letters to the graduating class written over seven years

The crowd clapped. They ate it up. All was swell. One month later, I was delisted.

A comic by Tom Fishburne, creator of Marketoonist

I wrote a speech when I was eighteen. It was given at my final assembly, in October of 2016, before I graduated high school. That was seven years ago. I have returned twice since then to give speeches to the graduating cohort.

My life, naturally, changed between my last speech as a student and the first speech I gave as a graduate. It arguably changed even more in the single year between the two most recent alumni speeches.

It seems natural to continue to contrast and track the failures, to coalesce them into an open letter for any student about to move into their exams and, from there, out of school — but also for all of us with our educational institutions now years into decades behind us. It feels like, on the smallest scale, it could extricate some meaning, or at least serve as a reminder. 

Letters explores community and obligation through a series of speeches. It has been published, as of Saturday October 28th.

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