Alex Gould ’95, History Department Faculty member and Dean of Faculty, delivered the following speech to Beaver’s 2014 Cum Laude Society inductees:
“Good morning. I first want to congratulate the inductees and their families and friends. You have all achieved something rich and meaningful, and deserve the highest of recognition, praise and admiration.
Today, I’m talking about food. Everyone loves food, everyone has their favorite food, favorite restaurant, favorite recipe. Me, I love a good old fashioned Rochester garbage plate. My favorite version is made like this — a base of half macaroni salad, the other half of the plate covered with home fries. top that with your favorite protein, scrambled eggs, cheeseburger, hot dog, or pork chop. Top it off with some onions, hot meat sauce, ketchup and mustard…..
A few weeks ago, I asked my nearly 5 year old daughter, what should we have for dinner tonight?
Hmmmmm, she said. Steak tips. Steak tips I said? So then I asked my 2 year old son. Banana soup he said. No Kaden, we are not having banana soup, anything else you’d like? Pancakes! He said. Since I had no steak, no flour and no bananas, I could not accommodate their suggestions.
So, my daughter, and son and I went into their playroom to “make dinner.” We decided on soup — and this is what they decided to put in the soup: chocolate chips, grapes, footballs, strawberry milk, and yellow beans. What a recipe. Then it dawned on me — there are recipes for everything — there’s recipes for meatballs, there’s recipes for chocolate chip cookies, there’s recipes for chili. There’s recipes for success and recipes for life.
So what’s my favorite recipe? Well, these days its anything my kids will eat, or anything that won’t stain the wall when my son throws it. But it wasn’t always that way…..
See, I love to cook. Cooking allows me to try different things, experiment, reflect. It gets me out of my comfort zone, and it’s hard work. There are different recipes for everything you eat, there are different ways to prepare your meal.
What about my recipe for success? My recipe for life? My recipe for learning? How did I get here? Well, my recipe was a messy one, filled with trial and error, re-firing and spills. I burnt stuff, under cooked stuff and generally made a mess.
In high school, I was a pretty good student, but I didn’t really know what I was doing. I didn’t really know how to study, I completed all of my math problems I am sure using the wrong formulas, the wrong measurements, but I got the right answer most of the time. For some reason, I just saw the math problems differently.
I didn’t write drafts or outlines for English or history papers, but my papers were usually pretty good. I understood what I needed to say, or what the teacher wanted to see, I just wasn’t really sure how to say it most effectively or convincingly.
It was like I was just throwing something in the microwave, hoping it turned out right, hoping it was cooked well. It’s like when the directions say if your microwave is 1100 watts, cook for 1 minute, but you don’t know how many watts your microwave is, so you kind of just guess. That’s what I was doing in high school.
I went to college at the University of Rochester, and figured a few things out. I refined my habits, emphasized the process much more efficiently and effectively, but still chronically left everything to the last minute. I still struggled with the process of how to do the work, but I began to find my passion in history — and thought I either wanted to be a lawyer, or a coach. For the first time in my life, I started thinking about my recipe. Instead of just throwing it in the microwave, I started thinking about the process, about the ingredients, about the tools, about the possibilities.
I then moved to San Francisco thinking I was going to be a lawyer. I worked in a law firm as a paralegal, researching a variety of random asbestos cases, filing papers and generally feeling like I didn’t belong there.
It was like I was a health food nut in a fast food kitchen.
But then my recipe for life, my recipe for success started to come into focus. I took a job at the JCC of San Francisco. I started working with kids, teaching and coaching – and I loved it. I compared what I was now doing — teaching kids how to swing a bat, or how to make a layup, or how to say I’m sorry, to sitting in my cubicle at the law firm of Morgenstein and Jubilirer. It was no comparison for me. I went to grad school where I learned about education and how to be a teacher. I met some amazing professors and wrote an 85 page thesis on the effects of high school sports on African American students in Oakland. I now knew what I liked, I knew what my endgame was going to be, it just took me a while to figure it out. I had tried a bunch of different ingredients and finally landed on the ones that worked the best for me. And now, here I am, speaking to all of you at a Cum Laude induction ceremony, with the best job in the world, coaching the best group of girls in the world, at the best school in the world.
So whats your recipe, inductees? How did you get there? Hard work? Probably. Good time management? Yes. Stepping out of your comfort zone? Most likely. Many late nights writing papers, trying to figure out those math problems, crafting debate arguments? Of course. But I am sure we would all agree, that it was a different experience for all of you, a different road, a different recipe. And that’s good. That’s the way it should be. We are not all the same, we don’t all think the same way, or interpret things the same way.
So, while scallops are out of my comfort zone, chemistry is out of yours? Brussel sprouts are out of my comfort zone, NuVu is out of yours? Tofu is out of my comfort zone, interpreting Shakespeare is out of yours? But guess what, now, I’ll cook scallops, and I’ll cook brussel sprouts, and I’ll cook tofu. Think of everything you can do here at Beaver, think of everything you’ve never made before? Think of everything you’ve never tried before.
We all like different ingredients. We like our hamburgers, our steaks cooked differently. I put cinnamon in my apple sauce, you don’t. You put jalapenos in your tacos, I don’t. You put garlic in your stir fry, I don’t. Google “brownie recipe” and you will get pages and pages and pages of results.
So, how can you find your best recipe? One that works for you? Your recipe for success?
Find the tools you like. Find the methods that work. Taste things.Try different ingredients. Don’t limit yourself. Learn from others — maybe even borrow a recipe, an idea. Maybe you too could be up on this stage.
See we should all have some similar goals in high school, and throughout life — to learn. It’s just that how we do it, and what we learn about that’s different — which is why you are all so lucky to be here at Beaver. You choose your own ingredients for those things. It’s not always about what you choose — just that you do choose. Take this opportunity, these next 4 years, 3 years, 2 years or even 1 year to start thinking about your recipe. Don’t put it on a sticky note and throw it away. Put it on a Google doc, and store it in the cloud. Change it. Modify it and perfect that recipe.
I’m sure many of you, including these students up here, certainly haven’t perfected their recipes. But they’ve written one down. They’ve drafted something. You’ve modified it and worked on it — and based on your tremendous success — that recipe must have tasted great.
So, in closing, think about what you’re cooking up for your life. What’s in it? What are you going to use? What’s your recipe? Whatever it is, whatever’s in it, just make sure you like it.
I’d like to once again offer my heartfelt congratulations to all of the inductees. Thank you.”