5th Grade Graduation Speech at P.S. 329 in Brooklyn, New York

Thank you Miss Dawson, teachers, and parents for giving me the opportunity to address your bright children today. If you don't mind, I would like to turn the podium to address them.

There were two students from the same neighborhood who went to the same elementary school, P.S. 329, also known as Surfside School in Brooklyn, New York.

One student's name was Alex. Alex was a straight A student. He excelled in every subject. Alex did exactly what he was told to do. He goes home to do his homework after school. Alex only dreams at night.

The other student's name was Francis. Francis was a crooked F student—they say it is impossible to get all Fs and be straight. Francis didn't like any subject AT SCHOOL though she liked learning and as a result she was often caught daydreaming. She was really passionate about art and would get in trouble for doodling on her desk. After school she would walk the streets looking for murals and graffiti. Her homework incomplete.

Who would you rather be? Alexis or Francis?

Fast-forward a few years to high school. Finally...electives. Francis gets to take an art class and her passion for learning starts to show. She gets her first A. Alex the A student is taking biology for the first time and he is struggling. He is afraid to ask for help because he has never had to ask for it before. He associates asking for help with being dumb instead of courageous, so he continues to fail and gets his first F.

Francis can't wait to show her parents her report card. No murals today. When she shows it to them with a big smile on her face, all they see are the Fs. Her parents immediately withdraw her from her art class and instead she is given a study hall period to bring up her Fs.

Alex's parents know when his report cards come so they ask about it even though he tries to hide it. Despite 5 As in his other classes, all they see is the F. He is taken out of P.E. and given the same study hall period that Francis has so that he can focus on bringing up his F.

Who would you rather be? Alexis or Francis?

You see...in the long run, Francis and Alex end up in the exact same place. Alex was a hard worker. That's would got him straight As. But despite his good grades, Alex's true intelligence was never challenged. For the most part, school was a walk in the park for him, but he needed someone to push him to run or better yet fly. It's not until you push someone to their limits that they realize that they are limitless.

Despite getting crooked Fs, Francis is extremely smart. It's just that her creative energy was never channeled. She was lead to believe that her creativity isn't valuable when in fact, creativity and innovation is what keeps our economy alive...it's what keeps her alive.

In reality, Alex doesn't like school just as much as Francis doesn't like school—he could fake the funk but she couldn't. Where Francis has a leg up on Alex is that she knows what she was passionate about...what makes her tick...what she loves to do at an early age. Everyone is encouraging Alex to be a teacher, doctor, lawyer, or accounting because he's "smart", but nobody is encouraging Francis to be an artist.

Why not?



Graduates! Our parents grew up in a world where being well-rounded was the thing to be. Be a well-rounded student and be a well-rounded citizen. But the world has changed. Whereas our parents were only competing against the person sitting next to them in their classroom, you are competing against everyone your age across the entire world from India to China and Europe. This leveling of the playing field is called globalization, which is a hard concept to understand if you have yet to travel outside of New York or the United States. In today's world, a 4.0 isn't even enough on its own. And passion isn't enough on its own either. Success requires hard work AND passion.

In addition to globalization, the internet has changed the way we live and learn. In our parents' day...you know B.C...before cable, it was possible to be an expert at multiple things. But today, information is expanding so rapidly that it's hard to stay ahead on more than one or two subjects and since everyone has access to same information at the same time, nobody has an advantage. It used to be that if you had an Encyclopedia Britannica set at home, you were ahead of your peers, but now with the internet and Wikipedia, the playing field is flat...and packed.

Whether you happen to love a school subject or a subject NOT taught at school, the way to win in the 21st century is be your best. They say that to become the best in the world at something...to be an expert...you should consider the 10,000 hour rule. The 10,000 hour rule suggest that you need to practice whatever it is that you want to be great at for 10,000 hours before achieving expertise. 10,000 hours equals 20 hours per week 50 weeks per year for 10 years. That's equivalent to studying one subject from kindergarten to today every day, so you better start now...now as in this summer...at least 3 hours per day 7 days per week.

Speaking of 10 years...10 years from now Francis and Alex will be graduating from college. They will be 22 years old. Imagine who 12 year-old Francis could become if she could bring up her other grades just enough to get her parents support of her art so that should could CHANNEL her passion into her art during and after school and begin chipping away at her 10,000 hours. Imagine who 12-year-old Alex could become if he could combine his academic excellence with a passion that CHALLENGED him.

In elementary school, A stands for ahead or excellent, but in on the global playing field an A here could stand for average elsewhere. Sometimes when we try to be great at everything...the jack-of-all-trades...we master none. Alex understands hard work, but imagine if he focused his energy on something he genuinely loved to do so he could experience his inner excellence.

In elementary school, F stands for failure, but in life it can mean fearless. Fear of failure is the #1 inhibitor of dreams. They say if you haven't failed, then you aren't dreaming big enough.
Francis understands failure well—she's been doing it all of her life. And she also understands her passions. Imagine if she could pursue her passions fearlessly.

We each have a little bit of Alex and Francis inside of us....parents and teachers included. To succeed in life we need Alex's work ethic and self-discipline and we also need Francis creativity and passion. Greatness is inside of each of you like the tree inside every seed. If you've ever looked at a package of seeds, it never just says SEEDS. They are always named by the tree they are destined to become. Before me, I see more than just 5th graders...more than just a bunch of seeds—I see an amazing amazon forest of unlimited potential and endless possibilities.

Follow your passions and seek excellence at anything you do and I guarantee that you'll keep growing up.

Congratulations to the college class of 2020!

This morning I read a powerful article in YES Magazine called "Blessing Revealed" by Puanani Burgess. In it she tells the true story of special ed student whose gift is speaking to the animals of the ocean. In the article she poses the question "What would his life have been like if this curriculum were gift-based? If we were able to see the gift in each of our children and taught around that gift?"

I ask myself a similar question. What would our lives be like if our education was purpose-based? If we were able to discover the purpose in each of ourselves and learned accordingly? I believe it can be done by mass-customizing education and adopting the principle that every student is also a teacher of self and other students. Professor Richard Boyatzi's of doing a lot of great work on self-directed learning (SDL) and you can find some of his work here. I'm certain that the world would be a better place if this was so.



What do you think? Comment below...

Can one choose the tools they need to build a building without seeing the blueprint first? Of course there are some standard tools like a hammer and wrench, but what other tools will be needed? Even if we choose 3 random tools just because everyone else has them or they look like they will help, how can we be sure, especially if we don't know how to use them?

We are trying to build our future. Our tools are the skills we can learn from our classes and our classes are like the instruction manuals. The more we learn in each class, the better we can use the tool.

Oftentimes, we skim the instruction manual and don't learn about the true capabilities of the tool. We are restricted to the basics because we didn't put the time and energy necessary to learn how to use the tool properly.

As the quarter began, I was dreading classes. I almost forgot that school is my tool. I chose to be here so that I could develop a customized toolkit that will help me build the future I want to create.

My challenge to you is to set personal outcomes for each class after reading the syllabus (or blueprint) and getting a general overview.

Live (+ learn) purposefully!

Is school supporting you or is school ruling you? School should revolve around you; you shouldn't revolve around it. Many students allow school to dominate their life when in fact school is supposed to support their life.

Education is merely one part of our whole self. In addition to education, a holistic experience includes emotional, physical, professional, cultural, spiritual, nutritional, and/or financial development. If you ask most students, they will agree that more learning takes place outside of the classroom than within it. Nonetheless, students tend to focus 80% of their energy on strictly academics and then try to squeeze the rest of themselves into the other 20% of their time. That is imbalanced and stressful.

Education is meant to support us, therefore, our life and our vision should be at the center. When we have balance in our lives, we perform better all around. Our majors, minors, classes, extracurricular activities, and academic relationships should support who we are. It's one thing to be focused and it is another thing to be consumed. Focus on your personal development and customize your academic experience to fit you. If school isn't giving you everything you need to grow, then it is up to you to find or create the environment you need to excel. College is not a Miracle-Grow solution; the degree to which you grow is determined by you.

Live purposefully!

In Ralph Waldo Emerson's book Self-Reliance, he starts off with this quote which translates to mean, "Do not seek for things outside yourself". I thought that that was pretty powerful and it made we think about modern day education. In today's education system, we seek for answers and explainations to everything outside of ourselves without understanding ourselves first. To me the education system is flawed in that it prolongs or better yet avoids this cycle of self-reflection. We spend about 20 years studying and then 35 years applying what we studied. As knowledge expands exponentialy and quickly in this day in age, our education cycles are too slow. Departments don't or grow quick enough, curriclums don't adjust fast enough, teachers stop learning and teach old thoughts, and students graduate uncertain of how to apply their 20 years of learning.



I think that the cycle should be more fluid and smaller like rain. We should study and apply daily. As opposed to trying to lay out the perfect blueprint for our mental mansion and then building it, I think that we should just put a few bricks on at a time. This allows us to be more flexible as the world changes and our own opinions about the world change. Under the old system, if you begin studying a subject that will no longer be relevant to the world upon graduation, then you've engaged in a costly yet fruitless mental exercise.

Knowledge begins with understanding ourselves, and then pursuing areas of knowledge based on that understanding, and finally applying that knowledge for the betterment of the world. In one of my education classes at Stanford, a professor who studies higher education at Stanford said that Stanford doesn't even use her research for its own decision making. In her eyes, she is studying higher education in order to improve higher education, but the very institution that pays her doesn't even consider how her research affects its practices. Something is really wrong. Institutions of higher education have the potential to change the world because they are think tanks, but first they have to change themselves by finding ways to connect all of their research with practitioners so that it gets applied in a useful way.

research by Richard Boyatzis
Am I a self-directed learner?
Self-Directed Learning by Richard Boyatzi

1) Has the person engaged their passion and dreams? Can they describe the person they want to be, the life and work they want to have in the future? Can they describe their Ideal Self?
2) Does the person know himself or herself? Do they have a sense of their Real Self?
3) Can the person articulate both their strengths (those aspects he/she wants to preserve) and gaps or discrepancies between their Real and Ideal Selves (those aspects he/she wants to adapt or change)?
4) Has the person held their attention on both Strengths and Gaps— not letting one become the preoccupation?
5) Does the person have their own personal learning agenda? Is it really their own? Can the elements of the plan fit into the structure of their life and work? Do the actions fit with their learning style and flexibility?
6) Is the person experimenting and practicing new habits and actions? Is the person using their learning plan to learn more from their experiences?
7) Has the person found settings in which to experiment and practice in which he/she feels psychologically safe?
8) Is the person developing and utilizing his/her relationships as part of their learning process? Do they have coaches, mentors, friends, and others with whom they can discuss progress on their learning agenda? Do they have relationships with whom they can explore each their new behavior, habits, new Ideal Self, new Real Self, new strengths and gaps as the process unfolds?
9) Are they helping others engage in a self-directed learning process?