The Speech I'll Never Get to Give

Please Note: A colleague corrected me -- the school is 17 years old.

Bluntly: My principal HATES ME. She doesn't have to like me. But, this means I will never again give a speech at graduation.

So, here's what I would like to say:

17 years ago a terrific group of teachers lead by a new principal decided to found a school which would try to do one thing: reach the kids who have not yet been reached. That group and those who followed decided to do whatever it took to do this. As smart, experienced teachers they knew this meant making sure that classes were small, students had a lot of close attention and that teaching needed to be done well. The latter was especially complicated because the students we took in had many obstacles in their lives which were still interfering with their education. Though we have all tried, most of the time we could not change the world of the students' lives.

So they and later, we changed the world of the school. At BCNHS, we have taught classes tailored to the kids we saw -- and we focused courses around the most essential items in our curricula. We were what students tend to call "real" -- honest and were caring. You can probably all can remember many times in which one or several of us looked you in the eye and said, "Listen, you NEED to do this. And you need to take more care of yourself and your future."

We worked oblivious to praise and criticism and we got both. What we decided to do was to believe in our students and to believe that we could help them to succeed. That meant being patient -- many of you know that it took a while for you to get where you needed to be. We could have given up on you or we could have lied to you and passed you when you weren't ready. Your Brooklyn Comprehensive Diploma means something because of this. Our students have studied at schools from Oxford to Brooklyn College because of this. Maybe they didn't go directly to Oxford, but like one student, got there after transfering from a two year college to a four year school which had an agreement with Oxford and other schools. But a student who graduates from Brooklyn Comprehensive has taken the belief we placed in him or her and become someone with potential for greatness.

So, here is your obligation. In your life, you are bound to meet someone or something or some school which others have given up on. Be the person for that someone or that organization who says: I believe in you. I will teach you. I will not give up on you.

If you do that, then Brooklyn Comprehensive can never be closed.