High School Teacher Gives Tough Love Graduation Speech: Are You Exceptional or Just Like Everyone Else?
SodaHead News
2012/06/11 13:00:00
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Usually, graduation speeches encourage grads to charge into the world with their chins held high, that diploma proudly tucked under their arm. You've graduated college; you're exceptional; it's time to make something of yourself. But that's not exactly how David McCullough Jr.'s speech went when the English teacher spoke at Wellesley High's commencement this year. On the contrary. He told graduates they're just like everyone else, and the controversial message immediately went viral.
McCullough said, "You are not special. You are not exceptional ... Even if you're one in a million, on a planet of 6.8 billion that means there are nearly 7,000 people just like you ... You've been pampered, cosseted, doted upon, helmeted, bubble wrapped ... We have of late, we Americans, to our detriment, come to love accolades more than genuine achievement ... The sweetest joys of life, then, come only with the recognition that you're not special. Because everyone is." What do you think of the tough love speech?
McCullough said, "You are not special. You are not exceptional ... Even if you're one in a million, on a planet of 6.8 billion that means there are nearly 7,000 people just like you ... You've been pampered, cosseted, doted upon, helmeted, bubble wrapped ... We have of late, we Americans, to our detriment, come to love accolades more than genuine achievement ... The sweetest joys of life, then, come only with the recognition that you're not special. Because everyone is." What do you think of the tough love speech?
Top Opinion
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El Prez 2012/06/11 17:21:45I'm exceptional!
+10Because I have spent the better part of my life making sure that I am exceptional. However, by the standards set by Mr. McCullough, I am not unique. Unique is rare, exceptional is more easily attained. The later day inclination to give trophys for participation, praise all miltary personel as heros and in general dilute real achievment and heroism, has created something of a feeling of special priviledge among some of our youth. The "tough love" speech might be useful so long as the message of carrying on to find your exceptional character is contained within. He was trying to wake them to the truth and that is always good.
Being exceptional is not a static state of being, it is dynamic, it is ever changing. Exceptional and pursuit are words which cannot be severed from one another. Doing your best no matter the reward, challenging yourself, never taking the easy route just because it is easy. These are the pursuits that drive you towards being exceptional.
It gives me time to love all that I love. All that I do, all that I work for, is because. I. Want. To. Not because it compares badly with others. Or because someone else told me to. But because it is what makes me happy.
"message", but perhaps it is time to stop the "politically correct" nonsense of telling all our youth that they are "special" and can expect to go through life without personal achievements or responsibilities owing to some mysterious gifts of just being born. It is beneficial to not take away the feelings of personal worth from children, certainly. But, we
also inflate their expectations and egos by constantly praising their failures and nasty little dispositions by reminding them of their "good job" for coloring outside the lines. I'm growing impatient with many of these teen age "successes" who refuse to move from their
iPads or smart phones to wait on me at the market or the restaurant.
I am unique, but exceptional is subjective. Equality under the law asserts that I am just like everyone else. I expect to be judged by the content of my character. I deserve equality under the law, and I DO NOT have a right to the fruits of someone else's labor, be it through government largesse (theft at the point of a gun) or the larceny of a private citizen.
It was a great speech. Young people today are delusional regarding their worth; the outcome of years of "progressive" indoctrination and declining intellect.
Lol.
Though I agree on a whole with the concept of what McCullough said, I feel there is an in-between place, between giving children an unrealistic look at adulthood, and treating them like nothing more than a class or a family pet.
Raise your children to know that they are in the number one spot of people in your life, and that with family and God, they don't need to be number one to anyone that God does not bless them to be number one with, and they will do very well in this world.
Debra...
Sad part is Rupert Murdock owns some smut tabloids; got SOME republicans fooled, doesn't he?? part of the problem not the solution.
I didn't get a message of "You aren't special, you're a little idiot who is just one more cog in the machine. Deal with it." As I understood it, the message of this speech is "You've done something, but you still have a lot more ahead of you. Don't think you have made it quite yet, because you have the rest of your life to work towards actually making it." It's a message of not resting on your laurels. High School is only step 1.
This man did them a favor with the wakeup call.