[Previous entry: "Cal-Trans Hear My Gripe"] [Next entry: "A Homeless Man With a Story"]

12/10/2009: "My Commencement Speech Inside the Prison"

To the Inmates At Centinela State Prison--Jewel of the Desert
Brian McNeece

Good morning and congratulations. Congratulations on completing your GED. Felicito a todos por sus logro de haber cumplido el GED. Les felicito sinceramente. You now have the equivalent of a high school diploma, but I would suggest that it is much more than that. Only 60% of high school graduates can pass the GED test. Last night I was looking online at what is tested, and I answered a few questions. You know what? They weren’t that easy, so my hat’s off to you. You may have been told that only 37% of high school dropouts can get steady work. You’re no longer part of that group, so congratulations.

I don’t know anything about you or your particular situations for being here or your motives for completing an important step in school. But I do know a lot about education and learning. As was mentioned in the introduction, I have three college degrees, and actually I would probably have more if I lived near a university and didn’t have the financial burden of three children.

I enjoy learning very much. In fact, you might say that I’m an avid apostle in the Church of Learning. When finals come around, and my students are bowed over their desks writing their best, I see them as if the classroom was a church, and the final exam was a sacred moment. Their effort to gather their intellectual resources and make sense of some body of knowledge is the very act that raises them up a notch, that grows them in ability to think and communicate with themselves and the rest of the world.

I believe in God, and I believe in prayer, but praying to God is an act of humility and surrender of a different kind. Going to school or embarking on a project of learning to me is a practical prayer. If you have cancer, you certainly should pray to God, but you’ll be directly effective in your own healing if you learn about cancer and the drugs used to treat it. Learning is mankind doing what God gave us to do—think and learn to manage our lives and our worlds. To me, learning is sacred.

Why do we have this ceremony today? That in itself is worth commentary. For society doesn’t congratulate you through a formal ceremony for a lot of things that are worth doing. Get to work on time every day for a year? Your boss doesn’t give you a certificate. Take out the trash at home conscientiously for several months? Nobody says anything. Nobody honors you for good dental hygiene or keeping your quarters neat and tidy. Yet finish your GED and everybody cheers you on. Way to go. Attaboy!

Why is that? Because you have set a goal and achieved it, and society loves that process. You have learned something, and in that you have grown. You are more than you were. You have pulled yourself up away from randomness to order. You have made a decision to engage your ability to pay attention and pursued it. In other words, you have made a step forward and upward in the thing we called civilization. In that, everyone benefits, not just you.

Because that’s what civilization is: the sum total of all the people’s knowledge and cooperation as it is built up over centuries and centuries of learning.

And when I say centuries and centuries, I don’t mean that in an abstract or collective way–I mean you, sitting there in your seats. You may think that who you are is complete in that chair. You may think that you are as quick and agile as a panther, you can stop and start on a dime. You can move at a moment’s notice. In fact, you’re more like a giant oil tanker plying the ocean. For who you are has an inertia and a momentum than not only goes back to your childhood but to your parents and their parents and so on.

I teach linguistics, which means that I’m a student of languages. The more I know about language, the more astonished I am that humans can use it so effortlessly. By the time you’re four years old, you’ve mastered the entire grammar of at least one language, and often more than one. If you had to study English for your GED, you’ll know how confusing it is. You know the language perfectly; English classes force you to be able to talk about what you know—like what’s a noun a verb a subject a predicate and so on.

My point is that the language you learn is thousands of years of layers old, yet you learn it effortlessly. In the same way, you learn all the things it is to be human. In your family, you learn to like and dislike certain foods, you have a voice accent, you have gestures that mark you as your parents’ sons, you have a style that your family gave to you.

So that’s why when you stare off into your future, you may see open waters or rocky shoals, but changing your course ain’t easy. You have a lot of inertia behind you. And the older we get, the more we realize that. We’ve got all the momentum of our past behind us, and our habits bad and good to weigh us down or propel us forward.

Getting your GED has made a correction in your direction for that oil tanker. Just like your parents and their parents set the stage for you; what you do now does that for those who come after you. By getting your GED you’ve put your boat slightly in a better course. Your kids will see that; your loved ones see that; everyone around you will see that. Your job now is to keep that energy going to adjust the direction. Only 37% of high school dropouts have steady work; you have now officially rolled yourself out of that group by getting a GED. With a few more corrections you’ll be in another, more successful group of learners.

I can tell you a little of my own story. In the intro you learned that I have three college degrees. Three of my grandparents were laborers, one in a factory and the other two in the fields. But my grandmother had been to college, so when she got married to my grandfather, they decided that all five of their kids would go to college. So when I came along, it was a given. I didn’t know it until much later, but it was as if my daddy had raised me up on a tall ladder. I thought that was the normal view. Where most people had to start climbing from the ground, I was almost to the top already. My dad paid for college and that went okay, but when I got out I started slipping, because I didn’t know what I had. Before too long I had no money, no job, and some bad habits.

You see, my oil tanker had slowed almost to a crawl and it started to drift. I didn’t realize that I had to make my own course at that point. Luckily for me, I started making some small corrections. It took me fourteen years to get my masters degree, but I did it. And then, once my ship was set on course, I got another masters degree in just two more years and three summers—going to school part time.

My mother in law didn’t start going to college until she was 36; by the time she was done, she had a doctorate and was vice-president of the school where I work. (Luckily she’s retired now.)

So what’s next for you? I hope to challenge you to continue, if not in school in any other project. Keep making corrections.

I know there are obstacles ahead of you, deep and difficult chasms to cross and tough terrain to navigate through. I know. Some men are naturally born to be warriors. Maybe that’s one of the reasons you are here. Inside you is the drive to be the alpha dog, to demand and get respect, to push to get what you want when you want it. It comes with the genetics that once again is part of our past going way back. But the ways of the hunter warrior don’t work too well in modern times.

Who are the alpha dogs today? Well, Bill Gates of Microsoft and Warren Buffet are among the wealthiest men in the world, yet to meet them you might think they were Episcopalian ministers. Barack Obama is now the most powerful man on earth, but he never raises his voice. Sure. Soft guys all of them. But brainy, educated, and restrained. So one of the challenges you face is to learn to tame yourself, to learn self-control and discipline. Become a disciple to channeling your energy into learning and thought instead of feeling and action.

Another barrier to achievement is the simpler problem of forgetting. If I could only remember why I’m doing what I’m doing, I would have written ten books by now. But I’m a victim of my own tendency to distraction, and much of my time is just for my own amusement. It doesn’t take me anywhere. Someone wise and famous once pointed out to me that the only thing we have the least chance of controlling is the contents of our own thoughts. And even then, it’s pretty tough.

We constantly forget what we’re supposed to be doing. And so all of us need reminders of our goals and our dreams and our purposes. One way I try to monitor the way I spend my time and the content of my mind is to ask myself—what did I do today that moved me forward in life? Was I proud to have watched the whole Chargers game. Well, actually I was prouder of having mowed my lawn or planted my garden or hugged my wife. Was I proud of getting frustrated with my students because they come to class unprepared. Well, I was prouder when I kept my good humor and saw that they were paying attention.

Paying attention—that’s work. And once again, that’s why we’re honoring you today. Making the decision of where you’re going to move that power of yours, your attention, to a higher purpose, that’s big. That’s good, that’s great.

So watch out for the warrior in you and the distracted part of you. Challenge yourself now with another project. Start up with community college and get an Associates degree. One step at a time. If school is not for you, pick something else. Write it down, put it on your wall, tell a friend, tell your loved ones what you want to accomplish. Create a group of allies to help you remember your purpose.

You’ve made a correction in the direction in the giant oil tanker that is you. One notch in the compass at a time, and keep that mojo working.