Let Them Eat Cake!

Dear Middle School Families,

This week’s Eighth Grade Moving Up Ceremony was a wonderful conclusion to a most exciting year.

[flickrslideshow acct_name=”lrei-photos” id=”72157626978077690″ width=”460″ height=”345″]

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5E8UzCZl8g

Since a number of you have asked, below is the speech that I gave at the ceremony.

You can also find at the bottom of the page links to the summer assignments. Information about the supply lists will be forthcoming for those who want to get an early jump on getting next year’s school supplies.

I hope that the summer provides you with ample opportunities to spend quality time with family and friends and to also think about trying something new together as a family.

Be well and see you in September,
Mark

Delivered on Tuesday, June 14, 2011,
on the occasion of the Class of 2015’s Moving Up

The cake isn’t a lie (1)

Sorry. I should probably back up a bit and explain the ground rules to family and friends who are here to share this day with you. My words to the eighth graders assembled before us represent a possible solution to a puzzle, a challenge that they have posed to us in the form of their dream flags, which adorn the walls of this room. They have captured on their individual flags the essence of an idea that says something about who they are, where they’ve been and where they are going. My task is to try to fit these unique statements together to arrive at some larger understanding of the eighth grade class of 2015. So to work . . .

The cake isn’t a lie

So we are back to this cake and if we are to be true to the quote then we must acknowledge that in its original form it reads, “the cake is a lie.” So “lie” or “not lie” that is the question. To take us a bit deeper, the quote comes from the video game Portal, which is

primarily comprised of a series of puzzles that must be solved by teleporting the player’s character and simple objects using the “the handheld portal device” – a device that can create inter-spatial portals between two flat planes. The player is challenged by an artificial intelligence named GLaDOS (Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System) to complete each puzzle in the Aperture Science Enrichment Center using the portal gun with the promise of receiving cake when all the puzzles are completed. (from wikipedia)

Sounds suspiciously like middle school lunch.

Now I won’t ruin things for those of you who have not played the game, but I’m not sure that a piece of black forest cake is really any kind of meaningful compensation for the hazards that one has to traverse to complete the game. It’s the same for us today. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of cake and of Moving Up, but in some important ways, they are both a little too sweet and self-indulgent for me. Has all of your hard work, the overcoming of obstacles and challenges, the movement from puzzle to puzzle really been about getting you to this moment? I don’t think so. So let’s taste the cake and keep on moving, which is what a number of your flags tell is to do:

There’s Dory from Finding Nemo who tells us to

Just keep swimming.

And another flag that says

Run like the wind

So being in motion, being always in the process of “becoming,” is an important idea. It suggests that we should always be traveling towards, but never content to simply arrive at. As one of you cautions us,

Life is a journey, not a destination. (2)

So again, it’s not really about the cake at the end of the game. And even if there is some cake, it’s not really the point. Today only has meaning because of all of the days that came before it. As you experience new days, the meaning of this one will change. One of you suggests that

If we are facing in the right direction, all we have to do is keep walking. (3)

And what does it mean to be “facing in the right direction” and how do you know when and if you are? I wouldn’t presume to try and answer this question for you. As the Zen teacher John Tarrant comments, perhaps the teacher

is refusing to answer the student directly, but offering [the question] back to . . . us as a kind of jewel box, a vessel that will hold our own great question, a question that we can resolve only by living with it in close companionship, living our way through it perhaps over many years. . . . If we are asking about the purpose of life, the answer will be interesting only insofar as it is useful and will be useful only when it throws us onto our own resources, and into an awareness of our own participation in the fate of living creatures.

So we would do well to consider the following flags that tell us

The purpose of life is a life of purpose. (4)

and as Abe Lincoln commented on one of your flags,

It’s not the years in your life that count, it’s the life in your years.

So there is no middle ground here. You cannot evade your responsibility to yourself and to others by playing it safe. As Phil mentioned in his remarks at the high school graduation, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” As Yoda reminds us on one of your flags

Do or do not, there is no try.

We have asked you to do many things over the course of your middle school years. Some made sense and others may have left you wondering, “What is up with these people?” You created, calculated, inquired, discovered, wrote, revised, read, drew, built and reflected. . . and reflected . . . and reflected. At times this may have seemed like a never-ending routine. We were like, as another flag offers, Mr. Miyagi from the Karate Kid with his mantra of

Wax on, wax off.

And that routine has now become a habit, a habit of mind, a way of living with and in the world so that you understand the profound meaning and importance of the flags that say

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. (5)

and

This is your world; shape it or someone else will. (6)

We asked you to take many risks with your thinking over the course of your middle school journey. We asked you to step outside of your comfort zone and, as a result, your actions did not always turn out as you expected. We hope that you have come to see these moments as the truly important ones. They push us ahead and challenge us to see things in new ways. This is hard work and one cannot fail “well” without the committed support of teachers and classmates who are there to pick you up when you fall down and help you back up again. You know as these two flags suggest to

Dare to dream, dare to fly, dare to be the ever-chosen one to touch the sky. (7)

and

Reach for the moon and even if you fall, you’ll fall among the stars. (8)

On reflecting on the long path he took to creating the light bulb, Thomas Edison observed, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” And each of those 10,000 attempts was grounded in a reflective process that led to an amazing discovery. It’s fair to say though that at this particular moment in time you’ve probably engaged in just about enough reflection. We get it, but your flags suggest that a fundamental commitment to reflection is something that you really do understand. One of you, quoting the philosopher Soren Kierkegard, suggests that

You must live life forward, but it can only be understood backwards.

and the slightly more contemporary version from Rafiki in the Lion King,

The past can hurt, but the way I see it, you can either run from it, or learn from it.

Another formulation says,

A man sooner or later discovers that he is the master gardener of his soul, the director of his life. (9)

And one reminds us that

We do not remember days, we remember moments. (10)

So what of this moment will you reflect on when our business here today is concluded? It is true that you will not be together in this way again. So take a moment to look around you and take it all in. You cannot really change anything about this moment other than the meaning that you will make of it. As one flag cautions,

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. (11)

So continue to commit to doing the important work on yourself as you move forward into your futures. Relative to many of your peers around the world, your lives are exceedingly rich in privilege. Do not take these privileges for granted. Some of these privileges you earned as a result of your hard work; some of these privileges you enjoy simply by virtue of when and where and to whom you were born. Some of this privilege has come at the expense of others. Work to change your understanding of this and you will be doing important work to change the world. Trust in yourself and in others and in our capacity to do what is right, kind and just. Remember the flag that says,

Trust me, I’m the Doctor.

For those not acquainted with this particular doctor, we are of course referring to Dr. Who, the star of this planet’s longest running science fiction TV drama. But who is Dr. Who? As the writer Delisa Carnegie observes,

He is infinitely curious. Sure it leads him into danger, but he is having the best adventure. He doesn’t let fear of the unknown stop him. He makes the best decision he can with the information he has and then acts. The Doctor knows that he will have to deal with the results of those actions, good or bad, and he acts anyway. The Doctor believes he will succeed. He acts with that belief and with confidence. He is busy saving everyone. He doesn’t have time to be consumed by worry or fear of failure. I’m not saying he never feels them; he just doesn’t dwell on it. There are more important things to be doing.

Quoting Marie Curie, one of your flags reminds us that

Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood.
Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.

And there are things in this world that can cause us to fear. Your profound work on this year’s social justice projects touched on issues that have created real and lasting fear for many. Your efforts were important because your work was aimed specifically at turning away from fear and towards understanding and action. This “turning away” from fear is in a way a profound act of faith. But as one of your flags warns,

I find your lack of faith disturbing.

Now, we can look at this one from multiple perspectives. If we take faith to mean the having of complete trust or confidence in someone or something, then faith runs high in this class and in the LREI community. But “someone” and “something” doesn’t tell us very much. What really matters are the values associated with the “someone” and the “something.” This year’s social justice project crystallized for many of you the fundamental importance of the values of justice, equality, diversity, understanding and compassion. These strike me as good values in which to ground ones sense of faith

But the dream flag in question here captures the words of Darth Vader and we would do well to question a commitment to faith on the basis of his values. Sadly, the history of our species is partly a story of conflict, hatred, injustice, intolerance and violence. Your studies this year helped to bring this dimension of the human condition into full view. You learned that change is hard work. While each of us can and must choose to participate to make a difference, these problems go beyond us as individuals.

As the sinister artificial intelligence GLaDOS sings over the credits at the end of Portal:

There is research to be done.
On the people who are still alive.
And believe me I am still alive.
I’m doing Science and I’m still alive.
I feel FANTASTIC and I’m still alive.
While you’re dying I’ll be still alive.
And when you’re dead I will be still alive. (12)

If tyranny and oppression are an unfortunate consequence of the human condition, then the fight against them will be an ongoing one. Faith in the ideals that are at the heart of your middle school experience represent a life’s work. We know that you will continue to be guided by these ideals, you will fight for them and you will teach them to others. As grim as the condition of the world might seem at times, the capacity for change and understanding does exist. Even Darth Vader is redeemed at the end of the Star Wars saga as his hatred, anger and fear give way to love and understanding. So there is hope . . . and a number of your flags reflect this

How I dream of being free since my birth, cursed but the demons I confronted will disperse. (13)

and

Strangers are just friends we haven’t met yet. (14)

Perhaps it is simply a question of how we choose to look at the world and determine what are obstacles and what are opportunities. Or, as observed in another flag,

I can see clearly now the rain is gone. (15)

and

Rise above the storm and you will find sunshine. (16)

So where do you find hope? You can find it in everything, but you need to be fully awake. You need to check constantly your assumptions about others and about yourselves. As one of you comments,

Do not be fooled by its commonplace appearance, like most things  it’s not what’s outside, but what is inside that counts. (17)

And remember that

Life is too important to be taken seriously. (18)

Life requires the company of others and as the following flags reminds us

In three words I can sum up everything I learned about life . . . . It goes on. (19)

So it is important that you

Take your time, don’t live fast, troubles will come and they will pass. (20)

Or even more simply put

Forget it, you’re beautiful. (21)

In the end, what we perceive, how we perceive it and what sense we make of it is all we really have. To this end, one flag quotes detective Adrian Monk from the crime drama Monk who says,

“Unless I’m wrong, which, you know, I’m not.”

As the philosopher Talia Welsh observes,

Monk is distracted by things that we would likely ignore, but it is because he is distracted by so many seemingly inconsequential things that he notices incongruous elements that solve the cases. Monk really does perceive (not just see, but perceive) more than the rest of us. . . . Monk invites us to try and look more closely and more broadly; to free ourselves from our own tendency to focus on what we think is present and relevant, rather than what is actually in front of us.

This idea is echoed on the flag that quotes Albert Einstein and reminds us,

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

It is not that knowledge doesn’t matter, but rather that it must have a purpose. Knowledge for knowledge sake cuts us off from really perceiving the world around us. It is the imagination when coupled with knowledge that allows us to see what is and what might be. Finding inspiration again in Dr. Einstein another flag affirms the “Monkish” view that

The only valuable thing is intuition.

And what can be intuited from the flag that says,

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree

The obvious answer is that kids are like their parents. Eighth graders, this would be an opportune moment to offer a silent thanks to your parents. But I’m actually more interested in why an apple doesn’t fall far from its tree. You will remember that this is precisely the question that Newton formulated as he sat under an apple tree. As William Stukeley writes in his Memoir of Newton:

It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the earth’s centre? . . . Surely, the puzzle was not that things fell down rather than sideways. Isn’t that what the concepts “fall” and “down” are about? Newton’s breakthrough was not that things fell down, but that the force that made them fall extended upward infinitely that the force exists between any two masses, and that the same force that makes an apple fall holds the moon and planets in their courses.

So from apples to moons and planets. Intuition and imagination. It is as FDR said and is captured on another flag,

Believe you can and you’re halfway there.

Or, as the Dutch proverb goes,

A donkey never hits his head on the same stone twice.

So that it may come to pass that

The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do. (22)

Over the last four years, we’ve talked about the importance of taking risks and how most if not all of our most important learning is the result of having taken a risk. To be clear though, we’re not talking about foolish risks here; we’re talking about thoughtful risks, which are considerably harder to take than the foolish ones. So who you choose to take risks with is of the utmost importance. Every Adolescent Issues conversation you’ve had over the past four years has been a variation on this theme. So we should not assume that we know more than we do and we should be humble with respect to that which what we do know. Or, as another flag says it

I’m a senior, but I stay fresh man. (23)

What this moment calls for is vision, or as Dr. Who likes to say, “No, I have a thing, it’s like a plan, but with more greatness.” And our “thing” today is a cake thing, and it is time to head back to where we started. I would be well advised to heed the advice of the flag that says,

Keep calm and have a cupcake.

Though I should point out that this flag really owes its origin to a British poster produced during WWII whose goal was to strengthen morale in the event of a wartime disaster. It read, “Keep calm and carry on.” The poster was third in a series of three. The previous two posters being, “Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution Will Bring Us Victory” and “Freedom is in Peril.”

I much prefer the flag that quotes Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and says,

Don’t Panic.

And if I may add “Carry a Towel.”

To shed a little more light on this, I quote from wikipedia, which might be seen as this civilization’s own Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:

Somebody who can stay in control of virtually any situation is somebody who is said to know where his or her towel is. The logic behind this statement is presented in chapter 3 of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy thus:

.. a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: nonhitchhiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, washcloth, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet-weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitchhiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitchhiker might accidentally have “lost”. What the strag will think is that any [person] who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a [person] to be reckoned with.

So as you look to the right and to the left and around this room, it is our hope that you see fellow travelers, hitchhikers if you will. And while you may not always carry a towel with you, you will carry a set of values and beliefs with you as you travel the “length and breadth of the galaxy” You are undoubtedly people to be reckoned with and the key is to continue to find others equally disposed to sharing the adventure with you.

So where does all of this leave us? And is the cake a lie? Seen through one lens, we are traveling in a universe at once awesome and at the same time absurd. We share our limited time with other passengers who are also engaged in the not insignificant task of trying to discern the ultimate answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything. The ultimate answer according to the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy turns out to be “42.” The question? That is not so easy. In fact, if we are to believe the gospel of Douglass Adams, the Earth is actually a computer that incorporates living beings in its “computational matrix” whose sole purpose is to determine this ultimate question. Its creators are a group of hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings who take the form of laboratory mice. Unfortunately, five minutes before completing this task the Earth is destroyed by the Vogons to make way for a new Hyperspace Bypass. So lacking a real question, the mice decide not to go through the whole thing again and settle for the out-of-thin-air suggestion “How many roads must a man walk down?” from Bob Dylan’s protest song “Blowin’ in the Wind.”

How very LREI.

So as you venture forth from middle school, we know that we have done our best to support you and prepare you so that you will keep seeking out questions and their answers as you walk down your many roads.

And yet, as I look at you, it is clear that you are still not satisfied; I haven’t really answered the question, “is the cake a lie?” Well, sometimes cake is simply cake and not a lie and is so close that you can  just reach out and touch it . . . especially if you’re sitting on it.

Enjoy and congratulations!

Unattributed dream flags:

1. Inspired by the video game Portal
2. Ralph Waldo Emerson
3. Buddhist proverb
4. Robert Byrne
5. Nelson Mandela
6. Gary Lew
7. Olivia Newton-John & John Farnham
8. Brian Littrel
9. James Allen
10. Cesare Pavese
11. Leo Tolstoy
12. Jonathan Coulton
13. Kid Cudi
14. Will Rogers
15. Johnny Nash
16. Mario Fernandez
17. from the movie Aladin
18. Oscar Wilde
19. Robert Frost
20. Lynyrd Skynyrd
21. Anonymous
22. Walter Bagehot
23. Mac Miller

Of General Interest . . .

1) From Director Phil Kassen: We ask that you take 15 minutes to login to LREI Connect to update your personal and emergency contact information before the end of the school year. Click here to read the quick guide for making these updates. For more detailed information, here are video tutorials to show you how:

• LREI Connect: Logging On For LS Families
• LREI Connect: A Brief Refresher For MS and HS Families
• LREI Connect: Editing and Adding Information

2) Please read this important letter from school nurses Kitty Highstein and Sue Gower. You can also access school health forms at http://www.lrei.org/community/parents/downloads.

3) Click here for the 2011-2012 school calendar.

For All Grades . . .

1)  Information about summer reading lists and summer assignments can be found here: http://libresources.lrei.org/mssummerreading. Please read the attached summer math letter as well.

2) From Athletic Director, Peter Fisher: Get ready for LREI Basketball Camp! Great players are made in the off-season! Don’t miss this opportunity to work on basketball skills, play fun and exciting games, and hang out with all your friends! Varsity basketball coaches and players will be running drills and skill work in the mornings, breaking for lunch, and then running games and tournaments in the afternoons. The camp runs from 9AM-4PM for one week only: June 20-24. We have two gyms (Thompson Street Athletic Center and our High School) and are looking forward to a big turnout. The camp is open to all fourth though eighth graders, no matter their skill level. If you are interested, please contact Peter Fisher — pfisher@lrei.org 212-477-5316 ext 233

For Eighth Grade Families . . .

1) Click here for information on the high school summer reading assignments.

For Seventh Grade Families . . .

1) We are  in the process of finalizing the details for next year’s eighth grade trip to Gettysburg and DC and the French and Spanish trips. Registration information will be forthcoming.

For Sixth Grade Families . . .

1) We are  in the process of finalizing the details for next year’s seventh grade trip to Williamsburg. Registration information will be forthcoming.

For Fifth Grade Families . . .

1) Additional information about the fall trip to Ashokan will be forthcoming. Please make sure to return the Ashokan Health form with your LREI forms before the start of the year. Please note that the Ashokan form does not require the signature of a physician as we will give them the over-the-counter and prescription page from the LREI form.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E14vpCn8JxY

============= For additional information, follow these links: =============

A reminder that the individual homework blog and the “feeds” for every class can be accessed from the Digital Classroom link on the sidebar (you may want to bookmark this page for easy access). These feeds provide an easy “one-click” solution to find out what has been assigned for homework. Keep in mind that a feed will only show what has been posted as of the time you check it.

Don’t forget to check the LREI website for updates and other interesting school-related information.

Be well,
Mark