A straight-talking Boston teacher gave his students a reality check during their graduation, using his address to tell them they were 'not special'.
In a rant targeting modern American parenting, Wellesley High teacher David McCullough Jr reminded the 'pampered, cosseted and doted upon' seniors that they are just another person on a planet with a population of 6.8billion - and therefore utterly insignificant.
'Yes, you’ve been pampered, cosseted, doted upon, helmeted, bubble wrapped... nudged, cajoled, wheedled .. feted and fawned over and called sweetie pie,' he told the teenagers in the speech, published on http://BostonHerald.com.
'But do not get the idea you’re anything special. Because you’re not.
'Contrary to what your under-nine soccer trophy suggests, your glowing seventh-grade report card, despite every assurance of a certain corpulent purple dinosaur, that nice Mister Rogers and your batty Aunt Sylvia... you’re nothing special.'
Mr McCullough told the graduates that a whopping 3.2million seniors were in the process of graduating from more than 37,000 high schools across the United States.
'That’s 37,000 valedictorians, 37,000 class presidents, 92,000 harmonizing altos, 340,000 swaggering jocks, 2,185,967 pairs of Uggs,' he said.
'But why limit ourselves to high school? After all, you’re leaving it. So think about this: even if you’re one in a million, on a planet of 6.8billion that means there are nearly 7,000 people just like you.' Ceremony: Mr McCullough delivered his bizarre speech at Wellesley High
Ceremony: Mr McCullough delivered his bizarre speech at Wellesley High
The experienced English teacher attacked what he says is an 'epidemic' in America of loving rewards more than genuine achievements.
'You see, if everyone is special, then no one is,' he said. 'If everyone gets a trophy, trophies become meaningless. We have of late, we Americans, to our detriment, come to love accolades more than genuine achievement.
'We have come to see them as the point - and we’re happy to compromise standards, or ignore reality, if we suspect that’s the quickest way, or only way, to have something to put on the mantelpiece.'
Mr McCullough concluded the graduation tirade with typical, upbeat advice that urged students to work hard and do what they love.
'Before you scatter to the winds, I urge you to do whatever you do for no reason other than you love it and believe in its importance,' he said.
But he added that a 'fulfilling' and 'relevant' life is an achievement, 'not something that will fall into your lap because you're a nice person or mommy ordered it.'
The teacher concluded: 'The sweetest joys of life, then, come only with the recognition that you’re not special.'
Poster Comment:
Might be a good message to prompt grads to take the initiative to become special through an invention or some achievement in life sciences, physics, chemistry.