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Convocation Remarks of Roberto Rodriguez

Roberto Rodriguez
Good afternoon. It’s a beautiful day here in Radcliffe Yard. Thank you to the Speakers Committee, to Dean Ryan. To this esteemed community and distinguished guests.

To the 700 graduates and their families gathered this afternoon – Congratulations on your accomplishments.

This is a momentous day.

Right about now you’re feeling the culmination of a long journey and many years of study. You’ll look back years from today, as your degree hangs on the wall – and I hope it will remind you of the formative and fun times here at the Ed School.  

I hope it will remind you of long hours and late nights at Gutman Library. Of meeting with your study group at Burdick’s for coffee, or for drinks at Charlie’s Kitchen. Of your orientation to the Ed School, reminding you of why you deserve to be here. And of learning from some of our best thinkers in education – Bridget Terry Long, Paul Reville, Daniel Koretz, Howard Gardner to name a few. Terry Tivnan – you still have the patience and brilliance for those of us for whom your course was a challenge.

While here, you’ve received the most excellent preparation possible from one the world’s finest institutions of higher learning. You and yours have every right to be proud.

But before you pop that champagne and begin that celebration back home with family and friends, take a moment while you sit here on this beautiful day to reflect upon your accomplishments. Consider how this journey all started for you.

What brought you here?  Who inspired you and helped you carve out your unique place at the Ed School?

Like you, I came seeking knowledge and skills to lead. I was in search of a strategy to right the injustice that I had witnessed in Detroit - a school district that had left entire neighborhoods of children behind. So I examined the culture of schools with Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot; I sat down with Gary Orfield to discuss school segregation; I explored the psychology of risk and resilience in our youth.    

Like you, I came here to stoke a passion for changing the world. I engaged in the educational debates of our time and formed friendships that will last a lifetime. We joined with the K-School to host a national debate on language policy and politics, with Ron Unz and Congressman Mike Honda facing off at the Institute of Politics. I know your days, too, have been filled with that same passion for change in our system.

Like you, I came here deeply committed to serve. Now on graduation day, chances are you won’t see mortarboards pasted with $100 bills at the Ed School. No, our reward comes in setting the stage to encourage and inspire learners of every age to discover their own gifts and sense of purpose.

Like you, I’ve experienced special, unforgettable, personal moments during my time here. In between lectures, study dates at Gutman, and trips down the road to Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, I met an amazing and beautiful woman who shared my interests, inspired me, and challenged me – made sure I brought my ‘A’ game. She still has a particular knack for that. I’m blessed to look out and see my wife Rocio with me today – not too far from where we sat together 17 years ago. And our journey has given us two amazing children – our best teachers – Isabela Mía and Roberto Andrés.

LIVING YOUR VALUES

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said that we are all inextricably linked, connected in a web of mutuality. What happens to one of us affects us all. Dr. King was right. What occurs thousands of miles away to a young girl named Malala Yousafzai – or even just hundreds of miles away to a young man named Michael Brown – affects our everyday lives.

And if you agree with Dr. King’s premise, then it is bound to have profound implications for what you choose to do with your life. It will lead you to consider the distinction between a vocation and a profession.

Professional roles evolve over a lifetime – they change depending on where we go and what we choose to do. But our vocation is that constant voice – unique to each of us individually.  It is the calling within us that compels us forward – no matter the position we hold, the obstacles we face, or the opportunities that we uncover.   

Our vocation connects us to one another. It inspires us to live a life marked not just by our own prosperity, but by the successes and well-being of others. It compels integrity and humility, and it gives us the courage and persistence to pursue change – even when everything or everyone around us might say it’s not possible. Our vocation awakens within us that sense of discontent with the world as it is, and it drives us to create the world as it should be.  

Graduates, it is our vocation that enables us to leave our mark on this world. It is our signature character; our compass; our unique contribution.

Whether you go on to become a teacher, a counselor, or a principal; a school superintendent or college faculty member; an education researcher, a policymaker, or a budding education entrepreneur. If you support education in any way, then this vocation is yours.

And your presence here today also demonstrates another important belief. That is your commitment to fostering education as the first rung on that ladder of opportunity that defines our shared dream as Americans.

We know that through education, that dream is attainable. I wouldn’t be standing here without it. My story is one of an immigrant son. I’m the first generation of that dream realized in my own family. In their highest hopes, they’d never have imagined me walking into the White House each morning.

It’s a dream that millions of our students and families hold on to, steadfastly. You and I – we’ve been in it. And through it. And we hold that dream in our hearts. For those students, for their families and their communities.

But not all have enjoyed the same opportunity as you and I. Rising income inequality and pockets of obstinate poverty place that dream at risk.

What is at stake? Not just our economic means. A great moral standard is at stake. Our ability to prepare not just some, but all of our children to succeed – this is the test of our nation’s most fundamental democratic principles. Of fairness, of equality, of justice, and of dignity.

I stand before you 32 years after A Nation at Risk. Sixty years after Brown v. Board of Education.

It is not just that we have left too many of our sons and daughters behind. Or that we have failed to bridge the opportunity gaps that persist in our neighborhoods and schools.

It’s how far we still must go to fulfill the promise of opportunity for every single child across our country.

It’s how far we still must go to provide preschool for millions of our children, and to commit ourselves to high expectations that will prepare them to graduate and succeed in life.

It’s how far we still must go to fund our schools equitably; to attract, support, and keep our best and brightest in public education.

It’s how far we still must go to remedy the pernicious poverty and racial discrimination that segregates, isolates and ignites our cities from Ferguson to Baltimore. How far we still must go to fully engage and respect our parents and families in this journey for change.

It’s how far we still must go to give our disconnected youth the dignity of a second chance to recover their education and pursue a career.

It’s how far we still must go to unleash innovation and creativity in our classrooms, to break a culture of teaching to the test, and to equip our students for success in an economy fueled by inquiry and imagination.  

I know you will enter this fight as I did, ready to give it your all – to throw yourself at these problems and fix as many of them as possible.

You’ll learn many lessons along the way. With your indulgence, I’d like to share a few of my own.

LESSONS ALONG THE WAY

I’ve learned, first, to always know who I’m fighting for. And why.

There’s no greater testament to the values that we fight for than the people who live them. One of the first things I learned about our president is his deep commitment to advancing opportunity for every young person and adult through our education system. The president is great at connecting with people and listening to their stories. And the moments when he is connecting with others around him on education are among my favorites.

As you can imagine, it’s not always easy to make those personal connections sitting within the White House. The president has two options: The first is what we call “the bear is loose.” This is when the president decides to walk out of the White House – or wherever else he happens to be – stroll around, and engage people like a normal person – that is, with special agents, a bevy of aides, and the White House press corps in tow. The bear was loose just a few weeks back, when he shared a cup of tea and a conversation on teaching and learning with our 2015 Teacher of the Year, Shanna Peeples.

A more frequent mode of connection for the president is through his personal correspondence. Every evening, the president reads letters addressed to him from Americans across the country. These letters are taken from tens of thousands of letters the White House receives each day. The notes are a reflection of what Americans want the president to know – they capture personal experiences, successes and struggles.

One of those letters came from a young man named Matthew Pointer, a sophomore and varsity basketball player at South Gate High School in South Central Los Angeles. Matthew notes in his letter to the president that he plays ball in part to keep his grades up, and because he knows it will help make him a better person as he grows. After a recent away game at Beverly Hills High, Matthew and his teammates were walking past the classrooms on their way to the gym. They peered in the windows and noticed just how many resources that school had compared to their own, like iPads for every student. And Matthew was struck by this contrast.

He writes: “I don’t know if it’s because we’re a minority as a community or maybe because of our location, but I really feel that school supplies such as computers, classrooms, even pencils and paper should be equally distributed to all schools no matter the district or location. What makes those schools like Beverly Hills and Redondo Union better than us? Is it the students? To some kids, school is the only thing that can help them make it out of where [they’re] stuck. You want change? ... Give us a chance and we’ll do our part by doing our job in school.”  

Each night the president reads letters like Matthew’s. And every morning, I receive his binder back with his questions scribbled in the margins: “Can we help?” “Is this true?” Or, sometimes, simply, “Fix this.”

For Matthew, the president wrote back. He shared his own experience playing basketball in high school and encouraged him to continue lifting up his community. That simple act bridged the distance between a student in South Central L.A. and the President of the United States. And it reminded the rest of us, in a very vivid way, why we do this work.

Because I tell you, you will need reminders like that.

At times, your impact may be hard to discern. You might even feel as if you haven’t lived up to what you thought you could achieve. But be patient. Be persistent. And measure your progress in increments.

This is the second thing I’ve learned. There are no short-cuts to meaningful change.

Don’t get me wrong, impatience can be a virtue – it’s what lights the fire for all of us to act. But ultimately, what matters is the long game.

In the fierce urgency of today, we’re all too often rewarded for the short wins.

Teachers and principals feel the pressure to move those test scores. Superintendents feel the pressure to quickly turn around that low-performing school. College faculty feel pressure to publish that article. Policymakers feel that pressure to pass that bill before political tides change.

When I graduated from the Ed School, I seized the chance to meet and solve many of the challenges in education that you’ll encounter. I began my career as an advocate for civil rights – fighting to improve life opportunities and outcomes for the Latino community. I’ve worked on the Education Committee in the United States Senate, and with the President of the United States at the White House.

And 17 years later, after sitting in the very chairs where you sit today, I haven’t fixed our educational system, much less solved poverty. I haven’t remedied every injustice.

The magnitude of the challenge is humbling. Chances are, you and I will still be waging these battles decades from now.     

And when I become impatient about the challenges ahead in our system, I’m reminded of one of my personal heroes – a man whom I was deeply privileged to have known and learned from – the late Senator Edward Kennedy.

During his time in the Senate, Senator Kennedy stood at the forefront of our nation’s most important legislative battles. Like President Obama, the senator was a champion of human rights, of civil rights, and of social justice.

One of the skills I learned from Senator Kennedy was to collaborate and to seek common ground.

Senator Kennedy was brilliant at bridging the partisan divide.  He searched out and always found common ground for what binds us together as humans across our differences. He found common ground in the shared desire to fix what’s broken. He found it in his willingness to listen to the other side and to compromise in pursuit of a larger goal.

With each of his landmark bills, the senator negotiated fiercely. He battled over what matters most, but also forged tough compromises. He always remained focused, not only on his policy objectives, but on his core values – on his vision for our country and for what we can achieve.

In my time in Washington, I’ve learned that the problems of our day are rarely solved solely by the strength of one’s own convictions or beliefs. Rather, they are met through partnership with a clarity of objective; with an open heart and mind to working through differences. No one large problem is solved by one individual alone.

As I have, you’ll undoubtedly encounter those who are skeptical of collaboration and compromise. Those moments will require you to challenge your own assumptions behind why you do this work, and for whom you do it.  

In those moments, you’ll pause, breathe, and remember to stay true to yourself, to have faith in yourself, and to make your own decisions about when to give and when to stand your ground.

In those moments, you’ll discover what it means to live your values – to live out your vocation that will guide your career.   

BE THE DIFFERENCE

And finally, you’ll remember that your success is not measured by whether you win or lose a fight, but by how you bear witness to the challenges around you that you are working to fix.

Examples set by countless men and women of conscious, ability and vision remind us of what it means to bear witness.

Horace Mann reminded our young nation of its responsibility to support public education, spoke out against the inferior conditions in our schools, and fought to double the wages of teachers, to improve textbooks, and to build a new institution – the American high school – across this Commonwealth.

John Lewis, as a young man, reminded us that we had the courage to integrate lunch counters, to desegregate interstate buses, and to march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge to spark a national movement that would lead to the Voting Rights Act.

Students like Anahi Mendoza remind us of what’s possible when we work to change a broken immigration system. Anahi’s advocacy began while she was still in high school, helping her fellow DREAMers apply to college. And her journey led her on to college, where she studied and advocated alongside her peers so that other undocumented students could have the same opportunities she did. 

Last year, we honored Anahi at the White House, as a Champion of Change.  This past March she visited with President Obama in the Oval Office. And tomorrow, Anahi will receive her undergraduate degree from Harvard College – and join all of you among the Class of 2015.

These leaders and so many others do not relieve us of the obligation to perfect our union. They remind us of that obligation. They remind us that we are the difference.

Graduates, how far we still must go to meet that great test of opportunity for all. This work needs you.

Remember, along your way, to ask yourself: “Can we help?” “Is this true?” And to sometimes, simply say “Fix this.”

God Bless you, Class of 2015.

Go out there and be the difference.

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