Good Morning. Although my title here at The Park School is the Upper Division Head, it is known as Principal at other schools. That term principal originally meant “principal teacher.” And so, it is as the division’s principal teacher that I take a moment to deliver your last lesson before you leave the Upper Division.
Now, class of 2024, I am just teaching you along with several extra observers, and in case you are wondering, yes there will be a test…actually plenty of tests and re-tests…So listen closely.
Today’s lesson comes from the field of biology. And before you scientists get excited, since I am actually an English teacher, I’m only borrowing your content to make what is hopefully a memorable metaphor.
Today’s lesson is about the adorable rodents known as lemmings. Now for those of you who don’t know, lemmings are small rodents, usually found in or near the Arctic in tundra biomes. They are usually 5-7 inches long with black or brown fur, are great swimmers, and are part of the superfamily Muroidea, which also includes rats, mice, hamsters, and gerbils. They experience wide population fluctuations which range from huge booms and expansion to near extinction. They are probably best known because in popular culture, a longstanding myth holds that they exhibit herd mentality and jump off cliffs, committing mass suicide.
In fact, that last point about the myth of lemmings is significant. There are songs and poems about lemmings jumping off cliffs, and a common insult is to say someone who “goes with the crowd” is being a lemming. The lemming has long been a metaphor for someone who simply does what others do. In fact, there are more than a couple of speeches using the “cliff-diving, thoughtless lemming” metaphor to encourage individual thinking. This, however, is not one of them.
Instead I want to clarify the myth and mention the impact of story–even inaccurate ones. In reality, the most significant contributor to that myth is that this reported self-destructive behavior of diving off cliffs was actually staged in the Walt Disney documentary White Wilderness in 1958. Producers shipped in a truckload of lemmings and they were actually “coached” off of the cliff for the sake of filming this behavior. As television was still in its early years of storytelling, the tale spread quickly and widely, and now the lemmings are stuck with this reputation-even though we have new information that now tells us the myth is not accurate.
Now lemmings, to be accurate and fair, especially when there are a lot of them, do migrate in large groups that often take off across a body of water that is too wide or too deep and they wind up in trouble before they notice that they have underestimated their path and overestimated their swimming ability. So, to be honest, the lemmings, though actually trying to survive, aren’t necessarily helping to correct the myth.
So, Mr. Rogers, what is the true lesson here? Just what am I saying is the “lemming lesson” for you Class of 2024?
First, be careful who you run with. Check your crew and occasionally examine your squad. Lift your head and make your own decisions instead of assuming those ahead of you…around you…know whether you are actually headed in the right direction. If you are not careful and aware, even though you swim well, you may find yourself in “deep water” before you know it.
Second, be mindful of the stories you tell. Test them…question them, unpack them…and challenge your motives for telling the stories you do tell. Every now and then, double-check what you accept as true and certain. Be aware of when you don’t have the whole story, when you may speak with a confidence and authority but may lack accuracy. And as we see with the lemmings, sometimes popular culture gets it wrong.
Third, cultivate an openness to learning new things and have the humility to admit you were wrong or you didn’t know. Be willing to revisit your thinking–and not just about lemmings. Don’t be afraid to be wrong. According to Karen Schulz, author of Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error, “If we have goals and dreams and we want to do our best, and if we love people and we don’t want to hurt them or lose them, we should feel pain when things go wrong. The point isn’t to live without any regrets, the point is to not hate ourselves for having them… We need to learn to love the flawed, imperfect things that we create, and to forgive ourselves for creating them. Regret doesn’t remind us that we did badly — it reminds us that we know we can do better.”
As a class, you have done better with the passing of every year–and the true stories of your class bear this out. Consistently, you have demonstrated:
Wit and wisdom
Charisma and care
Service and spirit
The stories of you are many and among the accolades of wins and accomplishment, you also learned lessons in your mistakes…and changed as a result…as you began learning to take responsibility for your own behavior, practicing repair and forgiveness as you moved forward in community, at times modeling for the rest of us how to stumble, struggle, find your voice, and get back on track. You showed us not perfect Park Portraits, but ones that became more of the ideal with every draft. I am, we are, incredibly proud of you for how you have navigated your Park journey.
You are special to me as a class because you and I arrived in the Upper Division at the same time fall of 2020–you were the first fifth grade class in the Upper Division…smack dab in the middle of the “what in the heck-ness” of it all…you embraced the opportunity…discovered fun and joy and curiosity and service regardless of your circumstances…up until this very day. What the adults will tell you, and life will continue to show you, is that that approach to moving about this world is life-giving, and spirit-lifting, especially when the world is full of chaos and worry.
My hope for you…class of 2024..
Is that you really get the thing about myth…about story, and that you understand the responsibility of accuracy and the power in the retelling. There will be stories of your time here that are destined to bear repeating–because as classes go–you are both favored and favorite. On behalf of those of us who led you, taught you, served you…on behalf of those of us who were delighted, impressed, entertained, and, yes, even challenged by you… I want to thank each one of you for your weaving through your migratory years at Park, a story of a class memorable, the story of a class that was a joy to teach, and the story of a class who made the hardest parts of teaching and leading worthwhile. I wish you continued success in your pursuit of truth, learning, and service, and I look forward, with great anticipation, to the stories of your continued, very positive impact on this world.
Class dismissed…thank you.
