Welcome to our graduates, family members, friends, administration, teachers, support staff and my fellow Board Members, and any member of our Nanuet Family that I may have missed.Thank you to our buildings and grounds crew for preparing our graduation tent. And a special thanks to our music department and performers.
It has been a practice for the Board President to keep her commencement speech under five minutes. It is a tradition worth keeping, so I will be brief.
Graduates of 2004, I bet you thought you'd taken your last exam … well I have one more for you. I believe Dr. Fuhrman will be pleased. Yes Ed, I've listened attentively to every one of your presentations and I thought I'd try my hand at developing a culminating assessment for our graduates.
Our graduates should be familiar with the format, but I think our guests may require some definitions before we begin.
Essential Question:
An essential question is the important idea at the heart of every subject.
Exemplar:
An exemplar is an ideal model or example - the best of the best against which you can evaluate your own performance.
Rubric:
A rubric is a progression of skills from novice to expert. The rubric for this exam is a 3 level rubric. Level 1-novice and Level 3-expert
Ready, let's begin.
Listen carefully, here are your ...
DIRECTIONS:
You have approximately 70 years, give or take a few, to complete this exam. It is an open-book test. You can consult every information source that you can get your hands on. Indeed, you will be bombarded by the media 24-7 - but please understand that there are few sources of information that can be trusted - even those in the highest places will tell you half-truths and sometimes they will out and out lie. You can ask your family and friends for help, but the solutions to some of the toughest questions can only be found within yourself and there are no definitive right and wrong answers.
THE ESSENTIAL QUESTION:
You are a child of the universe. How will you live a life that matters? How will you save the world?
HINTS:
Travel Light
Don't Panic
Don't Whine
Have Faith
Make Music
Give Back
Be Good
Do Good
Love
EXEMPLARS:
Mariam Wright Edelman
Ghandi
Eleanor Roosevelt
Douglas Adams
Peter Senge
Mother Theresa
Mr. Rogers
RUBRIC:
Level 1:
You look at yourself years from now and realize you never left high school. Your life is defined by how hard you partied last night with the same friends you partied with 30 years ago. You realize that you've never really tried to be or do better, and now you have the horrible feeling that it's too late to start.
Level 2:
You've worked relentlessly to become a financial and professional success, but you look at yourself and wonder what happened to the person sitting in your seat today. You remember what it was like to invest some of your time in the service of others, but there is no time to invest. You forget to make time to nourish human connections with spouses, with children, with friends. You have succeeded in achieving your financial and business goals, but you know that you have not lived.
Level 3:
You give ten percent of everything you earn and twenty percent of your time to effect social change. You have been politically active supporting legislation that makes life better for every member of society. You've traveled the world. Social, political, and religious beliefs of those you've met along the way have added a new dimension to your own understanding of humanity. You've cultivated friendships with persons from all cultures and walks of life. Your chosen profession gives you a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment, but you give your friends and family the same careful and considerate attention which you give your career.
If there are no questions, you may begin, good luck.