<p>agree with boondocks. a zen, non-dual speech. stressing humility and compassion. very healthy things for kids to consider.</p>
<p>Boondocks, you and I saw the same video. Thank you for your comments.</p>
<p>Another snippet from McCulloughs speech:</p>
<p>[David</a> McCullough at Wellesley Commencement: ?You Are Not Special? (Video) - The Daily Beast](<a href=“David McCullough at Wellesley Commencement: ‘You Are Not Special’ (Video)”>David McCullough at Wellesley Commencement: ‘You Are Not Special’ (Video))</p>
<p>I urge you to do whatever you do for no reason other than you love it and believe in its importance.</p>
<p>In an interview on CBS News, McCullough said that he was trying to say to the kids (and if you watch his speech, youll understand that he did say this) was, Selflessness is the best thing you can do for yourself. That the planet needs them. That if the privileged kids, the kids who have enjoyed every advantage, dont step up, then what chance do we have? Care for your community. Care for your family.</p>
<p>Heres the interview from CBS News (youll have to watch a minute or so of other stuff before you get to him):</p>
<p>[David</a> McCullough Jr.’s commencement address: You’re Not Special - BostonHerald.com](<a href=“http://bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/20120607youre_not_special]David”>http://bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/20120607youre_not_special)</p>
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<p>I just watched as much as they showed on cnn.com. He seems to be sneering at the kids.</p>
<p>I read the speech. I think what he is saying is that everyone has the innate ability to be special and to make an impact on others and the world and that this fact must be appreciated. If everyone realized this and in the words of Ignatius truly became ‘people for others’ we the world would indeed be a better place.</p>
<p>Trip and Muffy are not ‘special’ simply because they grew up in a wealthy community and mommy and daddy have done everything in their power to help them along. These kids are now at least somewhat on their own and must make a difference themselves. </p>
<p>Let’s see how they do. He had big ones to make a speech like this is. not a PC message and more likely than not, more than a few parents in town are calling the Superintendent calling for his head. </p>
<p>I respect his courage and his message is very well written and conveyed.</p>
<p>I definitely got the impression he relished saying what he did. (He managed to get a few stabs in at modern brides as well.)
He sounded snarky and the encouraging parts of the speech seemed to be an afterthought. The real message was to take the kids down a peg or two. I also have a sneaking suspicion that the adults who applauded his message were thinking that ‘he wasn’t referring to my kid.’ I’m not sure all the kids deserved that kind of a take-down on graduation day.</p>
<p>I think this says a lot about the speaker:</p>
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<p>Is he happy and fullfilled, being a long time HS English teacher and enduring a life time of comparison with his Pulitzer Prize winning father? Does he feel like he has carped the heck out of the diem?</p>
<p>My H is definitely on the “this is the coddled, entitled generation” bandwagon, but I’m not. Kids know the score, even if we don’t keep score. </p>
<p>When my son’s 4th grade soccer team didn’t make a goal all season, trust me, receiving a participation certificate at the end of season pizza party did not make them think they were good soccer players. </p>
<p>When your daughter in the back row of all the dances, walking across the stage at dance recital to receive her 5 year participation trophy does not make her think she’s a good dancer. </p>
<p>Receiving the “Most Inspirational Player” award does not take away the sting of spending the season on the bench and no, the kid does not expect to make Varsity next year.</p>
<p>I think that our generation has heaped on the praise and awards because many of us were treated badly by the adults in our lives. Telling a young boy “you throw like a girl” in front of the other boys in gym class was meant to hurt and it did. So we told ourselves that we would not behave that way as adults and now we pay therapists and hand out participation awards. It’s all for us, but I don’t think it hurts the kids.</p>
<p>Why do you think Mr. McCollough ISN’T happy and fullfilled as a high school English teacher, missypie? Why should his father’s professional success make him unhappy?</p>
<p>My own father was a physician, as are several of my cousins. My husband is a physician, as is his brother, his father, his uncle and his grandfather. Do you believe that my son will be crippled by his familial history if he chooses to teach high school biology?</p>
<p>I have no reason to believe he (Mr. McCollough) is anything other than an exceedingly well liked teacher at that high school. The senior class asked him to speak. Do you have knowledge of him being anything other than happy and successful in his chosen profession?</p>
<p>I am appalled by the ignorance of a few posters here, such as ClassicRockDad or Crankoldman, and the ones who threw ad hominems making assumptions about McCullough’s status as a late baby boomer. </p>
<p>There is no sense of self defeating nihilism at all within the speech. This is not Fight Club.</p>
<p>" You are not special, because everyone is. "</p>
<p>How hard hard is that to understand? He’s not telling kids that they will never amount to anything. He’s just trying to disinflate their egos (he’s addressing the wealthy kids of a fell funded public school). He’s saying, “Don’t think just because you’re the class president you’ll succeed in life”, because there are 37,000 other class presidents. You may be a talented individual, but there are many other talented individuals.</p>
<p>It’s only through recognizing that you have A LOT of room for improvement. Everyone does. Yes, that’s right, everyone. Even the class president. Even the valedictorian.</p>
<p>As a WHS grad, I can honestly say that he’s arguably the most loved teacher at the school. If anything, he’s the platonic ideal of a good high school teacher - one who both loves kids, and loves teaching, and is loved by his students. People should not try to apply his message in other contexts, because he never intended to write it for others. It was made in 26 years of teaching wealthy suburban kids.</p>
<p>I suggest watching the speech and understanding it in its context before making some poor, misinformed, and ultimately meaningless accusations.</p>
<p>I don’t know if he’s happy or not. But I think it would be difficult for an English teacher to spend his life as “son of Pulitzer Prize winning parent.”</p>
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<p>I think it would be difficult for a physician to work at a Doc in a Box if his father had won the Nobel Prize in Medicine.</p>
<p>But don’t mind me. I’m just playing amateur psychologist for my own amusement.</p>
<p>I disagree. I believe teaching is a noble profession. After all, these are the people you are trusting your kids with. These are the people who fill your kids with intellectual passion, and a thirst for learning, and hopefully a desire to become an educated and contributing member of society. The Pulitzer Prize winning parent agrees, [David</a> McCullough on the importance of teachers - YouTube](<a href=“David McCullough on the importance of teachers - YouTube”>David McCullough on the importance of teachers - YouTube). </p>
<p>I don’t understand why people must make these inferences that add little to discussion about the point raised in the speech, which ironically enough, discusses our obsession with accolades. And this obsession, which you can blatantly see in people comparing Mr. McCullough Jr. to a Pulitzer Prize winner, is definitely a problem.</p>
<p>For well-off suburban kids, a background of which I was a part of, we need to be above our own insecurities. We shouldn’t be afraid to fail, fall off, and get hurt. </p>
<p>Hypothetically speaking, imagine the executives at Goldman Sachs, the ones who went to a grade inflated Ivy and started running a corporation that was too big to fail. Do you want these people, so accustomed to success, to be in charge of the transactions of billions of dollars going around the world? Don’t you think they thought they were special? And how did that ended up?</p>
<p>I think McCullough’s caveat, “You’re not special”, is an appropriate one. It’s a message that especially rings true for the many kids there going to Ivy Leagues. After all, "an elite education inculcates a false sense of self-worth. " (<a href=“http://theamericanscholar.org/the-disadvantages-of-an-elite-education[/url]”>The American Scholar: A Beautiful Vision - <a href='https://theamericanscholar.org/author/rebecca-gaal/'>Rebecca Gaal</a>) </p>
<p>“Students from elite schools expect success, and expect it now. They have, by definition, never experienced anything else, and their sense of self has been built around their ability to succeed. The idea of not being successful terrifies them, disorients them, defeats them. They’ve been driven their whole lives by a fear of failure—often, in the first instance, by their parents’ fear of failure. The first time I blew a test, I walked out of the room feeling like I no longer knew who I was.”</p>
<p>“But if you’re afraid to fail, you’re afraid to take risks, which begins to explain the final and most damning disadvantage of an elite education: that it is profoundly anti-intellectual.”</p>
<p>By the way, Rush Limbaugh is claiming to have given a similar commencement address:</p>
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<p>My point in bringing up the teacher’s father is that when I looked up the transcript of the speech, there was a reference to his father. He couldn’t be just the teacher, he had to be identified in the press with reference to his award winning father.</p>
<p>Wasn’t the speaker chosen by the students?</p>
<p>His speech was terrific.</p>
<p>Now the helicopter parents can let go…let’s hope they haven’t started building their new helo flight pads on the roof of the dorm…</p>
<p>Ad hominen attacks, NeoClassic? Let’s see, you denounce the “ignorance” of those who disagree with you, while dismissing their points as “poor, misinformed, and ultimately meaningless”. Glad to see you’re staying above it all.</p>
<p>It’s clear that the greater weight of respondents view the speech favorably, and they generally fall into two camps:
- The “stick it to 'em” camp of Marbles 44, where everyone is named Trip or Muffy(a wonderfully invidious set of names, I’ll admit), and compliments the speaker on having
“big ones”(big ones of what isn’t specified; do these “big ones” come in pairs? threes? fours?) and then it trots out the Scourge of All Humanity and Everything That is Holy-the lawyers! And don’t forget the speaker wasn’t “PC”-whatever that all-purpose term now means. And inconsistent with all else, Marbles then invokes St. Ignatius(!) to justify this less than charitable attitude toward the audience of the speech. Maybe I missed the “How to Stick it to 'Em” chapter in The Spiritual Exercises.
The subset of this group is delighted that the benighted parents of these graduates will feel some discomfort(see countless posts above-helicopter parents being put in their place, etc).</p>
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<li>The second camp(yes NeoClassic, that’s you) praises the speaker’s insight, forgetting both a. he’s a guy who’s led a cushy life giving essentially nonesensical advice to those who he believes have had an even cushier life, so he feels it necessary to insult his audience, particularly focusing on GRADE SCHOOL experiences to make his point; and b his moment of profundity makes. no. sense.: “You’re not special. Everyone is special.” Bit of a logical inconsistency there, wouldn’t you agree? Although trotting out the Ivy League to further class warfare is a nice touch, I’ll admit. That the graduates are wealthy and privileged is often mentioned by those supporting the speech’s profundity; I guess these folks need a few insults to send 'em out into the world.</li>
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<p>So it’s not a great speech-it’s actually an exercise in letting everyone know how special the speaker is-but hey, those in favor-You Won! There are far more posts in favor than against</p>
<p>One of my kids had the incredible good fortune to be a student in David McCollough’s 10th grade English class. Those of you who are speculating about his motives, character, or frustration as the allegedly underachieving son of an accomplished national treasure are just flat out wrong. Mr. McCollough is universally beloved by students and parents precisely because he is dependably straight with them and at the same time funny as all get out-a combination that comes as a welcome relief for adolescents who are growing up in a community that values achievement far more than curiosity or generosity. Watch the video–the kids are loving what he has to say but frankly he could be reading the yellow pages and they would be equally enthralled. The man is a gifted, giving educator and it says a lot for the students that they understand his no bull approach (and, not incidentally, his ability to make virtually any text magical and to teach virtually any kid to write confidently and persuasively) comes from his genuine love for his subject and his students.</p>
<p>My kids attended a competitive high school, and I tell you, they were not sheltered in the least from being put in their places. These types of high schools can eat you up; the competition for everything, from academics to athletics to social status is ruthless. If anything, these kids are hyperaware that there is almost always someone more “special” than they.</p>
<p>Once you graduate from high school and leave the nest, there are very few times (if ever) in your life that anyone will call you “special.” If hearing it as kids makes them feel loved and valued, I think that is a good thing.</p>
<p>P.S.
After watching the video, I still think the slam on weddings was weird and gratuitous, and not helpful to young people who will be grappling with their own weddings in the not too distant future.</p>
<p>I haven’t speculated on McCullough’s motivations, means of dealing with his father’s fame, personality, or other personal features.</p>
<p>I just think it was not a particularly helpful graduation speech, nor was it particularly inspiring. Imagine the young version of my family friend mentioned above (who was genuinely heroic during the Rape of Nanjing), listening to this talk. Do you think it would be a good send-off for her? </p>
<p>I am willing to try the experiment, to see whether the speech comes off differently when it is heard, rather than being read, by a person who has previously read the speech. I will do this when time permits.</p>
<p>Don’t give in, crankyoldman! I have heard a story about a vote by Abraham Lincoln’s cabinet, in which Lincoln voted in the affirmative and everyone else in the room was opposed. Lincoln announced, “The ayes have it.”</p>
<p>I am glad that the people who know McCullough liked the speech. I imagine he regrets that it went viral. Or maybe not. </p>
<p>I live in an upper middle class suburban area with a high-pressure hot-house school. I agree with Bay, that the students are not sheltered from being put down. My self-esteem was much better preserved in the factory town where I grew up. I think that some of the people who think the students need to be told that they are not special may be conflating the Wellesley students with a few aggravating egotistical students they know. And this is probably not fair to the majority of the Wellesley students (even the prom queens and the star athletes there).</p>
<p>“I am appalled by the ignorance of a few posters here, such as ClassicRockDad or Crankoldman”</p>
<p>You think that people are ignorant because they disagree with you? Wow, how incredibly, amazingly arrogant.</p>
<p>“He’s not telling kids that they will never amount to anything. He’s just trying to disinflate their egos (he’s addressing the wealthy kids of a fell funded public school). He’s saying, “Don’t think just because you’re the class president you’ll succeed in life”, because there are 37,000 other class presidents. You may be a talented individual, but there are many other talented individuals.”</p>
<p>I suspect many of the truly wealthy kids are at college prep private schools, not at the local public school. Who would pick a commencement speech as the right time to disinflate seniors egos anyways? He’s had years to do that. I sincerely doubt there are many left at that point needing their ego’s to be punctured.</p>
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<p>Pretty funny that his dad thinks he is special for being a teacher.</p>