, not a piano recital.

Finally, my third and most important piece of advice is for the graduates. Over the past few weeks, months and years, we have given you a piece of truly bad advice. I wish to remedy that now. Others will undoubtedly continue to supply you with the same advice, and I advise you, in the strongest possible terms, to politely but firmly disregard everything they have to say. Put your fingers in your ears if you have to, but don’t listen--or, if you do listen, please know that they are very, very wrong.

The advice has to do with where you’re going next. I can’t count the number of times we’ve told you that we’re preparing you for “the real world.” Really, how many times have we begun lectures that way? Is there anyone here who hasn’t heard it a million times?

Well, I’m here to tell you the truth, and that’s this:

Don’t enter the real world. NEVER enter the real world. I’ve visited it, and let me tell you, it kind of sucks.

Which doesn’t mean you shouldn’t move on. It certainly doesn’t absolve you of your responsibilities. Quite the opposite, in fact, because the charge I’m giving you now is much weightier than anything you might have imagined. It might not even be fair, but if anyone’s up to this challenge, it’s you--my wonderful, amazing, world-changing students.

Your challenge is this: make your world unreal.

There are plenty of realists in this world, and even more pessimists. There’s a place for realism and pessimism--but not in the world you’re inheriting. The stakes are too high. What we need from you--what the world needs from you--is unbridled optimism and determination in the face of all evidence to the contrary.

We need you to make things better. We need you to imagine a world that is safer, fairer, richer, healthier, and more interesting than anything that’s come before, and then we need you to make that happen.

Is that fair? Of course not. But I’ve spent the last three years watching you in action, and I’ve come to the conclusion that you can do it. I’ve seen you do it, in small measures, every single day of your careers here. I’ve seen your passions, your determination, your resolve to act out of kindness to others even when it wasn’t in your own personal interest to do so. You are, as I told your parents, better than us. And I couldn’t be prouder.

So: go make your world unreal. As I said at the beginning, you’ve already started. You’ve taken the first step, and given us hope. You’ve given me hope, that’s for sure.

Now go heal the world.

Thank you for letting me be a Cougar.