Members of the School Committee; administration, faculty, and staff; parents, family, friends, and guests; and, most importantly, members of the Class of 2015: It is my honor and privilege to address you this evening.
I’m looking forward from center stage, on this graduation day, and it’s time to get the future started. Let’s celebrate today, because there will never be another. Now that all the hard work is done, all for one and one for all, open your heart to all the possibilities, because this could be the start of something new. If you get your head in the game, anything can happen if you take the chance. It’s the time of your lives, and with anticipation, it’s your last chance to share the stage before you go your separate ways. Who knows what you’ll find, it’s the great unknown -- but you’re all in this together, so if you reach, you can fly, and once you see there’s a chance that you have -- and you take it -- you’ll make your dreams come true.
Now, I’m sure that advice sounds awfully familiar to many of our graduates, because you’ve likely heard all of these phrases before, some of you many, many times. When trying to decide what to say to you on this momentous occasion, I thought it might make sense to seek wisdom in the classics, and what better source than the masterwork that tells the tale of a group of adolescents finding their true selves and determining the paths they will follow into the future, as they navigate conflicts related to family cultures and expectations, economic and social stratification, and peer group stereotypes, with a pair of star-crossed lovers at the center of the story. Some in the audience may be wondering whether this couple might be Romeo and Juliet, but I suspect that most of the graduates have already deduced that I am indeed referring to Troy and Gabriella, and the opening lines of my remarks are a mashup of many lyrics from Disney’s 21st century paean to the American high school experience, the epic film trilogy of High School Musical, High School Musical 2, and High School Musical 3: Senior Year.
So, why High School Musical? Because thanks to iTunes and Netflix and a 10-year-old daughter, I cannot escape it. As was the case with many of your parents when you were that age, over the past few months my ears have been continuously assaulted by the peppy, perky and perniciously catchy songs that narrate the saga of the East High Wildcats. Yes, High School Musical lives on...and on, and on...to influence a new generation, as it influenced so many of you during your formative years.
Now, I know your class has connections to High School Musical, as many of you actually performed in its stage version as part of the Oak Middle School spring musical in 2010, and I know your senior lip dub was performed to one of its anthems. By all accounts you have been a class with exceptional spirit, dedication, and loyalty, and I can’t help but wonder if the lessons so many of you absorbed from these films, as saccharine or cheesy as you might perceive them now, may have shaped your own view of high school and the choices you made over the past four years.
However, while the teens in this idealized version of high school face many of the universal challenges of adolescence, we know that your lives are far more rich, complex, and real than those of stereotypical movie characters. All of you have faced challenges along the way to this milestone of graduation, and some of you have experienced hardships or tragedies that are far more serious, some very public and some known only to a few. The strength, resilience, and character you’ve shown, individually and as a class, are impressive. Regardless of your path to this moment, you should know that the depth of your families’ and your educators’ pride in whom you’ve become, and the height of our hopes for whom you are yet to be, are far beyond anything a mere movie can convey.
But, with that said, I think Troy and Gabriella and the gang at East Side High do have something to offer beyond sappy dialogue and breaking into spontaneous, yet well-choreographed, singing and dancing numbers throughout their school. So what lessons can we derive from High School Musical? Well, I asked that question to the expert High School Musicologist in my home, my 10-year-old daughter Allie, who, without hesitation, informed me that this is what the movies are all about:
- Sometimes you have difficult choices, but you need to make choices for yourself
- Don’t always stick to the status quo
- Listen to other people, but sometimes you need to listen to yourself
- Make time for other people
- Keep your promises
- Follow your heart, and
- Follow your dreams
You might be tempted to dismiss these as unsophisticated platitudes and clichés, but sometimes the simplest advice is the best advice -- and I am quite confident that if you do these things, your lives will be the better for it. And, just as the characters in High School Musical learned these lessons through the fictional challenges, choices, and people that made up their high school years, so too have you been influenced by the real ones you’ve experienced at Shrewsbury High School. When the film cast sings at their graduation, “What we leave, what we take with us, no matter what, it’s something we’re part of,” they refer to a truism of every high school class: your experiences at this school will always be a part of you, and what you have contributed to this school will always be a part of it. I thank you for all that the Class of 2015 has contributed, which is significant, and I wish you all the very best as you take what you have learned in class, what you have learned about life, and what you have learned about yourselves, and step into your futures. I think they’re awfully bright.
Thank you, and good luck.
