Ken Lerner giving keynote speech at graduation ceremony

Hi there.

Welcome to this great celebration. I’m privileged to say a few words on a day that is easily the most important, not to say sacred, in the Randolph School calendar. It’s really the only day when we formally pause, honor, and celebrate a new cycle of growth and emergence among our students.

I’m speaking with two hats; first as a member of the Board of Trustees, as an advocate of the school and its mission. And second as a parent and as a member of the community, because my children have spent twenty school years here, and it goes by so quickly. You feel like you ought to say something before the grandchildren suddenly appear out of no where.

I like the image of teaching as gardening, and the notions of nurturing, cultivation, growth, and, most of all, deep roots. In Sean and Trever, we see the fulfillment of a long series of growth cycles; these have now reached the limit of what Randolph can offer. We don’t have a college program yet, but who knows; Eric’s probably working on it. Thank you Sean and Trever, for trusting this school with your education. We are deeply thankful for your leadership, hard work, and contributions, from Sean’s musical prowess covering Elvis, Dylan, and John Lennon, to Trever’s rocket-powered, near-lethal, land and air vehicles.

At Randolph, we never just hop from year to year, or from one particular goal to another. Sorry, we’re not standards-based; we’re education-based. So while we have two fine graduates, we also celebrate the steps of all our students. Because here the goal of education is not about reaching a particular square in the game: “College”, or “High School” or “Upstairs” or “Carriage House”. It’s about paying attention to and acknowledging the learning process. Each stepping stone is in fact about a child’s measured emergence into the world as a whole, no matter what that step is labeled.

I think there are two things to emphasize when we talk about Randolph and the development of our students. They are: What we teach, and the environment where we teach it.

What Randolph teaches:
· Independent thinking and research skills.
· Love of learning; self-motivation. Willingness to take on a large share of responsibility for one’s own education.
· Cooperation, fair play, and the desire to both teach and learn.
· Partnership. To avoid artificial boundaries among ages, genders, and groups. To work with parents, teachers, administrators, and the community at large.
· Ethical, responsible, and respectful behavior.

Pretty radical, huh? You hear it sometimes about Randolph. “Oh, that Randolph School. Nice place, but so impractical. So out of the mainstream; so starry-eyed, out of touch. Too much flower-sniffing, not enough practicality. It doesn’t have any bearing on the REAL WORLD” .

Look, I’m an engineer, and I’ve worked for IBM for the last 22 years. If there is a model of conservative, practical, capitalist, mainstream values it’s embodied in my company. Walk into a manager’s office at IBM and ask them what qualities that want from their people, and do you think they’re going to say: “Well I want really good test takers. And straight As in their junior year of high school would be good. And good spellers, that’s important. Being able to memorize things, that’s helpful. And I don’t want too much imagination, I want them to toe the line, and when I ask them a question I just want them to tell me what they think I want to hear.”

That might be a good model for success in high school these days, but not in the business world. Remember that list I went through of what Randolph teaches? THAT’S what managers want. They want skills, of course. But people with engineering degrees easy to find; schools are churning them out hundreds at a time. Every Spring; like dandelions. And I can assure you that I work with a number of engineers with very advanced training and skills who are IMPOSSIBLE to work with, and who are in fact counter-productive to the organization. Ask any manager and they’ll tell you what really makes a difference is that precise list I read to you; these qualities can practically be taken off an IBM bulletin board at corporate headquarters; we almost consider them clichés: Independent thinking; Self-motivation; Task ownership; Cooperative team play; Willingness to cross boundaries of job title or position; Ethics, responsibility, and respect.

The next time someone smacks around Randolph and it’s so-called liberal or non-mainstream values, ask them what THEIR school is doing to fulfill these basic, extremely vital business needs. We already know what Randolph is doing.

And what about the educational environment here?

The most remarkable thing about Randolph is the kid’s lack of calluses. Not on their hands; there are plenty of those. I mean the callused personalities you see on a lot of kids, particularly when they are in educational environments that encourage adversarial relationships. I think we hear all to often that this is “normal”, that it’s just a regular part of learning how to adapt to the world. It’s a whole layer of existence we see on kids all the time; it’s so pervasive we call it normal. IT AIN’T NORMAL. It’s pervasive, and we’re probably stuck with it, but that doesn’t make it normal. The fortunate kids get past it, but you see a lot of adults carrying this baggage as well.

RANDOLPH KIDS DON’T HAVE IT. A high school kid isn’t worried about being uncool if he helps a 5th grader with a math question. No one excludes you if you look or talk or dress differently. If you’re having a rough day an older or a younger student might put their hand on your shoulder and find out if you’re all right. Downstairs kids sit on upper school kids laps. You can learn to knit if you’re a boy; just ask my son. You can beat the boys at Ultimate if you’re a girl; just ask my daughter. It’s not uncool for a 6th grader to always invite a certain board member (yours truly) who’s a terrible skier on the first run of the day, on each and every ski trip; thanks, Yuni. I love you. You can say “I love you” here. If you slack off, you get called on it, whether you’re a student or teacher or administrator or board member; and it may surprise you who is doing the calling. We don’t do tryouts; if you want to play, you get to play. Randolph kids aren’t afraid of their teachers or the school administrators. There’s a whole layer of fabrication that no one has to worry about on this campus. This is an absolutely safe place. And when something does go wrong, when you most need to trust each other, it’s already there; you don’t have to start a special Trust Committee or pull out the Giant Book of Rules. You can just get to work fixing the problem.

Randolph isn’t perfect, and wonderful kids come out of public educational systems and other private schools every day. But I can’t help but feel that they often emerge in spite of the atmosphere, not because of it. And it breaks my heart to see these kids leave here and immediately start showing those damn calluses the next time I see them. They’re suddenly secretive, or sullen, or cynical in that staged sort of way that they think their peers expect. They greet me with a mumble, not a smile (if they greet me at all.) They don’t trust their teachers, they doubt adults, their school is an emotional battlefield. Everything becomes a con game, a shell game. Whispering increases. Instant messages, text messages, and cell calls take the place of real conversation; buddy lists replace friends. Everyone and everything is suddenly grouped or classified. Kids lose the courage and the support to just show up and be themselves, and have to start pretending. I don’t mean to exaggerate, or paint a melodramatic picture, but at very least there’s an undercurrent of unhappiness and ill ease that just isn’t necessary, is just an emotional waste of time. And people are used to thinking it’s the just way of the world; callused, in fact.

We understand that every family must make enormously complex decisions involving curriculum, resources, social issues, or finances. We have our weaknesses; many more than we’d like. And like any place, there comes a time for every family to move on. But our core commitment to provide a fair, non-judgmental environment where every child from a nursery school toddler through a high school senior can feel 100% safe to express their true nature resides at our absolute base and will never, ever change.

As I said, this talk is part board member, part parent. So as a parent, I’ve come to realize that there’s a few dangers about being the father of a lovely young woman; one of them is that you’ll fall in love with one of her friends. Well, I’ve got that problem in triplicate, because I’ve managed to fall in love with 3 of Kara’s friends: Haley, Gai, and Brenna. The four of you are known by quite a few names around here; I prefer “The Fab Four”, since I’m an old guy from the 60s. But it has been my great pleasure to observe you four over the last couple of years, and watch as you have embodied everything about the Randolph way; everything in fact that I’ve just spoken about. From learning from your older classmates, to reaching out to younger ones. To kicking Sean and Trever in the butt when they need it. To joining with the teachers and administrators in partnership; for helping to run the school for the last few years. In the hands-on way you’ve helped to shape your own education. I’d like to be quite formal about this: I’d like to humbly thank you, and the Board of Trustees of the Randolph School would like to thank you, for the grace, and beauty, intelligence, and joy you’ve added to this school. You have absolutely made this a better place, and the change is permanent; we are deeply in your debt.

Whatever ways your lives diverge in the next years, always hold on to your magical friendship. It makes you strong, it makes us strong, and it ties you to your home.

To all of our students: You have roots here. Whether you’ve been here 12 years or 6 months, whether you are moving on to college or just learning to tie your shoes. This place has real magic and will reach out to you and provide you with a safe base for the rest of your lives, whenever you want it. You will at times forget that connection, those roots, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there. The bridge doesn’t disappear because of the fog. Just be patient and look for it.

Randolph is about teaching the most basic of life skills, and doing so in a safe, honest environment with a minimum of stress and a maximum of love. And if you’ve ever touched this place, it has touched you, and you can reach out to those roots and it will bring you home whenever you need it. And it seems to me that a place can’t do much better than that.

Thanks for your time. Peace.