High school teacher tells graduating students: you’re not special

[Manorite]

<p>

@lmkh70

I am personally insulted by his insults toward “Americans.” American’s do so much more for this world than any other country in this world. No other country does as much giving, charitable work, ANYTHING, than the US.

Are you talking about foreign aid? Because while we put out more foreign aid than any other country, when you make it per capita or as a percentage of GDP/budget, the US is not in the lead.</p>

<p>

@lmkh70

Honestly, I would rather see us do LESS for everyone else and a little more for ourselves.

Good message, I think you’re right, this should have gone in the speech. “Less for others, more for you.” The wealthy don’t get that enough.</p>

<p>

@lmkh70

Look where we were a few hundred years ago. Then look where the rest of the world was. Who has come the furthest?

True. In colonial times, we had the best health and standard of living on Earth, and now we’re obese and many other countries have better standards of living, even after many wars ravaged their lands.</p>

<p>Though we are richer than the Third World. Oh, we’re richer. And others are poorer! The US and its corporations are good at exploiting cheap labor in underdeveloped countries.</p>

<p>

@lmkh70

Who will be there offering aid at the next Tsunami? or other disaster that hurts and kills across the world? It will be us.

The UN, the Red Cross, and a collection of governments, including the United States. Japan’s disaster inspired aid from those who could obviously help, like the US and Europe, and even those who had to sacrifice more to give what they could, like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bolivia, and the Maldives (which remembered the devastation of the 2004 tsunami).</p>

<p>

@lmkh70

But who runs to our aid when we have a problem? No one. We are on our own. Fine.

This is just idiotic. When we’re in trouble, other countries (even poor countries and those we have called enemies) help us. When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, the following countries officially offered/sent governmental aid in the form of money, personnel (doctors, disaster relief, etc), and supplies (food, blankets, medication, oil): Afghanistan, Albania, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, The Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brunei, Cambodia, Canada, People’s Republic of China, Republic of China (Taiwan), Colombia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Finland, France, Gabon, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Republic of Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritania, Malta, Mexico, Mongolia, Nepal, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Vietnam, Yemen.</p>

<p>(In addition, Cuba immediately offered 1,586 doctors, 26 tons of medicine, and millions of dollars, and Venezuela offered one million barrels of oil, $7 million, and two mobile hospital units, but the US government rejected both offers for political reasons.)</p>

<p>

@lmkh70

Seriously, if a PERSON ran their life how the USA runs things…giving of themselves so much, doing so little for herself/himself, feeling like they can never do enough for others, then not doing enough to maintain himself/herself…what would we all say? That person would clearly need therapy and help to overcome this problem. But in the US…it is a way of life.

Yeah, because constantly acting to enrich yourself and assert personal dominance over all others, while sometimes giving to charity would make people think you should care more about yourself.</p>

<p>

@lmkh70

SO…basically, I am saying, I have a hard time with anyone who makes comments about American kids or Americans in general being spoiled, or coddled, or otherwise.

SO… basically, I am saying, you need to be educated.</p>

[bleach340]

<p>Roger_Dooley I must say sir you are the first person on collegeconfidential to make me laugh my *** off.</p>

[busdriver11]

<p>“SO… basically, I am saying, you need to be educated.”</p>

<p>Jeez, I guess the kids can be happy they didn’t hear lecture on post #41 instead. Apparently if you think this is a great and wonderful country that ought to spend more time taking care of it’s own citizens, you need to be educated how completely selfish, destructive and evil we truly are? Dang, don’t think I’ve seen so much anti-American hatred for a long time. There’s being realistic about things and having your eyes wide open, and then there’s just self loathing. That makes me sad.</p>

[Manorite]

<p>

@busdriver11

Apparently if you think this is a great and wonderful country that ought to spend more time taking care of it’s own citizens, you need to be educated how completely selfish, destructive and evil we truly are?

Actually, educated on the topics covered at large by my post. Namely that, per capita, we do not give the most foreign aid, and that claiming that other countries don’t help us when we’re in trouble is an affront to the generosity of countries all over the world. I did not say that we were selfish, but that we were not too selfless, and that we could give more (we can). I did not say that the US is evil, and I recognized the foreign aid contributions it makes, simply refuting false claims.</p>

<p>

@busdriver11

Dang, don’t think I’ve seen so much anti-American hatred for a long time.

It’s anti-American to say that we’re not the best country ever, that we don’t dominate the field of foreign aid, that others help us, and that there’s still much more we could give? Though, given the things that are and have been “American,” being anti-American isn’t always bad.</p>

<p>

@busdriver11

There’s being realistic about things and having your eyes wide open, and then there’s just self loathing. That makes me sad.

Again, I don’t see what’s “loathing” about what I wrote. Unless one is of a “love it or leave it” mind and buys into the blind tribalism that says that the country you’re born in is the best country ever in everything, a recognition of the importance of helping others and the positive actions of the rest of the world is a good thing.</p>

<p>The post I was responding to surmised that US foreign aid meant that rich kids in the US are never spoiled or coddled. In addition to a full logical failure in that argument, much of what it claimed was false. I set about to correct that. If it made you sad, that’s unfortunate.</p>

[eastcoascrazy]

<p>People, people, people… Lighten up!</p>

<p>It was a light hearted speech aimed at one particular group of people, who, by all accounts found it appropriate and as funny as it was intended to be. </p>

<p>Personally, in my little neck of upper middle class but not part of the one percent, the speech was a hilarious commentary of the life I see around me. Kids around here ARE swaddled, tutored, bubble wrapped, urged… All out of love. We can afford to laugh at ourselves. That speech would have been gotten a standing ovation at our high school.</p>

<p>Of course this speech would be inappropriate given at an urban magnet school. Or at a school mired in poverty, or at a school where actually graduating from high school IS something to celebrate. But the speech wasn’t given there.</p>

<p>I doubt Mr. McCoullough (sp?) was thinking about our standing within the international community or our efforts in international aid when he wrote the speech.</p>

[QuantMech]

<p>Still can’t access the text of the speech itself, in full. Is it available on any other site?</p>

[college_query]

<p>Boston Herald has it on their site:</p>

<p>[You’re</a> Not Special - BostonHerald.com](<a href=“http://bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1061137286]You’re”>http://bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1061137286)</p>

[Pizzagirl]

<p>Quote:
"If this were a lower/working-class high school, it would be a bad message, but for wealthy students who probably have an overinflated sense of self, it’s good that at least one adult around them didn’t play along.
If he made that speech at my urban public magnet where most kids were working/lower-middle class kids like myself…the parents and the alumni association would take great umbrage and campaign to get the offending teacher fired or at least…put on notice that his behavior is tone deaf considering the socio-economic contexts of most students. "</p>

<p>Cobrat, you would do well to remember that your high school isn’t all that special. Because you constantly go on about it in a way that suggests that we all should give special consideration to it, its alums and social norms. 30,000 Hs in the US - yours is just one.</p>

[kayf]

<p>How about at a board of ed meeting, the board get up and tell the teachers, in front of their friends and family, that they are not special? Does this teacher not understand wrong time, wrong place? Of course, when you are civil service, there is no wrong time, wrong place.</p>

[coase]

<p>

Busdriver, I agree with you. This guy comes off as an arrogant guy who thinks he is special. Thinks his pension that exceeds what the private sector gives is due to his being special.

</p>

<p>I would have thought that his feeling specal (if he does) would derive from having a dad who was a member of Skull and Bones at Yale, won two Pulitzer prizes, and was commercially successful as a historian. DM Jr. knows of what he speaks. Or it could be because of the size of his high school teacher’s pension.</p>

[kayf]

<p>Wow, coase, if that is true, I hope they give this guy every disagreeable job they can give him (of course the union will control that) - but I am thinking bus duty at 8 am on 10 degree days, etc.</p>

[emeraldkity4]

<p>I don’t generally remember graduation speeches.
But the one given at my oldest high school graduation ceremony resonated with me.
Her school was small, and quite a few of the students had this biology teacher for several subjects. She is a very dedicated teacher, the year D graduated, she had been undergoing chemotherapy, but an extended treatment, to allow her to still teach.
She was the inspiration for my D to earn her biology degree, and to work towards her masters in teaching which she will recieve next week.
Just an excerpt, from around the middle of the speech.

</p>

<p>The First Corollary to the Fairness Postulate: Life isn’t supposed to be fair. When life was designed, fairness was not in the specs. Fairness is not a quality that life had in some Golden Age past, or that it might acquire in an Utopian future. Life falls down on all of us without regard to who we are or what we deserve.</p>

<p>A few years ago I went one evening to a meeting at the Temple de Hirsch Sinai. The speaker was the woman who tried to save Anne Frank and her family by hiding them in that attic. After she spoke, the audience asked her questions, and one question was, “If you could tell parents and teachers one thing you wished they would teach all our children, what would that be?” Her answer was this: “Teach our children that terrible things sometimes happen to people through no fault of their own. Otherwise children grow up thinking people deserve their misfortunes.”</p>

<p>I think you could argue from the first corollary to the fairness postulate that the basis of human compassion is a full understanding that life is not built fair and therefore we must be kind to each other.</p>

<p>The Second Corollary to the Fairness Postulate: The statement “life isn’t fair” is not a complaint. It makes as much sense to complain that life isn’t fair as to complain that grass isn’t orange. Really getting this postulate means not being disappointed in life because it fails to be fair.</p>

<p>Justice and compassion are another matter. These are qualities that HUMANS are supposed to have, and the statement “Humans are unjust” is a valid complaint. Forget fairness. Work for justice, and don’t require of life that it be fair for you to love it.

</p>

<p>I am from the cohort who believes that everyone is special, therefore we all are chosen to give 100% percent.</p>

[cobrat]

<p>

@Pizzagirl

Cobrat, you would do well to remember that your high school isn’t all that special. Because you constantly go on about it in a way that suggests that we all should give special consideration to it, its alums and social norms. 30,000 Hs in the US - yours is just one.

</p>

<p>You sound like many upper/upper-middle class suburban parents I’ve encountered who either assume all high schools are the same or worse, suburban public/private schools are automatically better than urban publics…including magnets. </p>

<p>It’s one reason why like that English teacher if he was dumb enough to try delivering that speech at my HS, you’d come across as nothing more than a sheltered out-of-touch upper/upper-middle class suburbanite and ignored/mocked/pranked accordingly by the student body and alums.</p>

[bovertine]

<p>^^^
You graduated high school in the 1990s and still mention your “urban public elite magnet high school” in probably over 75% of your posts (I don’t know exactly how many but it is a constant topic of your posting). That’s what she is commenting about. It strikes me as bizarre as well.</p>

<p>Edit: Oh, I forgot, that’s "elite public magnet urban selective high school. Wouldn’t want to drop an adjective.</p>

[busdriver11]

<p>“Actually, educated on the topics covered at large by my post.”</p>

<p>You couldn’t resist adding some additional education in there, could you? Such as, “this should have gone in the speech. “Less for others, more for you.” The wealthy don’t get that enough.” Or, “In colonial times, we had the best health and standard of living on Earth, and now we’re obese.” And, “Though we are richer than the Third World. Oh, we’re richer. And others are poorer! The US and its corporations are good at exploiting cheap labor in underdeveloped countries.” And, “Yeah, because constantly acting to enrich yourself and assert personal dominance over all others, while sometimes giving to charity would make people think you should care more about yourself.”</p>

<p>So you apparently also needed to educate lmkh of your opinion that we are fat, selfish, and greedy…which is what I call self loathing. It is possible to dispute and try to clarify others points without adding belittling statements that are unrelated to the point you are supposedly trying to make. Unless, of course, our contemptible status as Americans is so ingrained in your philosophy that you cannot even recognize it.</p>

<p>For example, I can add to your statement about foreign aid, by saying that the number of dollars that our government gives in foreign aid is greatly helped by the personal charitable donations of millions of American citizens. In fact, I recall reading that Americans give over double the percentage of their income as the next most charitable country, which is Britain. See how I did that? It can be done that without insulting anyone or calling them idiotic.</p>

[Manorite]

<p>

You couldn’t resist adding some additional education in there, could you? Such as, “this should have gone in the speech. “Less for others, more for you.” The wealthy don’t get that enough.”

I did want to stress how terrible it sounded to say that we should give less to others and keep more for ourselves.</p>

<p>

Or, “In colonial times, we had the best health and standard of living on Earth, and now we’re obese.”

The poster said to look at where we were a few hundred years ago and where we are now, and a few hundred years ago we were the healthiest and had the best standard of living, and now most adults are either overweight or obese, and we no longer have the best standard of living. Again, a response to the post insinuating something that was not true.</p>

<p>

And, “Though we are richer than the Third World. Oh, we’re richer. And others are poorer! The US and its corporations are good at exploiting cheap labor in underdeveloped countries.”

Yes, it is fact that rich countries have built their wealth in part by exploiting labor and resources in poor countries. I wanted to point out that the US didn’t magically generate its wealth independent from others. The US and other rich countries have caused a lot of problems in poor countries, so helping them fix things is the least we should do.</p>

<p>

And, “Yeah, because constantly acting to enrich yourself and assert personal dominance over all others, while sometimes giving to charity would make people think you should care more about yourself.”

The United States is a country. Countries act primarily to advance their own interests. All countries. The United States acts to enrich itself (as do all countries) and often asserts its military dominance around the world. Again, this was a counter to the picture of the US as some kind of selfless martyr doing nothing for itself.</p>

<p>

So you apparently also needed to educate lmkh of your opinion that we are fat, selfish, and greedy…which is what I call self loathing.

No, the point of the fat thing was that we haven’t come the farthest in the last few hundred years. And all countries are selfish entities; I didn’t say the US was greedier than all others, merely that it often acts to enrich itself (or do we not “protect our interests abroad”?). </p>

<p>(By the way, even if I did loath the United States, it wouldn’t be self-loathing.)</p>

<p>

It is possible to dispute and try to clarify others points without adding belittling statements that are unrelated to the point you are supposedly trying to make.

My point was that just about everything in that post was false, along with the general ideas that we dominate foreign aid, we have come the furthest in the last few hundred years, and that we are too selfless.</p>

<p>

Unless, of course, our contemptible status as Americans is so ingrained in your philosophy that you cannot even recognize it.

Again, all countries act in largely the same way (in these matters at least), seeking to advance their interests constantly, then offering aid to other countries when tragedy strikes. I did not call that behavior contemptible, I just pointed out that the US does not give too much. I did not attack “Americans,” but rather the idea that we should give less to others and keep more for ourselves.</p>

<p>

For example, I can add to your statement about foreign aid, by saying that the number of dollars that our government gives in foreign aid is greatly helped by the personal charitable donations of millions of American citizens. In fact, I recall reading that Americans give over double the percentage of their income as the next most charitable country, which is Britain.

I can’t find a source for that; all I could turn up was a NYT article citing a study that says poor Americans give much more of their income to charity than well-off Americans. If you have a study for this, I’d be happy to read it. And if it’s true, then it means that American donations are even more important, and should not be scaled back. But then, I never said anything about American citizens, as what was being discussed was governments.</p>

<p>

See how I did that? It can be done that without insulting anyone or calling them idiotic.

I called a statement idiotic, because it was blatantly false. Saying that no one comes to the aid of the US when we’re in trouble is an affront to the generosity of countries all around the world (even those demonized by the US) who came to our aid after Hurricane Katrina. It was clearly not researched and claimed only because it helped advance the idea that the US is some kind of overgenerous martyr, which simply isn’t true.</p>

<p>And perhaps you didn’t insult me, but you have been constructing strawmen out of my lack of blind patriotism.</p>

[busdriver11]

<p>Well Manorite, I guess I’ll just have to settle for disagreeing with you, as this entire argument is getting pretty far off topic.</p>

<p>But I suspect that the gut reaction that compels you to dispute any semblance of “blind patriotism” is similar to my gut reaction to defend against statements that sound purely contemptuous. I realize you do not recognize that in your arguments, and it is unlikely that anything I point out will change it.</p>

[QuantMech]

<p>Thanks for the working link, college_query. I thought the speech improved greatly starting at about the point “If you’ve learned anything in your years here . . .”</p>

<p>I totally fail to see the point of the gratuitous slap at weddings. The rest of the early part of the speech could have been ditched as well, in my opinion.</p>

<p>After a few years, a teacher ought to be able to recognize the anxiety that underlies the helicoptering, on the parts of both parents and children. Regarding the students as pampered and cosseted is just looking at the surface.</p>

[Bay]

<p>The speech rubbed me the wrong way, first because it sounded so cynical and thus uninspiring, and second because I believe competitive high school administrators and teachers are just as guilty of emphasizing activity and achievement for the singular purpose of padding college resumes. I cannot say how many times I’ve heard them start conversations with, “Colleges like to see…ECs, rigorous course selection, lots of volunteer hours, blah blah blah.” I honestly cannot remember a teacher/administrator encouraging students to do those things because of their intrinsic value.</p>

[limabeans01]

<p>I have come to the conclusion that CCr’s can debate ANYTHING! A high school commencement speech, really?</p>

<p>That’s why I love it :)</p>