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 COMMUNITY COMMITMENT
CSUB School of Education Commencement Speech
One of the greatest achievements of graduation is sitting through the Commencement exercises.
A commencement address is usually delivered by someone who commenced a long time ago and whose audience waits hopefully for the finish. It is supposed to offer some words of wisdom or inspiration to young people about to commence their next phase of mortal existence. With the shape the world keeps getting itself into the thought keeps occurring to me that the new generation might do best to work up its own helping of conventional wisdom.
Despite the tremendous advances in education which make this, I truly believe, the finest generation yet, I must carry to you the sad news which many of you have already heard that you are all doomed to have more schooling - this time in the school of experience. As a graduate of the school of experience I am called upon here and now to welcome you to the challenge and opportunity to commence a lifetime of hard but ennobling work.
I envy you. You are going to be teachers. You will have great power
to change the world. As teachers, you will lead the charge into the future.
Not the designer of futuristic cars, not even the finder of a cure for
cancer can match your opportunity to awaken the curiosity, creativity and
self-discipline of our children. It is the future of our children that we live for -
not the lines of our cars or even a longer life for ourselves.
Yours is the transcendental role. Inspire our children to learn from our
past but to escape its shackles. Inspire them to be the best that they can be.
Inspire them to learn. Inspire them to care about others and to be proud of
themselves. It is your role to be the fountainhead of inspiration.
To achieve these goals takes preparation. The Cal-State Bakersfield
School of Education has done a fine job of preparing you thus far. But the
effort to be prepared must be a continuing one. It is your obligation to make
sure that you are prepared every day, every year for your career. The
difference between a well-prepared and a poorly-prepared teacher is crucial.
As Mark Twain said, "It's the difference between a lightning bug and
lightning". The amount of enlightenment you provide to your students will be
directly proportional to your preparation. Every day, every presentation you
make, every child you encounter is important. Continued preparation is your
destiny.
I'm so grateful that I could be a part of your Commencement Day.
Some of you may feel a real glow of accomplishment, some an equally
satisfying sense of relief and some of you may even be a bit uncertain about
what lies ahead. That all goes with the territory. I'm a good bit older and I
confess that I begin each day much that same way - remembering good things
from the past, relieved to have gotten through some of the not so good things
and wondering what's coming next.
It's scary to look ahead and even with the best preparation we can make
not know all the answers. If education has any single goal it is to
encourage people to ask questions and to know how to search for the answers.
What a wonderful challenge and opportunity you have to inspire this as a
teacher.
I salute your accomplishments and I challenge you to be a teacher.
 Symphony Needs Hall, Study Finds
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