"If it is graduation season, then it is graduation speech season too.
"High schools, colleges, and even elementary schools seek out high
profile speakers to impart their wisdom to graduates -- or, at least,
they aim to. I am a bit dubious about what a pampered celebrity or
popular sports figure could possibly know about the life of an average
graduate, and I am disappointed when political speakers bring
disheartening division to what should be a final moment of unity for a
class that has lived four or more years together.
"When I think about the wisdom imparted to me in the speeches at my
graduations, I cannot recall what any speaker said to my classmates and
me.
"What I have recalled, through decades of university life, is all the
wisdom imparted to me by those who did not tell me how to live a good
and great life, but by those who showed me how to do so. . . ."
In a recent commentary, writer/Professor Lucia A. Silecchia
reflected on the people in our colleges who "will often not be well known, whose names will not be
announced as graduation speakers, and who will not be receiving honorary
degrees", but whose lives touched the lives of the students and whose lives were loving lectures without words.
To access Mr. Shaw's complete post, please visit:
The Pilot: Echoes: Lucia A. Silecchia: The wisdom of Ordinary Times (17 MAY 23)
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