Convocation 2013

 

It has been three weeks since I left Cincinnati—and not a single blog post? Oh, dear readers, if you are a longtime blog follower you know that coming back to Jordan and the resumption of the duties and meetings is a juggernaut! But, seriously, in this beginning of our seventh year at KA, things have been smooth and well-run, from the first senior staff meeting, to the workshop with heads of department, the new faculty busy-ness, returning faculty, and finally the student orientations, both old and new. There might have been blog posts, but when things run smoothly, somehow it seem less interesting! I have re-read some old blog posts from the beginning of the school in 2007—when it was all new and untried. Admittedly, those make for more compelling reading. But while things are sharpened and tightened and more stable every year, I should not fail to discuss the wonder they still provide.

Anyway, here we have the first blog post of this school year. I am cheating a little bit since the bulk of this prose is not a blog post but a speech I gave last week. The speech came last Wednesday afternoon, at the conclusion of our first real day of school. And by real I mean that on Wednesday we have a complete day. The day before we have mini-classes where we run through a school day with 10-minute classes so that everyone can have a good dry run at the dress code, walking the halls, finding rooms, having intros to classes, and get an overview picture of the day.

John Austin had asked me to speak to the school and formally inaugurate the school year. What a pleasure! While a little daunting and scary to speak to the school, I do love enjoy exploring what kinds of things might help us better frame the next nine months of work. So when I stood in front of the 481 students and 100 faculty and administrators, here is what I offered them:

 



"Way, way back in June, just a few days after I got back to the United States from Jordan, I went to my college for a reunion. One night, some friends and I stayed up late, and one wondered, “What was it that was so great about our time in college?” Another friend quickly said, “There were no rules!” My group of friends decided that after a couple weeks, that really wasn’t that big of a deal anymore. One wise friend said,“It was so great because we felt empowered! Our teachers helped empower us to tackle hard projects and do incredible thinking and work.” As we savored the nostalgic memory of those college days of feeling empowered, another friend turned to me and said, “Hey, John, you teach grades 9-12. Are those kids empowered? Can it happen in high school, or do you have to wait until college for that kind of empowerment?”

I loved the question. And having taught for a quarter century now I can say, it can happen in grades 9-12. It doesn’t always happen. But it can. This concept of empowerment, of you seizing control of how you learn, and mastering a subject is possible in high school. And it is so very important for you all to know that empowerment is the key to success.

I want to show you an art work that I teach in my course around the end of February, but this is a great image for each of us to ponder today. Let’s look at this painting… [above the blog post you will see Caspar David Friedrich’s painting Wanderer Above The Fog]


When this comes up in my course, we discuss how it fits into the historic time, but my favorite thing about teaching this painting, is promising my class something: I promise them that if they work hard, study, and take risks, on the day of the AP test, and more importantly, for many days after, they will feel like this man! Take a closer look at him. He has just trudged up a mountain. He is standing at the summit, taking in everything around him. He is above all the work, the labor, the hard times he endured to get to this peak. You know, we can’t see his face, but I would imagine sweat drips off his face. He has just trudged up a mountain—he probably has sweat stains! This has not been an easy task. But I promise my class that if they seek ways to grow and learn as scholars, they will earn the right to be on top of the mountain.

Last year when I taught this painting, a student said something quite remarkable. I have taught this art work for 10 years, but students who try hard are always saying things that I still haven’t heard before! The class commented about this man’s accomplishment and how he had empowered himself to get to this point. The student last year said, “But look, even as he takes in all he accomplished—he sees there are more peaks yet to conquer!” Think about this—this man is going to go back down the mountain and do it again, and rise even higher at another peak.

On our first formal day of class this year, I not only encourage you, but I urge you to work for your empowerment this year. And I am talking to the faculty as well—when your teachers feel empowered to seek excellence, to seek more effective techniques and strategies in the classroom, and if they continue to seek their empowerment, you will only do all the better.

I have an office in the math wing upstairs. I encourage you to come by and talk to me about your own personal empowerment. Come by on days when you feel empowered and tell me how and why you feel empowered. And come by on days when you don’t feel empowered and tell me how and why you do.

And all this talk is not just about grades. One could say that the fate of the world is in the balance of your empowerment. That’s a dramatic statement, I know, but His Majesty founded this school so that you might solve the problems of Jordan. The only way you will ever do that is if you feel empowered, if you can climb up those mountains of yours and then set your sights on reaching another, new peak. If your teachers are empowered, you will be more empowered. If you are more empowered, you will find those other peaks around you in Jordan, and I daresay the world, and your empowerment might solve some very real problems.

I want to share a few lines of a poem that I like a lot. Here are the opening lines:

Human beings suffer,
they torture one another,
they get hurt and get hard.
No poem or play or song
can fully right a wrong
inflicted and endured…

History says, Don't hope
on this side of the grave.



Are those not the most depressing words ever???????

Suffer! Torture! History says, life will be bad! But it is reality isn’t it? We don’t have to travel very far to find suffering and torture. Okay, here is the next word of the poem:

But

 


What kind of a word is that?? What does that ‘but’ do????? That word can turn everything on its ear. That word can change the course of suffering and history’s proclamation of despair.

Let’s read four more lines in that poem:

 

But then, once in a lifetime
the longed for tidal wave
of justice can rise up,
and hope and history rhyme.

There it is! That last line is what His Majesty wants in us. He wants us to look at the world around us, see all the disasters that there are, and he wants us to say, “But!” and when we are like that guy on the mountaintop, that empowered man, standing with the world at his feet, we might accomplish what the King wants. We might in that beautiful phrase, we might be empowered enough to make “hope and history rhyme.”

Let this be the year when each of us works harder than before and each of us trudges up a mountain. Nine months from tomorrow, on Graduation Day, I hope each senior can feel like that guy in the painting. Let each of us work for that empowerment this year. Let us work so that we not only endure the year, or passively do work, but that we have empowered ourselves, triumphed, and look excited for the next peak. Let’s take the next 9 months and seriously work on that empowerment."