I AM very honored to have been chosen by the senior class as the keynote speaker for your graduation. It is the highest honor that I have received in my 15 years as an educator. I am delighted to have received this honor but there is a very serious problem.
Ms. Florine M. Hofschneider, principal of Tinian Junior and Senior High School, has informed me that Mrs. Lucia Blanco-Maratita will be the keynote speaker at your graduation. I feel that it would be improper for me to accept this honor that the Class of 2002 has bestowed on me. I have also been informed by Ms. Hofschneider that I will not even be able to prepare written remarks for your graduation because the graduation ceremony is put on for the graduates and not by them. It is very unfortunate that the tradition of having the senior class choose whom they would like to hear from at their graduation has been abrogated by your principal. Since I will not be allowed to participate in your graduation ceremony, I would like to leave these words with you.
I hope that your years of education have prepared you to take the large step that is needed to move “From Innocence, To Experience,” your graduation motto. Your education should have prepared you in three ways to move from your innocence of youth to the adult world of experience.
First, your education needed to give you the necessary skills for making your own decisions and a chance to practice these skills. Decision-making skills are only learned from modeling and practice. Students must be able to see how decisions are made, have the reasoning for making decisions explained to them, and given practice to make their own decisions.
As an educator, it is my job to explain why I have made certain decisions for your instruction in the classes for which I instruct. But at the same time, I must give you, the students, freedom to make your own decisions. I must give you opportunities to practice decision-making with guidance. As students progress in their education, they should need less and less guidance from “adults” in the making of decisions for their life.
Once you are out of school, you must be able to make decisions for yourself. You will not always have a teacher or your parents there to help you make some of the toughest decisions in your life. If you have decision-making skills and had practiced them, you will be able to successfully make those tough decisions. But remember you will also be the one that is responsible for every decision that you make.
This brings us to the second way that your education and childhood should have prepared you for taking the step “From Innocence To Experience.” The whole village, including educators, parents, politicians, business people and the church, needed to instill in you the basic beliefs and morals of the community. Without these basic beliefs and morals, you will not be able to make decisions that will help both you and the village. A decision must be based on something, and without basic beliefs and morals, what would you base your decisions on?
As an educator, I strongly believe that the only way someone can teach his or her beliefs and morals is by example. I must live what I believe and must base all of my actions on my morals. Without them, I am lost. I hope that I have been an example to you and that you have learned from me.
Finally, the last gift that education can give you is a life-long love for learning and the skills you need to learn your whole life. Life is a continuous learning process, and if you do not know how to learn, you will be quickly left behind. If your education has taken this gift of the love for life-long learning from you, we have failed. I hope that we have not failed the Class of 2002.
If we have taught you how to make decisions, instilled the necessary morals and beliefs to base your decisions on, and finally made you life-long learners, then we have succeeded in helping you take that step from innocence to experience.
“You are our future” is an old truism, but you are truly the future, and if we have not prepared you to take hold of that future, then we have failed. I believe that we have succeeded with Tinian Junior and Senior High School’s Class of 2002.
Go out into world and gain the experience that you need to become responsible citizens of the commonwealth and Tinian. I look forward to living in the future that is wrought by the experiences that you will gain and share with the rest of the world.HOWARD COLE
Former Instructor
Tinian High School
Marpo, Tinian
