Look at you! You are gowned and tassled and you’re ready to take on the world! Through that first nerve-racking audition, all those subsequent sleepless nights, the painstaking preparation for your recitals, the endless hours of reed-making and memorization, the blisters and the tears, and now here you walk side by side with the life-long friendships you have now forged, you are about to be Alumni of the acclaimed Juilliard School! I invite you to breathe that in. I stand before you this morning, duly humbled, and in awe of the distinguished and hard-earned accomplishment awarded to each and every single one of you on this unforgettable and long-awaited day of your graduation. Keep the memory of the past two years in your mind and never forget what is possible when you love learning and let your curiosity lead your way.Chairman Kovner, President Polisi, most distinguished honorees, dedicated family, friends, faculty, and to EACH of the talented, ambitious, courageous, adventurous Juilliard graduates of the class of 2014 before us here today, thank you! In closing, my most heartfelt congrats to you and the work you have done in the past two years. Don’t squash it with test prep, awards competitions, and overly standardized learning. Do whatever is in your power to keep them this way as long as possible. They have a love for learning and treasure every day at school. Look at these bright and enthusiastic faces. Teachers outside of the preschool world, if you are in the audience I ask you a favor. They will encourage you to be more than a number on a standardized test or a grade on a report card. This teacher will allow you to think outside the box and allow your natural creativity to flow. If you are fortunate enough you will have a teacher willing to make learning as fun for you as it was here in preschool. My last piece of advice is for you to never lose your hope. If you are lucky you will come out on top. Instead of playing together you will compete with each other for awards, spots on sports teams, and class ranking. Although as you move on in your schooling, those friends will now be competitors. Those friends that you made in preschool will still be with you. Now don’t get me wrong, elementary, junior high, and high school will have some great things as well. Too many failed tasks and you will be labeled a failure with no chance of success in this so called real world. However, as you move forward, failure is seen as weakness and ultimately will determine your lot in life. Even though you failed initially, your teacher did help you learn from it. Yes, when you tried singing your ABC’s and messed up, your teacher gave you as much time as you needed to figure it out and get it right. Do whatever you can to be creative in your work and pursue your natural curiosity.Īnother thing to keep in mind is to avoid failing. As you get older your classes will become more rigid, structured and scripted. You learned new things out of curiosity and a natural love of learning. While you were here in preschool you were creative in the most unfiltered and pure form. My second piece of advice is to hold on to your creativity as long as you can. Your play time will be replaced by test preparation and your coloring will be done with a number two pencil in small circles. You will be entering into a world of testing and strict standards that will dictate your every move. Especially anything that was fun and playful. Students, as you move into the next phase of your academic lives I have some advice for you. Through the power of compassionate and love filled teaching, these students are now prepared for elementary school. Through the power of play these students have grown socially, emotionally and academically. Over the past two years they have come through these doors to play, paint, draw, build, dress-up, read, write, color, and learn. We come together today to recognize and honor our preschool graduates. Thank you so much for asking me to come and speak before you on this momentous of days in the lives of these five year olds. Good afternoon friends, families, and graduates.
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