On the final day of my teaching career, the last thing I did was address the Class of 2021 at their graduation. Here is what I said:

Good evening, everyone! 

I am honored that you asked me to speak at your graduation. To tell you the truth, it’s been a secret wish of mine to speak at a graduation ceremony. Often, I have thought about the words of wisdom I could say to inspire a younger generation. 

And here I am on the last day of my teaching career. Wish granted. 

I have gotten quite a bit of advice on what to say this evening: my mother said to say something in French. My son said to tell them to “Live it up a little!” 

Bonsoir, live it up a little!  Done!  

 Just kidding. 

Actually, after the year that we have been through, I imagine that you students are all wise beyond your years, and you probably don’t really need a whole lot of advice at this point. Some people say that you students have lost so much learning this year, that you are way behind where you should be. I say that those people are wrong. I say that through this terribly difficult time, you have learned the most important lessons of all: you have learned to walk on through loneliness, fear, sadnesss. You have learned to persevere, to have courage.  Those are life lessons that you can’t learn from a book. 

I do want to talk to you this evening about a failure. 

Last spring back when we weren’t sure how long the Pandemic would last, our administration wisely asked the faculty to take an on-line Google Educator Course and also to take the post-course exam. We didn’t have to pass the exam, but the hope was that we would become Google Certified Educators after our hours of training in all kinds of Google tools, so that, worst-case scenario, we would be fully capable of teaching on-line in the fall, worst-case scenario. Our administrators gave us time to work on this. I bet you can’t even imagine all the Google Tools there are: there’s Google Docs, Google Drive, Google Classroom, Google Meet, Google Forms, Google Sites, Google Sheets, Google Slides, Google Keep, and other Google-things that I can’t even remember, and even You-tube is part of the Google Empire. I was not a slacker. I worked and studied Google until I was positively google-eyed!

 And took the test afterward. 

And failed. 

Yes, I am only admitting this because I am retiring, but I am a Google Educator Failure. I’m not making any excuses, well maybe. I knew most of the material, but I just wasn’t fast enough to do the required applications. I ran out of time. Honestly, I felt ashamed. 

Then came September, and we were fully on-line, then hybrid, then on-line, then, well, you know.  And there were moments when I thought that I should have retired back in August. Many moments when Mr. Turpack had to come in for a second or third time to explain all the wires to me; moments when Mrs. Stephens or Mrs. Marino had to help me with Infinite Campus or Google Classroom again; moments back when we were all on-line when my Internet crashed in the middle of class and I had to dash up to a spare bedroom in my in-laws’ farmhouse for a quiet place with Internet.  And day-by-day and sometimes moment-by-moment, this Google-failure got through the year. We all did. Day-after-day, we all persevered. 

When I look back at this year, I realize that at the advanced age of 60, I learned some things. 

Here are a couple: 

First, just because someone, let’s say someone named Google, for example, says you failed, it doesn’t mean that you are a failure. Don’t let other people define you with their labels, and also let your failures make you better, make you stronger.  

Second, I got by this year with a whole lot of help from my friends and family. And I got by with a whole lot of help from my students. My students made me laugh on many a day when I didn’t feel like laughing, and they encouraged me, and they helped me with technology.  Even from the distance of your own homes you were explaining why I was getting so much feedback from the mic or explaining how to expand to a full screen. And thank you, students, for your patience. Or were you just dozing? I’m choosing patience. 

The fact is that we all got through this time together.  We all helped each other walk through the dark times, didn’t we?  Our administrators had a tremendous challenge trying to figure out how to keep us moving along; our school board supported them and us; our secretaries worked fearlessly, so did our school nurse; our cafeteria workers, custodians, and school bus drivers were truly brave in their efforts to feed everyone and keep the school clean and safe and get students to school; my fellow teachers, para-professionals, subs, counselors, and the tech department worked so hard through so much adversity. And Mindy…was Mindy! And I can’t even imagine how challenging this time was for parents trying to decide the best course of action. Anyone else? 

Of course there is! You students were the best! I think I can speak for all of our Lakeland staff when I say that we are very proud of all of our Lakeland students, and especially of you Seniors! You stuck to it; you did your work; you checked in. For some of you, it was a huge challenge, and for others it was almost beyond a challenge. But you met it, and here you are! This is a very sweet victory and a fabulous day!

 I do have one piece of advice for you: keep helping each other. Love your neighbor as yourself. I didn’t say that one first, but whatever you believe, it is a worthy rule to live by. Love your neighbor as yourself. 

Be kind and be good to people, and everything else is secondary. 

Thank you for asking me to speak at your graduation. It is truly an honor to help celebrate the awesome class of 2021!    God Bless you all!