Graduates move on with unique ceremony
By Gail Geraghty
Staff Writer

PARIS – For a class known for challenging authority, Saturday’s graduation at Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School was decidedly unconventional.

Instead of giving speeches, the valedictorian and salutatorian spoke through their music, performing in solidarity on one piano.

The teacher chosen by the class to give the commencement address, English teacher Tom Harvey, urged them to defy conventional wisdom and “dare to disturb your universe.”

Then, after everyone had received their diploma, fireworks filled the sky.

The night began with a bold statement by class President Brandon Pullen: “My class may well be the most unique class that’s ever come through here.”

Pullen said his class includes many strong-willed students: in a word, individualists.

“We understand authority, but we have a general problem when it’s being abused,” he said.

Echoing that theme, Principal Joe Moore talked about Robert Frost’s poem, “The Road Less Traveled,” telling the students to take the lessons of compassion, thoughtfulness and courage they’ve learned at OHCHS, “take it beyond the Oxford Hills, and share it, and bring it back here.”

Sasha Joseph, valedictorian, and Timothy Maurice, salutatorian, then shared a piano bench, and played an original composition they’d created for the occasion. That they never planned to give speeches, but offer their music instead, was kept secret to all but a few of the 3,100 people attending the ceremony at the Don Gouin Athletic Complex.

The pair received a standing ovation when they finished.

Harvey then took the podium. He told the students in the coming months and years they are going to “try on new ideas” that will bring huge changes in their lives.

He said, “Too many people think too much, and care too little,” a quote from author Benjamin Huff. At first glance, such a statement might sound like academic heresy, but it’s not, he said.

“Knowledge without caring is downright destructive,” said Harvey. He said people in American society are the “victims of corporate greed, running rampant on Wall Street,” and victims of the “violence running rampant on Main Street.” Murder, rape, abuse and indifference, he said, “are stealing from us our precious humanity, our ability to care.”

Nothing is more important than learning to care,” he told the students, and “the responsibility for change belongs with you young adults.”

Harvey said he has the greatest respect for the class of 2003, because “you are not afraid of making waves when you sense something is wrong.” The “elite would have you believe that they know what’s best for you,” but don’t buy into it, Harvey urged. “You do not have to always color within the lines.”

Harvey even made a jab at the portfolio program the school uses to assess student performance, saying “I doubt Albert Einstein would be successful” if he had to try to fit his theory of relativity into the portfolio guidelines.

He challenged the students coming after the class of 2003 to “learn a better way for you to present yourself to us” because “not every student has the exact same needs.” Conformity leads to boredom in the end, he said.

“Dare to care. Care enough to become angry. Dare to disturb your universe. Honor what’s right. Change what’s wrong,” Harvey said. Then he challenged, first the seniors, then the teachers and administrators, to turn to the person sitting next to them and give them a hug.

“You are real people. You have so much to offer,” said Harvey.

Copy the Story Link