In Praise of Imperfection
By Matthew McCormick
Valley News Staff Writer
Hanover — Cindy Pierce can claim many accomplishments in her life since graduating from Hanover High School in 1983. She's worked as a teacher and a ski coach, become a mother to three children, run an inn in Etna, developed her own one-woman show and now is in the process of co-writing a book.
Last evening, Pierce shared the secret to her success with Hanover High's 177 graduates and the 1,200 spectators gathered at Dartmouth College's Bema amphitheater to watch the two-hour ceremony.
"People wonder how I got the skills to do all those things. ... Who needs skills when you have courage?" Pierce told the members of her alma mater's Class of 2007 last evening. "I am able to live my three-ring circus of a life because I embrace the freedom of imperfectionism."
It is an ethos that she said many of last night's graduates had witnessed firsthand as first-graders in Pierce's classroom at Marion Cross School in Norwich. There, Pierce said, she had Ania White, who will attend Smith College next year, to correct her spelling; Georgetown University-bound Althea Smith and future Middlebury College student Michael DeLucia to help her through complex math problems; Evan Michael Grant, who is headed for University of Redlands, to school her at basketball and teach her a sewing stitch or two; and Isaac Luxon, who next year will be at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, to give feedback on the classroom punishments she sometimes was forced to dole out.
"First grade is the last year it is socially acceptable to verbally and physically fling oneself out there," Pierce said. "Each day my students taught me something important."
Yesterday, Pierce urged the graduates to embrace the very lessons that they had taught her: to ask for help when it is needed, to cherish individuality and to feel free to fail.
"There are consequences for having the courage to get out there: sometimes you fall on your face, eat humble pie and fail," she said. "But after a while, you learn to find humor rather than shame. The more one taps into this concept of being free to be imperfect, the more opportunities open up in life."
But graduate Rose Addante, who will attend UVM next year, said they will not always open up easily. As an illustration, Addante, who was elected by her peers to give the graduation address, told the story of how a mother giraffe teaches its offspring to walk by kicking it until it gets up — and then kicking it back down again.
The mother "wants it to remember how it got up," Addante said. "They must be able to stay with the herd if they are to survive...
"The lesson: dare to dream and when life kicks you and knocks you down, get up and keep getting up. Don't give in and don't give up on your dream. The kicks are just to make you stronger."
One of the most humorous speeches of the evening came from Kenwan Cheung, who is bound for Wesleyan and was elected as the graduation's master of ceremonies. He spoke of his struggle to overcome an academic apathy — "I liked Legos, fine food and playing excessive amounts of video games," he said — that had him worried he would spend his life on his parents' couch.
Cheung said he learned an important lesson in the summer of his sophomore year, which he spent employed in his father's medical laboratory devoted to studying ways to avoid work. Finally, he said, he had found a job that interested him.
"Anything that kept me from working was surprisingly exhilarating," he recalled.
Cheung said he learned to take a similar approach to school. Two years later, he said, "I know that whatever I chose to pursue will be exciting and worthwhile — and high paying with perks like a private jet."
The comic tone continued when graduates accepted their diplomas. As they strode across the stage, the soon-to-be former students covered Principal Deb Gillespie with small rectangles of orange felt, a reference to the many talks she gave them about wearing the hunting color to sporting events at Lebanon High School as a way to put down their rivals.
Gillespie also donned a blue, stain-riddled necktie that she said had been worn by every principal at graduation since the 1970s as a way to ward off bad weather. "We should be out of here before any storm hits," she promised the graduates and their friends and family at the beginning of the ceremony.
The last word of the evening fell to graduate Patrick Dodds, who will attend St. Lawrence University and was elected to give the farewell address. He praised his classmates for their many talents — playing the cello, singing, carrying out practical jokes, firefighting, mastering the Rubik's cube — and left them with a saying that he said he learned from a friends' father.
"Passion brings meaning to life and kindness brings friends," Dodds said. "The rest is all fluff."
Copyright © Valley News
Valley News — June 20, 2007