Brokaw Says: Life is Junior High
My parents, my sister Claire, and I woke up in New Rochelle, NY Saturday morning, had a debate about which train to take to Fordham University for its 164th commencement ceremony, gobbled down breakfast, and walked briskly to the train station. Mom wanted to take the 9:00 train, Dad wanted to take the 11:00 train and Claire and I wanted to take it easy. We were ready to go with the flow, but were subtly indicating our inclination towards the latter train choice.
The ultimate problem before us was that we were facing a five hour graduation ceremony and none of us wanted to endure the entire show, especially the part during which they call thousands of names, one-by-one. However, Tom Brokaw was going to deliver the commencement speech and even though we liked to pretend that we didn’t care, we all secretly did.
As the fates would have it, we arrived about three minutes before Mr. Brokaw (although, I think I can call him Dr. now) began speaking. Overall, I’m pretty happy that we managed to catch what he had to say.
Soon into the speech, he read a letter from “Dr. Stephen Colbert” expressing Colbert’s apologies for not being available to speak in Brokaw’s place. Apparently, the student body waged a kind of campaign to host the opinionated comedian at their graduation instead.
Alas, Brokaw was the guest and injected some great humor I don’t usually expect coming from a man like him.
During his well-paced speech, Brokaw said two things that I thought were remarkable. First, he cited people throughout history who have made great changes in our world without the use of FaceBook, iPhones, Twitter, email, IM, and so many other distractions facing people growing up today. He referenced the young people involved in the massacre at Tiananmen Square, Martin Luther King, Jr., and other people who moved mountains without the use of electronics. He urged the graduates to think about the irreplaceable and powerful value of human to human contact, conversation, and connection.
The second point hits home for me as someone who works in a middle school: Life, he says, is like junior high. Brokaw reflected on the statement that people always send to new graduates: “Welcome to the real world!” Brokaw says that they’ve already experienced the real world in junior high. The world is full of the same petty behaviors, emotionally-driven decision makers, bullies, and fly-by-night friendships. In their post-graduation worlds, they will have to navigate the same overwhelming environment that they were faced with when they were 12. It’s going to be tough and sometimes upsetting but the good news is, they will survive. And they’ll probably be better for it.
Listening to Dr. Brokaw speak, I agreed 100%. Sometimes I feel like our kids aren’t exposed enough to how “life” really works but then I realize, especially as I hear stories and discover truths about our students that I wish weren’t so, our kids live in a world that’s probably as real, if not more real, than mine. These college graduates will discover that colleagues will want to use one another to climb up social ladders. They’ll discover that unfair circumstances present themselves all the time. And they’ll discover that true friendships can emerge from it all. They now have the intelligence and experience to latch onto the good amongst all of the bad.
I’m happy that at this complicated moment in time, I’m a working professional and not a college graduate. But thinking back on those post-grad days I can’t help pondering: What if I could do it all again? Where would the winds take me?
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