This is a commencement address given to students in an upper middle class suburb in MA. This guy hits the nail on the head. It seems we've raised a generation that is expected to get a trophy just for showing up at a soccer game lest their precious little self esteem gets crushed.

http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/wellesley/2012/06/youre_not_special_teacher_tell.html?p1=Upbox_links

Of course all the yuppie parents were probably miffed that the speaker didnt aggrandize the minor and commonplace acheivment of their perfect angels.

The truth seems to be a very offensive thing to most people these days.

I remember when I was starting my masters program the dean basically came in and said, "You're all here because to a certain degree you earned it, and you should be proud of that fact, but never forget there will always be people smarter than you, more imaginative than you, and more successful than you".

He was right, and I appreciated being reminded of that.

Here's the video:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5p5nufi7EY

RIGHT ON! This guy needs to go on a "commencement speaking tour"

My freshman year of college, during our Freshman Convocation, right after the parents were gone the college president addressed us. He told us to "introduce" ourselves to the person next to you, and then added that we need to say "goodbye" because the person you shook hands with would not "be at graduation" at that then long ago and still "far away" year of 1993.

He was trying to convey that a good chunk of us would "flunk out" (which was true) few more would end up "transferring" to a different college or university (which was also true) and few more of us would just drop out of college altogether (a fact)

I went to a tiny residential college. In 1989, my freshman class was 264 students. By the time I graduated in 1993, the class sized was 87. Most flunked out by the time spring term had ended in May of the following year.

I guess this "you're special" and "entitlement" thing is really huge now (and it was bad enough when I was comming up)

I skimmed through the speech, and didn't read every word, but I thought it was terrible. This is the typical garbage that is fed to students that causes them to fail in life. As I was reading through it, I was looking for the perfect quote from this sort of idiot, and of course I found it:



In other words, don't think about your future, or your career, or whether your "education" is leading to a practical result, no, instead "do whatever you do for no reason other than you love it." This is terrible advice, leading to unemployment, or at best, employment at Starbucks competing with high-school kids.

And also, it should be obvious, but if you live in Wellesley you are special, maybe not every single person, but on average you are way beyond most high school kids socially, economically, educationally, everything really. This town, and a few of its near neighbors such as Acton, are the highest-class towns in the area. I suspect this guy has a chip on his shoulder and is trying to bring the students or perhaps their parents, down a few notches to his own level, but most of them are smart enough to shrug it off and go on the success in spite of his attitude.

Just out of curiosity, what do you mean by highest-class?