Read the full text of the Baccalaureate Address given by Brian Inman on May 16:
Thank you so much. First let me thank Kendall for that great introduction and the Class of 2008 for giving me the opportunity to make a fool of myself. I’m sure you’ll all enjoy it. A wise man once said... and that’s an interesting phrase because anytime someone says that it means they can’t remember who the wise man was. It makes you wonder if he really was all that wise. Well, the wise man was Jim Hendrix, our former headmaster, and he actually said it a few years ago at graduation, so some of you may have actually heard him say it. Mr. Hendrix had received an award from the student body and responded by saying “A teacher gets no greater honor than one given to him by his students.” So I am deeply honored and was quite surprised when Dr. Carleton approached me and told me the senior class of 2008 had chosen me to be their Baccalaureate speaker. Actually, I heard about it about a half-hour before from my advisee Caroline Coble, but I “acted” surprised and I think Dr. Carleton bought it.
So I am honored, but at the same time I’m a little ticked off that the senior class wanted to load me down with this responsibility. I mean, it is the end of the year which - as a history teacher - means I'm scrambling to finish that last unit as well as get those final research papers and tests graded. Not to mention the Inman family circus that I come home to every night. However, it is a Baccalaureate speech which couldn’t be that hard to think up, right? I mean, it’s not like there aren’t a million other Baccalaureate speeches happening across the country this weekend. It should be pretty easy to come up with something original. I could always read Dr. Seuss’ "Oh the Places You'll Go" or maybe talk about the seven steps to success. I could make the speech shorter and discuss the six or even five steps to success. After a while it could get like that old game show "Name That Tune." “I could reach success in three steps ... You reach success!”
So at the risk of doing something overdone or dare I even say “cheesy,” I’ve decided to just read you some poems. That wouldn’t be cheesy at all, would it? No, seriously, I would like to begin by reading three or four poems from my favorite poet, the award-winning Shel Silverstein. I bet you are familiar with his work even though you probably haven’t read it recently. He is the best-selling author of such books as "Where the Sidewalk Ends" and "Falling Up." Now I know you’ll probably saying, “He’s a children’s poet!” Well, yes I know, but there are a couple of reasons why I like Shel Silverstein. First of all, he writes poetry I can understand. Secondly, I feel many of his poems hold a deeper meaning and might even contain some life lessons that can be learned at any age. For example, this one is called "The Loser." I think we have all felt this way at least once in our lives.
Loser
Mama said I'd lose my head
If it wasn't fastened on.
Today I guess it wasn't
'Cause while playing with my cousin
It fell off and rolled away
And now its gone.
And I can't look for it
'Cause my eyes are in it,
And I can't call to it
'Cause my mouth is on it
(Couldn't hear me anyway
'Cause my ears are on it),
Can't even think about it
'Cause my brain is in it.
So I guess I'll sit down
On this rock
And rest for just a minute...
The page in the book has a picture of a little boy sitting on a rock, and as you might have already guessed, the rock is actually his head. I always thought a modern version of this poem could be if you switched the word head with “cell phone.” Here is one about creativity and conservation. It is called "Invention."
Invention
I've done it, I've done it!
Guess what I've done!
Invented a light that plugs into the sun.
The sun is bright enough,
The bulb is strong enough,
But, oh, there's only one thing wrong...
The cord ain't long enough.
There always seems to be something holding back those great ideas doesn’t it? Here is one that is relevant to the high school scene. It involves relationships and romance and is called "Won’t You."
Won't You?
Barbara's eyes are as blue as azure
But she is in love with Freddy,
Karen's sweet but Harry has her,
Gentle Jane is going steady.
Carol hates me, so does May,
Abigail will not be mine,
Nancy lives too far away...
Won't you be my Valentine?
This one might also be titled, “How Not to Ask a Girl to the Prom.” And finally, amongst all the silliness, Silverstein hits us with a poem like this...
The Voice
There is a voice inside of you
that whispers all day long,
"I feel that this is right for me,
I know that this is wrong."
No teacher, preacher, parent, friend
or wise man can decide
what's right for you - just listen to
the voice that speaks inside.
I think Silverstein has hit on a noble truth here, because I also am an avid believer in this voice. I believe that we are born with an instinctive sense of right and wrong, justice and injustice. One of the first concepts young children grasp is what is fair and unfair. Call it a conscience, call it Jiminy Cricket, but we all have a little voice. I first became aware of this little voice while watching the TV show "Magnum P.I." The Class of 2008 might not be too familiar with this show but they probably can catch it on TV Land about 1 a.m. between "Three’s Company" and "The Rockford Files." The old people in the audience will remember a dashing Tom Selleck living a rough and tumble life in a mansion in Hawaii, driving around in his trademark Ferrari and solving cases usually involving beautiful women. Magnum P.I. would also do narration between the scenes to keep the television audience aware of what he was thinking and often during the narration he would refer to his “little voice.” The little voice would talk to him throughout the entire show, helping him solve the case. Now it took the voice a good 50 minutes to an hour to get through to Tom, which meant to me that either the voice was very inefficient or Magnum was just a little thick headed. However, it was while watching this show that I became aware of my own voice and learned to trust it.
Today I teach Ancient World History, and in this class we study a lot of creation stories. The stories come from Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, even China, but my favorite story is the Genesis story. I like it not just because I’ve come from a Christian tradition and am most familiar with it, but it is my favorite because it tells us about the origin of the voice. My dad was a Southern Baptist minister, and the first place I ever went was church. I logged more Sunday School hours than a gambler has playing cards in Vegas. During my childhood, I learned all about Biblical heroes, but it wasn’t until I started studying the Bible academically that I found my favorite hero of the Bible. Some of you might find it strange but my new and favorite Biblical hero is Eve. Yes Eve, the person in the garden of the “weaker sex” who fell prey to the temptation of the serpent and has since been blamed for everything from painful childbirth to dumb blondes. However, I think Eve has gotten a bad rap. Think about it, where would we be if Eve had not have eaten that apple? As a result Adam and Eve were kicked out of the garden and had to toil and struggle to make ends meet. Well, I would dare to say that every adult in this room knows that success comes only after struggle and the greatest things in life are often the things you work hardest to get. If Eve had not eaten that apple, we wouldn’t ever have had to struggle and, therefore, we would have never grown. Which means no progress, no cities, no civilization, no laws, no religion, no culture, no art... More importantly, no multiplexes, no shopping malls, no internet, no cell phones, no text messaging ... holy cow! Bottom line, if Eve hadn’t eaten that apple, we all would still be running around naked in a garden.
Now, some of you might prefer running around naked in a garden to the life you’re living now. Besides the thorns and the mosquitoes it wouldn’t be too bad. Others of you are currently making a mental list of people you liked to be running around naked in a garden with ... got ya! If that’s what you’re doing please continue; you can catch up later. My point is, if we believe in a God of the Judeo-Christian tradition, then he is all knowing and all powerful. Therefore, He had to have known that someone was going to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We know it as soon as we read the verse where God says, “Don’t eat of this tree.” We say to ourselves, “Oh that’s going to happen.” Also, let’s face it, the tempting serpent did not actually lie. When Adam and Eve ate the fruit, their eyes were opened and they saw the world in a different way. The first thing they noticed is they didn’t have any clothes on so they hid in the bushes. God finds them and asks, “Why are you hiding?” to which they respond, “Because we’re naked.” Then God says, and I’m paraphrasing, “OK now you’ve done it. You’ve eaten the fruit and now you know the difference between good and evil. From now on, it will be your responsibility to choose the good over the evil, and if you choose poorly, you will be punished.” This is what the Genesis story does that no other creation story I’ve encountered does: it puts the responsibility of behavior back on the people, and so the voice was born.
Hopefully as I go through this speech you’re saying, “Oh yeah, I know that voice. It always tells me the right thing to do. I don’t want to always to what it says, but deep inside I know it is right.” That is true. Doing the right thing isn’t always easy. It isn’t always “fun.” Some may ask, 'What’s in it for me to do everything the voice says? What will it hurt to go against the voice on occasion?" Well, if being a good person isn’t enough for you, here is what you may get from always listening to your voice. If you follow your voice, it will bring you happiness. Now I think it is important at this time to make a distinction between fun and happiness. Many times they go together, but they aren’t always the same thing. I only mention this to the Class of 2008 because you are entering a period of your life where you could potentially have a lot of fun. Hopefully you won’t have too much fun. Anyway, here are some examples of distinction between happiness and fun. Getting a new car for graduation is fun. Taking your parents out to eat in your new car is happiness. Winning a game of football, basketball, baseball, lacrosse ... is fun. Spending a season with your best friends is happiness. Doing things with your friends is fun (shopping, hunting, going to a concert). Being there for your friends during the tough times and seeing them through is happiness. This one is more personal for me. Going out on a Friday night is fun. Staying home on a Friday night and putting your kids to bed is happiness. Getting a makeover is fun (hair, face, nails). Looking in the mirror and liking the person you see inside, that’s happiness. Fun is short, but happiness can last a long time.
However, what happens when we can’t hear the voice? What happens when the voice isn’t coming in clearly? Sometimes we can find ourselves in a tight spot or even a dangerous situation when we don’t listen or can’t hear our small voice. I can’t do this speech without mentioning a couple of students from the Class of 2008 who did not make it to graduation. Four long years ago, in the last week of February, two 14-year-old boys named Clay McKemie and Sean Wilkinson drowned on a trip in the Gulf of Mexico. We have planted two trees in front of the library to remember them. Christians believe that when you accept God as your savior you are promised eternal life in heaven, but what about before you die? God doesn’t promise wealth or health. He doesn’t promise us that all of our dreams will come true. God doesn’t even promise us another minute on this Earth. My father had an answer to this question in his favorite Bible verse. He was a preacher for over 40 years, and this verse caused him to accept Christ at the age of 10. It was in an old tent revival meeting in the delta of Mississippi when the pastor gave a children’s sermon.
He read John 10: 27-30.
[27] My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:
[28] And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
[29] My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.
[30] I and my Father are one.
The pastor took a pocket knife out and said, “This is you.” He took his left hand and said, “This is Jesus.” He put the knife in his left hand and gripped it tightly. He held up his right hand and said, “This is God.” He covered his left hand with his right and held it up for the children to see and said, “Wouldn’t you want a God like this?” That is when my father at 10 years old said, “Yes.” Thanks to this pastor, my father understood at such a young age that the one thing God promises us in this life is that he will always be there. There are events in our lives, some tragic, to which we will never find the answer. However, that doesn’t mean that we can’t learn anything from them. I truly believe as tragic as Sean and Clay’s deaths were, at the end, they were not alone. At times in our lives when things seem darkest, when we have lost our way, and when the voice seems to be gone, we can lower our heads, grit our teeth and have faith in a God that will hold us in his hand. Everything might not turn out liked we planned, but we can rest assured that everything will be OK.
Simon and Garfunkel wrote, “Preserve your memories, they're all that’s left you.” To the historian, memories are more than passing thoughts of an earlier time. We examine memories to try to find the deeper meaning in them. I remember. I remember a young girl in my Ancient World History class who during a spirited discussion on the philosophy of Confucianism raising her hand and asking “Mr. Inman, where exactly is China?” Now maybe I set the bar a little high with Confucianism, but I do know that her grandparents did buy her an Atlas for her next birthday. I remember a young lady who is an excellent tennis player. She came back from surgery to play tennis at Darlington. She has a blistering forehand, a thundering backhand, and bad habit of aiming for her opponent’s abdomen. Her reputation around the league preceded her to the point where you could hear the other girl's knees shaking at the net. In her next-to-last match a couple of weeks ago, she and her partner played a team that wasn’t very good. In fact, we won 6-0, 6-0. She came off the court and said “Mr. Inman, I kind of felt sorry for them. I didn’t even hit anybody.” To which I responded, “That’s good.” I remember another young lady who is an amazing diver. I would walk into the weight room at the Huffman Center and see her through that window. She would smile and wave at me and I would move my arms in a circular motion and mouth, “Do the flips.” She would nod and climb up on the board, and Mrs. Waddell would be there giving her instructions with her microphone. By that time a crowd had gathered at the window to watch her dive. She would vault in the air and do this amazing trick that would pull every muscle in my back if I attempted it. She would splash in the water and come up on the side of the pool. Pat Waddell would be saying, “That was good, but you know that you can do better.” Then she would look over at the window where I had the entire crowd around me doing the wave. I remember a young man in my Ancient World History class who, during a lecture on the Viking invasions of Europe, raised his hand and asked, “Mr. Inman, why do they call it popcorn if there’s no corn in it?” To which the girl who was confused about the location of China responded, “But there is corn in popcorn, isn’t there?” Nothing can stop a good history lecture quicker than a question like that. I remember two girls who had to begin most of their classes by acting out a skit from "Friends" or a commercial. One day when discussing an ancient civilization, one of the girls had a slight slip of the tongue. I corrected her by saying “Sweetheart, it’s pronounced ‘Hittites’ not ‘Hitittites.'" I remember a young lady who still claims to have been trying to throw her pen away when she accidently hit me in the forehead and made me bleed. You can get arrested for that kind of stuff in public school. I think I was more shocked than anything. As I held the tissue to my head, I kept saying in disbelief, “You made me bleed!” To which she replied, “Come on, Mr. Inman, it isn’t even that bad.” Her aim didn’t improve her sophomore year when she broke out that chapel window with a lacrosse ball. The question is, will I rat her out? What a wonderful opportunity! Well ... no, I guess I won’t, but if you get a strange bill from Darlington while you’re off at college, just remember, they made me talk. In all seriousness, she told the powers that be and the window was fixed. At least that time it was. She might have struck again. I remember a young man who would come into my room during his free period needing to use my computer. When I sat down at it again, I would notice my background had been changed to Chuck Norris wearing a unitard. I’m really glad he grew out of that. I remember a young girl who sat in my classroom on test day and cried because the Upper School was a lot harder than she had imagined. She had been at Darlington a long time, but now wasn’t sure she had what it took to be here. By the end of her sophomore year, she was making A’s in history. I remember another girl who described herself as a C student and was satisfied with that. By her senior year, she had not only gotten serious about her grades, but kept up with her underclassmen friends to the point where they called her “mother.” I remember free periods in my classroom that really weren’t that free. Instead, they would be packed with students who probably had much more important things to be doing than drawing on the board, listening to their favorite music, and being so loud I wished I taught in a trailer near the softball fields. I remember secret handshakes, funny internet sites, crazy puzzles that had no answers, and funny discussions in class about chickens. When I am old, sitting on my porch in my rocking chair, I will close my eyes and remember. I will remember you.
Teaching must seem a strange profession to those looking in from the outside. It is no secret we can be socially awkward at times. At least it is no secret anymore. Some of you are in the audience saying, “What? Teachers are socially awkward? I hadn’t noticed!” Come on, you know we are. Some of my colleagues are sitting down front asking, “What? Am I socially awkward?” Yes we are, and it is OK. It is time to embrace our awkwardness. Teachers go to school to get degrees and advanced degrees so we can spend our time with people half our age. As our careers get longer, the people are less than half our age. The jaded in our society say, “Those who can’t do teach.” Historians don’t necessarily disagree with that, but we do put a different spin on it. We say, “You can’t really rape, burn, and pillage anymore, so you might as well sit around and talk about it.” Every student in this chapel - at some point during the year - was convinced that teachers do what they do because they enjoy seeing teenagers suffer. Well I’ve got a different theory, and it is pretty radical so I’m glad you’re sitting down. What if teachers do what they do because they like students? What if we do what we do because we like you? In fact, I would dare to say that besides your parents, we’re your biggest fans. In the selfish sense, you are our product and your success is our success. But it is more than that. My mother taught school for over 30 years. It got to the point where she was teaching the children of her former students. We would see old students of my mother’s all over town, and they would always say, “Mrs. Inman, I remember when I was in your class. I remember when I was yours.” To which she would reply “Well, you’ll always be mine.” I never understood that until I became a teacher, but today I can stand here and truly say to the Class of 2008 that you will always be ours. We are so very proud of you and we’ll be rooting for you through the good times and bad. But when things get dark and the world seems to be closing in around you, just remember you can always return to your fan base. You can always find comfort and solace in a little place where a chapel sites by a lake. Thank you, and I love you all.
