To the graduates of 2020, the year the world stopped.
I'm not sure about the world we're giving you. But I am sure about the generation to whom we're handing it off. I am sure about you. We have done a lot wrong here. We have remained passive when we desperately needed to act. We have watched as the rhetoric got angrier, and more hate-filled. We have listened to scientists tell us about climate change, and we have nodded and done nothing. I'm not so sure about us. But I say again, I am sure about you.
I have watched you grow. Some of you, I have taught for two years, but known for longer. Some of you, I just met this year, and some of you I only know to nod in the hallway. But I am sure of you. You are crusaders. You are passionate in your anger and your love. I have listened as you told me that the language of a book hurt your ears as well as your heart. I have listened as you told me that you wanted to see change in our classes, across the board. That there are not enough brown faces in your AP classes and your ECE classes. That there are not enough brown faces in the front of your classrooms. You have not held back when you cried out your worry for your LGBTQ classmates, who still, and always suffer the most from cyber bullying, from the type of bullying your teachers and adminsitrators don't hear. I have listened when you told me that that was all you wanted, someone who would stop, put their own stresses aside, hard as that might be, and listen. You told me about your relationships with friends being torn apart this year, and the questions you had about how you were dealing with your own relationships, and from this I know that you are asking the questions before we ever did. All of this is why I am so sure of you. You are identifying your weaknesses, so that you might learn from them. You are recognizing our weaknesses so that we may learn from them. You are growing and helping us to grow, and we are lucky for it.
You have weathered what we never had to. You lost your prom, your senior skip days, your senior prank and yearbook signings. These are not small things, though people may tell you they are. Ignore them. They are your rightful transitions, and you have lost them. You deserve to grieve them. Believe me, I have grieved them right alongside you, because I have lost my chance to witness you living those rites of passage. I will not get to sign your yearbooks and hug you goodbye, sending you off with a bit of my strength and hope for you. But know that I am sure of you. That I have every confidence that you will change our world for the better. That because you question everything, you will continue to grow and force the rest of world to grow with you. Your need for answers, and your belief that every one of your classmates deserves an equal chance to grow into this unfathomable world, makes me sure of you. You will vote, because you are sick of no one listening to your voices. I have heard those voices and they are strong. You will push and pull until our government represents all of the colors and languages you see everyday in Conard's hallways. You will be the teachers who change the face of our classrooms, and the lawyers and doctors and politicians and welders and plumbers and service men and women who change the face of our world.
We may not be handing you the best of all possible worlds, but you will go into it with a confident stride, and make it your own, and we will all be better for it. I am sure of that, because I am sure of you.
