Commencement Speeches
Charlie Sposato
Founding Principal
MATCH Charter Public High School
Parents, colleagues, friends, special guests,
And members of the class of 2007.
Thank you for giving me a few minutes to share my joy with you. I would like to begin with two questions we constantly ask our students:
Why are you here today?
I am here to learn.
What does it take?
Courage
Discipline
Perseverance
I believe this is the cornerstone of MATCH as a community. It is a part of the legacy of our community. Students who are interviewed after their MATCH education often speak of what this ritual has meant to them. And they tell us how these words have become very significant to them. I believe they symbolize our culture and shape our legacy for each student. Each of these graduating students has heard and repeated these words nearly a thousand times during their MATCH experience. And, today i believe that these words embody what it has taken for each of them to reach this point in their academic lives. To emphasize this point i would like to share another strategy used at match every day and in every class and tutoring session.
As most of you know, every learning session at MATCH begins with a Do Now, which is an activity that is both a teaching strategy as well as a classroom management technique. It has become part of our culture and part of the school's academic legacy. One of its purposes is to immediately involve students in the pending lesson so there is no time to goof off. Another is to center their thoughts upon a particular topic or subject so the teacher can ascertain how much or little they understand about what has been taught previously or what is going to be taught. Now, we do not need the management part here today with most of you, but there are some who may need it! Mr. Luckett, you know who i am speaking about!
Parents, your Do Now is to think for a few seconds on how your son or daughter has changed during his or her years at MATCH. I would ask the graduates to think about the changes that they have noticed in themselves. Picture them four or five years ago and let your mind follow your thoughts through the years to this day, June 19, 2007.
It would be wonderful to ask many of you what changes have you seen in them or in yourselves, but we will not because of time. I imagine there have been a number of changes you have noticed. However, the question that interests me is why did these changes occur? What do they signify?
I believe these changes signify the essence of MATCH's culture and its legacy. It is a culture that demands the best of every member and a culture that does not accept It cannot be done or It is too hard.
Our legacy to our graduates is that they now know that they can do whatever they wish and dream if they work hard and are courageous, persevering, and disciplined. We cherish their dreams as much, and perhaps sometimes, more than they do.
As Langston Hughes wrote,
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
Many poets and writers use the dream motif in their works because they know the human heart longs to aspire and to fly. Writers know that the story lies in the characters' struggle to realize their dreams. The struggle reveals the essence of each character as it does for each of us. One of the works we study at MATCH is Naylor's Women of Brewster Place. It is a novel about women who dream and fail to have their dreams fulfilled. Why do they fail? They failed because many of them placed their dreams on the shoulders of someone else and many of them just gave up.
Each of our graduates has a dream and it is within these dreams that each will create his or her legacy. Do they have the courage, the perseverance, and discipline to realize their dreams? What will their legacy be?
That is the question today.
We at MATCH, like Langston Hughes, ask our entering students to:
Bring me all of your dreams,
You dreamer,
Bring me all your
Heart melodies
That i may wrap them
In a blue cloud-cloth
Away from the too-rough fingers
Of the world.
Perhaps today is the day we remove the blue-cloud cloth because they have proven that they can face the challenges of tomorrow independently? Well, that may be true, but again, MATCH's legacy is to reach beyond the years and offer support and encouragement long after the ritual question of "why are you here?" is replaced with other questions.
Our students have been loved, challenged, and pushed much more than they realize at this moment. Just as the teachers, upon reflection after the year is over, will have these small private epiphanies about certain students, so too, will our students have the same concerning their teachers and their tutors. Our teachers and our principal, Mr. Miranda, have moved heaven and earth to convince our graduates and all students that they can dream with confidence. That is their legacy to them. They have whispered and shouted to them that you are capable of accomplishing things umimagined if you have the courage, discipline, and perseverance. MATCH's legacy will be perpetuated by each parent and each student who continue to pursue their dreams even when it seems impossible. Students may reflect upon their years at match and think of their tutors who worked 60-80 hours a week to help them through quizzes, tests, personal challenges, and their own doubts about passing and coping with the pressure of being a match student. The MATCH Corps, led by Lisa Hwang, epitomize the words courage, discipline, and perseverance. Actually, they are the very definition of these concepts. They give of themselves so freely and they accomplish all of this and, yes, they continue to smile and to laugh.
Teachers and tutors consistently tell students:
What we are doing is important.
I know you can do it.
I will not give up on you.
It is my hope that our graduates now know that whatever their dreams are, they are doable if they are willing to put in the effort. Remember, as Tennyson wrote in Ulysses, a man who personified courage, discipline, and perseverance:
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are—
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
So, why are you here today? You are here today to learn and to affirm that you are strong in will and of heroic hearts. Every time i asked that question to my students, i simultaneously asked myself the same question, and my answer was the same as theirs, to learn. What have i learned during those years?
I have learned that my wife has more courage, discipline, and perseverance than I. I have learned that I am grateful to her for her quiet and heroic efforts in helping to build the MATCH community. What i have offered my students is what i have received from her. She, like parents and those who stand quietly behind each of us, have helped create this great MATCH legacy. Tomorrow, our graduates will carry it with them and, I hope, they deepen it through their courage, discipline, and perseverance.
Thank you for listening.
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Charlie Sposato's Remarks
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