Students at the J. Graham Brown School, class of 2009, graduated last night. These are students I did not teach, but who I knew from the way they moved through hallways and high school (except Jordan Smith - he was in my pre-school Nature camp at the Louisville Nature Center when he was three years old. We knew each other before we knew Brown). I am thinking about the seniors today, especially after reading President Obama's speech to the Muslim world where he quotes, "E pluribus unum: "Out of many, one."
That is the America and the Brown School way. Plurality. It made me recall Alice's photograph from this year's senior trip to Florida and my comment, 'Whether they know it or not, this is symbolic. Very Brown." It was the cover of their graduation program and stands as a testimony that their shadows, though united for a brief period of time, are facing new waters in the great unknown. On this quirky Friday, I congratulate the class of 2009 (and President Obama) for the hopeful efforts of trying to make in the 21st Century a stronger place on the globe. Perhaps it's a coincidence, 2009, but when I came home yesterday afternoon there was one flower blooming in my garden: a giant white daisy. For years, Alice and I gave every graduating senior a white daisy in honor of Harold & Maude. Today, I give all the graduates at the J. Graham Brown School a cyberspace daisy in honor of their achievement and my sadness I didn't get a chance to teach them.
Students at the J. Graham Brown School, class of 2009, graduated last night. These are students I did not teach, but who I knew from the way they moved through hallways and high school (except Jordan Smith - he was in my pre-school Nature camp at the Louisville Nature Center when he was three years old. We knew each other before we knew Brown). I am thinking about the seniors today, especially after reading President Obama's speech to the Muslim world where he quotes, "E pluribus unum: "Out of many, one."
That is the America and the Brown School way. Plurality. It made me recall Alice's photograph from this year's senior trip to Florida and my comment, 'Whether they know it or not, this is symbolic. Very Brown." It was the cover of their graduation program and stands as a testimony that their shadows, though united for a brief period of time, are facing new waters in the great unknown. On this quirky Friday, I congratulate the class of 2009 (and President Obama) for the hopeful efforts of trying to make in the 21st Century a stronger place on the globe. Perhaps it's a coincidence, 2009, but when I came home yesterday afternoon there was one flower blooming in my garden: a giant white daisy. For years, Alice and I gave every graduating senior a white daisy in honor of Harold & Maude. Today, I give all the graduates at the J. Graham Brown School a cyberspace daisy in honor of their achievement and my sadness I didn't get a chance to teach them.
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