Chances are you've already seen this... it does have nearly 2.5 MILLION views and counting since its posting yesterday! (May 25, 2016).
Excerpt:
I was in the 7th grade, when Ms. Parker told me,
“Donovan, we can put your excess energy to good use!”
And she introduced me to the sound of my own voice.
She gave me a stage. A platform.
She told me that our stories are ladders
That make it easier for us to touch the stars.
So climb and grab them.
Keep climbing. Grab them.
Spill your emotions in the big dipper and pour out your soul.
Light up the world with your luminous allure.
To educate requires Galileo-like patience.
Today, when I look my students in the eyes, all I see are constellations.
If you take the time to connect the dots,
You can plot the true shape of their genius —
Shining in their darkest hour.
It is the commencement speech of Donovan Livingston, newly graduated from Harvard Graduate School of Education with his Master's in Education (Ed.M.).
It was powerful, I watched the five minute speech six times in a row. There is just so much to it- it's like he wrote a dissertation and a manifesto and somehow managed to tuck it all into a 5 minute spoken word poem! Talent, to say the least!
I see them. Beneath their masks and mischief,
Exists an authentic frustration;
An enslavement to your standardized assessments.
At the core, none of us were meant to be common.
We were born to be comets,
Darting across space and time —
Leaving our mark as we crash into everything.
The whole message is so powerful, and I hope you will notice all the lines that speak to the fact that Resilience Trumps ACEs... and the hints that historical trauma, including the traumas inflicted by ongoing systems of structural oppression, can either cause further harm, or be disrupted.
Because as Donovan says:
"As educators, rather than raising your voices
Over the rustling of our chains,
Take them off. Un-cuff us.
Unencumbered by the lumbering weight
Of poverty and privilege,
Policy and ignorance".
Read the full transcript here: http://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/16/05/lift
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