Brentwood College School - Brentonian Yearbook (Mill Bay, British Columbia Canada)

Page 9 text:

CHOICES In trying to prepare some remarks for this occasion, I was frankly making little headway until I discussed my problem with two of my children. Their response was: Why don ' t you write your talk as if it were a letter to us? Tell us what you would like us to know at graduation. And so here it is: my letter to my own children - I hope you will find it somehow relevant. Dear ChdHdrea: So today is graduation, a big moment for you and for all of us. It has always fascinated me that what we in North America call grad - uation - implying the completion or end of a step in life - is more generally known in Britain and Europe as commencement , the starting of something new. I suppose it depends on your point of view; my own preference is for the concept of a beginning rather than an end, a look ahead rather than a look back. Either way, it is an important time in your lives. Not so much for what you have learned, but for the choices you now have to make. Many of these choices - although they will not seem so at the time - will be irrevocable; your choice of a mate, of a career, of a place to live, of your interests in life. Once made, they will be difficult to unmake. And the longer you stay with them, the harder it becomes to turn back, to start over. Until now, most of your choices in life have been pretty easy. To a large extent, they have been made for you; where you live, how you live; the decision to come to Brentwood; your courses, your sports, your in- terests. They have been primarily the products of your environment, your parents, your friends, your home and to some extent your teachers. Increasingly now, you will be on your own. You will be confronted with a bewildering variety of choices. You will have to decide among them, and you will have to make many of these choices without any help. Some will be easy; others very hard. 5

Page 8 text:

VALETE LYNNE MACDONALD Mrs. Lynne Macdonald has decided to enjoy a year or two off from teaching as she pursues a career in ac- counting. We all want to express our gratitude to her and wish her every success with her new career. JOHN GETGOOD Mr. John Getgood has been with us for several years as our Stagecraft Director. He has decided to pursue other interests. John has made major contributions for which we thank him. LAURIE BIRD We regretfully say goodbye to one of our nurses, Miss Laurie Bird. Laurie never stays in one place very long, but in the short time she has been with us she has made a very favourable impression. We wish her well in the travel that she intends to do and hope that she will always consider herself a close friend of Brentwood, as she has certainly made quite a contribution here. JOHN BOEL This year we will be saying goodbye ' to Mr. John Boel. For eleven years he has been involved as director of our junior and intermediate bands. As he has been magnificently loyal and very effective we will miss him greatly. PAT SIMMONS Pat ' s personal warmth and humor both on the sportsfield and in the classroom will long be remem- bered by not only the teaching staff but also, I ' m sure, by every single Brentwood student. 4

Page 10 text:

You will make mistakes. Don ' t be afraid of making mistakes. There is nothing wrong with that: the only way I know of avoiding them is never to do anything. What is wrong is not admitting them and not learning from them. Look at every decision you make as a potential learning experience. The greatest crime is not to learn from our dec- isions, good or bad. Learning, as opposed to education, is something that goes on throughout our lives, and when we stop learning we are, to all intents and purposes, dead. Some of your decisions will be painful. Pain seems to be an essential ingredient in learning. Lessons that are learned easily are seldom very valuable. The real lessons are those that come with a high degree of discomfort. Those are the lessons you will remember throughout your life. Our first and most natural reaction to making a mistake is to blame someone or something else for it. It is difficult to be confronted with evidence of one ' s own fallibility. Pride, vanity, ego all make us want to blame our errors on someone else. It takes maturity and a deep personal security to be able to admit mistakes and to take the responsibil ity fo? trying to correct them. Your strength in this situation lies not in pointing fingers or calling for parents or organizations or governments to help, but in facing squarely the responsibility for the consequences of your own actions - in recognizing that solutions lie within you, and only you. Above all, preserve the ability to laugh at your self. H.L. Mencken once said; When a man laughs at himself, he loses a great many friends. They can never forgive the loss of their prerogative. All of these choices involve having a sense of values - of what is im- portant and what is not. Most of the really difficult choices involve moral judgements. Without a philosophy, without a sense of values and of what we stand for in life, we cannot make intelligent choices. We are like a rudderless ship which any wind will blow in another direction. And those who do have values, who know what they want, will be the ones who blow us back and forth. 6