I would like to start by thanking the West Graduation Committee as well as the entire West Senior class for this incredible honor today. Your class has proven to be strong, courageous, and able to persevere in challenging times.
You have inspired many, including classmates, underclassmen, and staff, and it is a privilege to participate in this celebration of you, and all you have achieved.
I would also like to thank my incredible colleagues for their role in helping you get to this point in your lives. Each minute they have spent teaching you, mentoring you, and working with you has helped make you who you are today. Thank you, teachers and staff, for your endless hours of work and inspiration.
Now, how many of you did I have either in class or in study hall during the last four years?
So about ½ of you have sat through a “Ms. Lohr talk” before – or maybe a few more of you. I recognize some of you from the hallways and I think I remember giving you a few of these lectures too.
Does anyone remember Lecture #542 – If you want fewer adults in your business, then you should make decisions that don’t require adults to be in your business?
How about Lecture #729 – If you keep making the same choices over and over again, you’ll keep getting the same results. If you want different results, start making different choices?
And how about Lecture #846 – I would never insult your intelligence by treating you like you can’t figure this out on your own?
Today I leave you with my last lecture – your last Ms.-Lohr talk – Lecture #999 – The Truth About Courage.
I had the opportunity to reflect on what courage is this winter. I was tucking my daughter into bed one night and as I bent down to kiss her; she looked up at me and said “Mom, why don’t you feel fear like other people do?” I pulled back a little to look at her, and said “I feel fear all the time. What makes you think that I don’t?” “Because” she replied “You do things other people don’t do. You’re not afraid to do them.”
I took a few moments to gather my thoughts and then I looked her in the eyes and said “Sweetie, courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is recognizing that an action you are about to take is scary, and then taking it anyhow because you know it’s the right thing to do.”
Courage is what allows us to leave our home and take the next step in life. It allows us to walk into an interview, even if our hands are shaking. It allows us to pitch a new idea to our boss and then see that idea through, even when others tell us, it will never succeed.
Courage allows us to get on an airplane and land somewhere we’ve never been before. And it is courage that allows us to stand up for ourselves and for others when we perceive a wrong and to continue to stand up until that wrong has been righted.
These actions do not happen in the absence of fear. It is the fear that tells us what’s at stake, and what could go wrong. Courage is acknowledging those risks, weighing them against the greater good, and then choosing to move forward.
One of my favorite parts of teaching is sharing stories with my students during class. How many of you have heard a Ms. Lohr story? What’s your favorite one?
Is it the story about the time my hand was swallowed by a sting ray at Sea World and my hand reached the inside of its stomach?
How about the one about finding a tarantula in my shower curtain in Belize? And how I was so embarrassed by the way I reacted that I had to go on a tarantula hunt in Costa Rica just to “prove” I wasn’t scared of big spiders?
Or the story about falling into a goldfish pond in China during a session of Tai Chi? And my efforts to climb out of the pond unnoticed, even though there was no way that was going to happen.
These stories may never help you answer a question on a standardized test or raise your GPA. But what I hope they do for you is inspire you to go out in life and create your own stories.
You, too, can have a hummingbird fly into you so hard while visiting the rainforest that it leaves a hummingbird shaped bruise on your stomach or climb so many steps of the Great Wall of China that you fall out of bed the next morning and can’t get up because your leg muscles won’t work anymore.
But please keep in mind: these stories didn’t happen by sitting on the couch waiting for the action to transpire. You have to take the initiative, and make it happen for yourself, one adventure at a time.
Go out and do things other people are afraid to do – not because you don’t feel fear – but because you acknowledge the fear exists, recognize its value, and then continue on.
Another story I like to share with my students is the time I was in Costa Rica and decided to try a zip line. This was a strange choice on my part, as I am quite scared of heights, but I really wanted to see the rainforest canopy and I knew this was the best way to see it.
To get to the canopy, we climbed up the inside of a strangler fig, so I did not see how high I was until we got to the top. When I stepped out onto the platform, and saw how far it was to the ground, I started to panic and I felt a cold sweat start dripping down my face. I kept waiting for it to pass, as I watched others hook onto the zip line and go, but the panic just wouldn’t go away.
When it was my turn, I started crying, deep sobs, because I felt too scared to go on. The guide said, in a calm and quiet voice “It’s okay. This happens all the time. We’ll hook onto the same line and you can hold onto my arm the whole way”.
I checked my safety gear, several times, snapped onto the zip line with my guide, and had an incredible ride through the canopy of the rainforest. And it was true: this was the best way to see it.
When I share this story, I share it in its entirety – including the tears – because it’s an important part of the experience. I didn’t take the zip line through the rainforest because I wasn’t scared. I took the zip line through the rainforest despite the fact that I was scared because I knew, big picture, that it was the right choice to make.
So what will your zip line be? Picking up and moving away from home to pursue a career you’ve always dreamed of? Trying out for a team you’re not sure you can make? Traveling to a country you studied about in Global Studies and thought it would be really cool to see, but you’re just a little uneasy about booking the flight?
Don’t give up o¬¬¬¬n a dream because you’re scared. Dreams should be scary. It’s part of what makes them dreams. They represent a wealth of possible outcomes as well as the unknown. But in that wealth of possible outcomes is your story – your zip line – and only you can choose to get out there and grab it.
Courage is learned by example and now it’s time for you to move forward and be that example. Go out, and collect your stories. I can’t wait to hear each and every one of them.
Tanya Lohr is a teacher at West Bend West High School. Photos courtesy Jesse Clingan and Tanya Lohr