Although not a severe as last year, this year's mitigation plan for graduation had the ceremony take place out on the football field with socially distant spacing for the students. While the wind made it a bit colder than I would have preferred, I still feel that the graduation ceremony went quite well. The keynote speaker was Nathan Erfurth, my friend and colleague, who gave a fantastic address that brought up three concepts he tells his students. Paraphrased, they were:
1. People are people, and thus all people are deserving of compassion and understanding.
2. Our words have power--both to uplift and to hurt, so we need to take care in how we use them.
And 3. Our lives are books in library filled with the books that tell the stories of every other person. We are the main characters in our books, but we need to consider how we are portrayed in other people's books as well.
I hope that the students and spectators there took those concepts to heart. I've known this Class of 2021 since they were 7th graders as they were students at Skyview for both of the years that I worked there. It has been privilege to watch them grow into the young people that they have become. Hopefully, their time in the classrooms of their teachers have helped to prepare them for this everchanging world, while also better understanding their own humanity and the humanity in others.
1. People are people, and thus all people are deserving of compassion and understanding.
2. Our words have power--both to uplift and to hurt, so we need to take care in how we use them.
And 3. Our lives are books in library filled with the books that tell the stories of every other person. We are the main characters in our books, but we need to consider how we are portrayed in other people's books as well.
I hope that the students and spectators there took those concepts to heart. I've known this Class of 2021 since they were 7th graders as they were students at Skyview for both of the years that I worked there. It has been privilege to watch them grow into the young people that they have become. Hopefully, their time in the classrooms of their teachers have helped to prepare them for this everchanging world, while also better understanding their own humanity and the humanity in others.
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