Class of 2023 Grade 8 Commencement Speech: “Path”

Commencement speeches usually focus on the wisely chosen speaker sharing sage advice to guide the graduates’ future paths in life. However, as I created this address, I came to realize that this speech won’t offer any advice at all. Instead, it will focus on what I have observed about you, and what I have observed about you is that you are, and have always been, kindergarteners.

 

Now, who here knows the meaning of the word “kindergarten”? Excellent! What a wonderful demonstration of scholarship. As Jackson said, the word kindergarten means “children’s garden,” yes, and “garden of children.”

 

Frederich Froebel, the German educator who coined the term “kindergarten,” said, “Children are like tiny flowers; they are varied and need care, but each is beautiful alone and glorious when seen in the community of peers.” In a kindergarten, there is a joyful expectation that each and every child will blossom into a remarkable, splendid, breathtaking, beautiful flower. And that flower will never be the same as any other flower. And that flower will always be perfect! And that child will always be perfect.

 

Does this not describe you?

 

In kindergarten, there is no smartest, no most athletic, no most musical, there is no “most” at anything. No paths have been chosen. In fact, there are no paths. In kindergarten there is only rich, fertile ground.

 

In kindergarten, each child has limitless potential — there is an infinite number of paths to take or make. Somehow, by the time many kindergarteners arrive at 8th grade, they feel certain that they know exactly who they are and which path they will follow.

 

Perhaps they believe that they can see the road they will take, or perhaps others are showing them the road they want them to take.

 

The Spanish poet Antonio Machado writes, “Wanderer, your footsteps are the road, and nothing more; wanderer, there is no road, the road is made by walking.”

 

If we were to survey the adults here today and ask them if they grew to be the person they thought they would be when they were in, say, 8th grade, we might find that a significant number of them, myself included, took quite a different path from the one they expected to follow.

 

For those interested in my path, in 8th grade I decided — after much deep thought — that I was going to become … a … priest! However, the path that led me to who and where I am today included many unexpected stops along the way, including chef, furniture mover, bank teller, security guard, caddy, high school teacher, lower school teacher, brilliant outside shooter, gospel music producer, middle school teacher, math teacher, playwright, and educational neuroscience lecturer. I followed a path that I made myself.

 

My path made by my walking is what brings me here today.

 

Maybe it isn’t about which path to take, but rather the ability to accept a landscape where there are no paths until you create one. Until you decide where you want to go. Jon Stewart reminds us that in life, the entire place is an elective. Which leads us to something I am sure you are all familiar with … the Buddhist concept of shoshin. Oh really, not familiar?

 

First, let us be clear. I do not identify as Buddhist. However, like all spiritual practices, there is value in considering aspects of that practice.

 

Shoshin translates from the Japanese to basically mean “beginner’s mind.” In shoshin, or “beginner’s mind,” there are infinite possibilities. Shoshin requires a healthy dose of intellectual humility and the ability to say, with complete honesty, that I know nothing about anything. As you can imagine, fostering shoshin is extremely challenging.

 

What I find thrilling about you, the class of 2023, is that you have both a sense of shoshin as well as an inner kindergartener. The Cathedral School for Boys community witnesses your shoshin as well as your inner kindergartener in so much of what you do. You try every sport, join every club, support affinity groups, learn mahjong and cricket, participate in speech competitions, model UN, run for office, contribute to the betterment of communities both here and far away, and the list goes on and on.

 

I can speak from my personal experience with you — I have taught many of you since kindergarten — and I can testify to the fact that you and those who joined you over time have consistently demonstrated shoshin.

 

In preparing this year’s 8th grade musical, I was continually astounded by how many of you stepped up to act, sing, run tech, and dance, and, for most of you, it was for the first time. You approached the creation of our performance with a sense of adventure, curiosity, and, yes, shoshin, creating magical moments and indelible memories. “Peter, Who Writes in Spirals,” 2023, ranks, in my humble opinion, as the best musical the Cathedral School for Boys has ever staged, and it was the result of the neverending joy and belief in endless possibilities that you brought to the production. We witnessed two of you embracing the path of a lead character, someone who wrote in spirals, who was different. We marveled as 16 of you decked out in cowboy hats and flannel shirts, danced up a storm, and sang the praises of bent lines. We witnessed a formerly risk-averse 8th grader totally own the role of a flamboyant salesman. Three anti-line club members totally rocked it. And there was more. A “good-good” kindergarten teacher, students playing their own parents, 8th graders portraying caring, challenging science teachers, all supported by the best stage crew and tech team I have ever had the pleasure to yell at.

 

There is an exquisite element of shoshin in each one of you. Each of you is remarkable. Each of you is remarkable because you all have shoshin, the expectation of infinite possibility. You all have the spirit to be a lifelong kindergartener. For you, 8th grade, like kindergarten, was your place to go and grow.

 

Maybe it isn’t about which path to take but rather the ability to accept a landscape where there are no paths until you create one, until you decide where you want to go.

 

I would like to close with the words of the great 20th century American philosopher, Ellen Degeneres: “Follow your passion. Stay true to yourself. Never follow someone else's path unless you’re in the woods and you’re lost and you see a path; then, by all means, you should follow that.”

 

Yes, and don’t forget to be a kindergartener.

 

Thank you. Be safe.

 

— Sean Breen, Upper School Performing Arts