"Beginnings and Endings"

This time of year in the world of education is synonymous with graduations – new beginnings and new endings.  Like nature, graduation brings the promises of new beginnings.  Graduation also signals endings as well. 

Beginnings and endings produce myriad emotions.  Running the gamut of emotions including elation to disappointment, beginnings and endings are a way of life.  Tears of joy and tears of sadness blend together as transitions shift students to graduates, graduates to students, graduates to work, graduates to military service, graduates to the unknown.

Idealism and optimism are spoken with unbridled confidence as graduates set their sights on the next.  Hearing from family, friends, teachers, and community about how prepared they are unlike previous generations this class of learned graduates will be the ones that make the differences in the years ahead.  These are all said with sincerity, good intentions, and best hopes.  Yet, tomorrow waits with a different reality for many if not most of our graduates.

What we can or should be able to say with confidence is that we have provided opportunities and experiences focused on learning how to learn not necessarily why or even what to learn that will serve graduates well in the near as well distant future.  Certainly graduates have acquired skills, knowledge, and experiences as requisites for career, family, community, and life but these are merely foundational.

The beginnings our graduates face are similar to those alumni faced, yet, they are argumentatively unprecedented as well.  The demand for instant value, profit, contribution or production is significantly accelerated as well as intensified.  The pressure to apply industry or workplace skill, knowledge, and experience to create value especially from those that have little or none is exceptional.  Never in our history have graduates faced competition of this magnitude.

Many believe that little has changed.  Just as the seasons change from one to another, graduation and graduates will keep in step with traditions and transitions as if tomorrow will be the same as yesterday.  We must not be naïve to accept that the beginnings for today’s graduates are the same. 

In as much as our graduates face a beginning different from the past, parents also face an equally different ending.  Gone are the securities of knowing that college bound graduates will in four to five years time earn a degree and gain a foothold in a career.  Gone are the securities of knowing that our work bound graduates will enter the workforce in a decent job paying decent wages.  Gone are the many traditions and transitions we took for granted or assumed would always be there.  Yes, our endings are different.

There are however opportunities with beginnings and endings.  This present generation can find solace in a spirit that has laid in dormancy for several decades.  It is time for the spirit that fueled innovation, creativity, ingenuity, imagination, and risk to resurrect in communities across our state and nation.  This spirit – the idealism and optimism of youth can and must be encouraged, cultivated, and allowed to lead.  We have somehow lost sight of what builds and sustains determination, work ethic, commitment and perseverance.  We live in a time where it is far easier to be pessimistic, distrustful, cynical, and defeated.  Idealism and optimism are waiting for permission to fan fully back to life.  I am convinced that idealism and optimism is the key to both beginnings and endings.

Idealism and optimism do not mean reckless, irresponsible, or immature thinking or action.  Rather, they combine to frame and form an outlook and subsequent actions of “do ability” - the “can do” attitude, which incorrectly categorizes Americans as arrogant.  It is not arrogance – it is confidence.

The challenge therefore is to make sure that our graduates have confidence not confused with inflated platitudes or false praise.  Confidence comes from both knowing and doing; failure and success.

The best gift we must give our graduates is permission to use their idealism and optimism.  They are also the best gifts we can give ourselves.  Beginnings and endings require both.