Why Educate?

The following is the address I will give today at the Duke University Program in Education Graduation Ceremony. This piece explains why I believe education is so important:

Why Educate?

We are not simply fighting for test scores. We are not simply fighting for good grades or for passing with honors. We are not simply fighting for report cards, for check pluses or A+ or for extra credit. We are not simply fighting for trigonometry, for literary allusions or for geology, nor for the Great Compromise the Dread Scott Decision or the Spanish American war. We are not simply fighting for science class, for metaphors, or for fraction worksheets.

We are fighting for hope. We are fighting for optimism. We are fighting for the future. We fight because we believe. We believe that all people, regardless of their race or socioeconomic status, regardless of their religious beliefs or their sexual orientation, regardless of their home town or the home life, deserve a chance to become their best selves, deserve a chance to believe in the potential of that best self.

Why educate? Because we need a world where people believe in themselves. We need a world where people understand they are unique, special, amazing. We need a world where people value themselves more than they value the clothes they wear or the cars they drive.

We are all here today because when we look at a student, we see who that person can become, not just who that person is. We see a future mayor a future doctor a future wife a future father. We see our students growing up, finding their passion, and using that passion to spread some light on the world. We fight because we see the potential - the potential of one student to create a masterpiece, of another to cure a disease, of another to raise a great family.

A baby is born. That baby has life, potential, hope, dreams, a future. We educate to further life and potential, to teach how to use one’s hopes, one’s dreams, one’s future. We education to inspire, to strive, to yearn, to care, to empower.

We do not dedicate our lives to help students learn how to identify adjectives and solve math problems. We dedicate our lives to help students to identify passions and use those passions to solve world problems. We teach how to dream, how to believe, how to love.

We educate because we believe in the collective powers of individuals to spread this love across the classroom, across the school, across the city, the state, the country, across the world. We educate because we believe.

We work, we sweat, we cry, we fight, because we can imagine a better world. We can imagine a world filled with individuals reaching their full potential. A world with each person’s light flowing together to shine color. A world where all people, all baby’s, all adolescents, all adults, all people are loved and cherished and told that they matter.

Last year over 500 students dropped out of the Durham Public Schools. 500 students. 500 future teachers, doctors, musicians, artists. 500 people, filled to the brim with potential, with light just yearning to brighten up your day. Why educate? We educate not simply to raise test scores, but to raise confidence. To help these 500 people, to empower them to see their light and figure out how to use it to illuminate a world that sometimes is so dark it is easy for one to lose her way.

By being here today, by choosing to educate, you are choosing to fight for these 500 students. You are deciding to never give up on these precious individuals. And therefore, by being here today you are making a promise to always look at all of your students and see who they CAN one day become and then to treat them as those people.

Don’t let anyone tell you that one person can not make a difference. Don’t let anyone tell you that one teacher can not make a difference. And certainly don’t let anyone tell you that you are too young.

Go out and fight for one student. Go out and fight for one individual. Go out and change the world.