The Valedictory Address

It's easy, as we graduate from high-school, to be focused on ourselves. We've made it through AP classes, huge commitments to varsity sports, the theory paper, senior projects, senior recitals; the list goes on. And I didn't even mention the whole college application process, those five, ten, twenty essays that all are about me, why I'm special, why college X needs my special talents in their freshman class. With all that we've been juggling, with all that focus on 'me,' we hardly have time to think about other people.
When I look at those three mottoes of Hackley, what our school stands for and believes in, it's pretty clear that not one of them is just about me. In fact, each one of them says to me: “It's not about you; it's about others. It's about your friends, your classmates, your teachers. It's about the people who serve you lunch and keep the campus looking so great. It's about the people outside of the Hackley community also.

Hackley's three mottoes tell a story about how we interact with others throughout our lives as members of the Hackley community. From the time when each one of us drove up to the hilltop for the first time to now, let me walk you through that story.

The story starts with the motto engraved above that doorway on the quad. It is only one doorway out of many, but the motto in a sense is over every doorway to Hackley—“Enter here to be and find a friend.” This is what Hackley offers to each person who enters our community.

We've come through many different doorways as we've entered this community—the entrance to the old lower school, the doors to the old brick middle school in fourth grade, the arch leading into the new middle school, and the many arches and entryways into the upper school. But whatever door we entered, we were indeed invited, urged, taught, and enabled...to be and find a friend. This is the goal of our community, even before it teaches us how to add, multiply fractions, or take a derivative. This motto recognizes that friendship, and the ability to interact with and be kind to others, are far more important than test scores, grades, or college acceptance.

So that first motto, 'Enter here to be and find a friend,' gives us directions for entering this community. The second motto, 'iuncti iuvamus,' tells us what we do once we get here. We help each other.

You know, as I was visiting college campuses over the past year, I noticed that several colleges were careful to tell us that their students weren't too competitive; their students help each other with problem sets and other assignments. I have to admit I was shocked that they had to tell us this, that the desire of students to help each other could ever be in doubt. Our community here thrives on mutual help. When we're done with labs early, we try to help other groups finish. We take over the deans' office to do our physics homework together. We volunteer so much for peer tutoring that there aren't enough underclassmen who need help. Through all of this, we have learned pretty well that it is so much better to work together—to have classmates there for you, and to be there for your classmates—than it is to try to brave it out by yourself.

The final motto, 'Go forth and spread beauty and light,' is very appropriately inscribed on the inside of the doorway from Goodhue. We see it when we leave the building, for this motto is about leaving. Whenever we leave Hackley, for the weekend, for the summer, or for life, this motto urges us to bring with us what Hackley has given to us. To bring it with us so that we can give it to others. This surely includes the knowledge we have gained here; what we have learned of History, Art, Language, and Science can be used to help others. But I think that the 'Beauty and light' that Mr. Naething refers to have more to do with what we have learned about how to live our lives, how to be friends, how to help those around us. In sum, how to think of ourselves less and of those around us more.

When you are leaving Hackley just for a weekend or for the summer, you are probably with friends. It isn't too stressful. It's pretty easy to think of others and to keep the Hackley spirit of community alive. Now, we are finally graduating high-school. We are going to be leaving home, leaving friends, leaving a world in which many of our decisions have been made for us. Soon we will be trying to fit into a new world, deciding what careers we want to follow, and making our own decisions. And I expect it will be easy once again for us to turn inwards and to think so much about our own problems, our own desires, our own decisions, that we don't have the time or the energy to think about others.

But I say that we should resist any urge to become self-centered. The entire Hackley community challenges us to remember those three mottoes: “Enter here to be and find a friend, united we help one another, and go forth and spread beauty and light.” When we enter college, or a new job, or a new community, let us not only look for friends, but also be friends to those who need one. Let us remember how much more sense the homework made when we did it together and look for ways to help those around us who need help. And finally, if we ever find ourselves in a place in which the people around us seem to care more about themselves than about others, let us enjoy being different. Rather than living like those around us, as isolated individuals, let us spread the beauty and light that the Hackley community has given us. Let us show others how much better it is to live as a community.