What an honor it would be to have the President of the United States speak at your high school graduation. Forget the politics; forget the partisanship; forget the polarization that has become characteristic of the age. The honor comes in the gravity of the occasion.

Booker T. Washington (BTW), a high school of 500 students in south Memphis that was recently awarded this honor, is part of a story that gives hope to all of those who strongly support public education. BTW, which has produced several well-known alumni, including former NAACP director Benjamin Hooks, beat out five other schools to win the honor.

If there were to be a documentary made on BTW, its title might pertain to the classic theme of overcoming adversity. Five years ago, in 2006, only 53% of students graduated from BTW, located at 715 S. Lauderdale in the impoverished 38126 zip code. In those five years, the number of students living in poverty has increased from 77 to 95 percent, as the median annual income in the area is only $11,000 in the nation’s seventh poorest major city, according the 2010 U.S. Census data. The area has the 14^th highest crime rate in the nation.

When the publicly-funded housing project Cleaborn Homes was demolished to create mixed-income communities in mid-April 2011, 20 percent of BTW’s students had to do what educators must do in the classroom every day when something does not go as planned: adjust. The poignant video that helped the school win the Race to the Top Commencement Challenge featured a BTW student named Christopher weeping as he watched his home being destroyed.

Under the direction of young but no-nonsense principal Alisha Kiner, who was promoted from assistant principal in 2004, the school has made a turnaround. Test scores have increased dramatically, and the school’s graduation rate is now 81.6 percent. Between 2005 and 2010, the number of graduates attending college increased from four percent to 70 percent. The school now offers more vocational and Advanced Placement classes than before, and has implemented freshman academies to intervene at the earliest stage of high school, before students get lost in the labyrinth of failure.

What a reward that must have been for those 150 graduates who sat arrayed in their gowns and mortarboards. The President, who overcame great adversity in order to reach success, spoke to them about the value of education: “I’m standing here as President because of the education that I received... Education made all the difference in my life.”

He reminded them that education is important for several reasons and for several outcomes: critical thinking, discipline, self-improvement, and collective national success. “I remember,” he said, “we used to ask our teachers, ‘Why am I going to need algebra?’ Well, you may not have to solve for x to get a good job or to be a good parent. But you will need to think through tough problems. You’ll need to think on your feet. You’ll need to know how to gather facts and evaluate information. So, math teachers, you can tell your students that the President says they need algebra.” President Obama encouraged graduates to keep pushing, not to allow setbacks to crush determination, and to make their own “mark on the world.”

As Booker T. Washington, the school’s eponymous hero, once said, featured in the contest video, “Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome.” It is, as these graduates have demonstrated, not quite enough to push forward with a “No Child Left Behind” mentality. We must look toward the other end of the spectrum and do our best to help students strive for academic excellence, even against great odds, as the graduates of Booker T. Washington High School have certainly achieved.

Every year at the end of the school year I get wistful. I say goodbye to three classes of senior students and watch them leave the classroom environment where they have spent most of their lives. It is the end an era for both of us.

This year at graduation I was more nostalgic than usual. I watched some of my first students, who were sophomores in my English II in the fall of 2008 when I began teaching at my alma mater, walk across the stage to receive their diplomas. As I complete my third year of teaching, I felt as if it were an end to a chapter in my life as well.

This May also makes 19 years since I received my high school diploma and embarked into the world of higher education. Next year I will attend my 20-year high school reunion. I have to face it: like everyone else who lives long enough, I am getting old.

As I sat in the seat amongst my colleagues on the floor Thursday night, all of us arrayed in our black gowns and hoods befitting the formal occasion, I thought back to that night I graduated in 1992.

It was a rough time emotionally for me. My father, who suffered from heart disease all of my life, had died nine days before I graduated. When the graduates’ parents were called to stand, my mother had to stand alone. Graduation ceremonies always take me back to that time in my life. Those two events are forever inextricably linked.

I also thought at graduation about how I now sit in the same seat of those who made an immense difference in my life. I had some wonderful teachers who cared about me and helped me to grow and become the person I am today.  

My senior English teacher, Ms. Vicki Flowers—who is now my colleague—was one of those people. I remember that she always told us that growing up was the hardest thing she ever had to do. I am reminded of the quote by the American poet E.E. Cummings: “It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”

My journalism teacher, George Souders, was another person who changed the course of my life. George, as many of us called him even then, taught me to think and see in a new perspective. Primarily an art teacher, George didn’t just dance to the beat of his own drummer; he had his own marching band. They all, of course, would have worn tropical shirts and paint-stained paints, just as George always did. I consider myself fortunate still to remain friends with him today.

I thought, too, about my high school principal. Dr. David Hurst who cam e to McNairy Central High School the year I started there as a freshman.  Dr. Hurst was an excellent principal, as he had a great rapport with faculty and students alike.

He was very generous to Mr. Souders’ journalism class. At that time, an era that preceded desktop publishing and extensive use of the Internet, our journalism class had one little Apple Macintosh computer to type our articles for paste-up. However, we had no printer. Dr. Hurst allowed us to network the computer to his printer, and we were welcomed to come into his office any time as long as the door was open in order to retrieve our printouts.

He was very supportive of my interest in writing. One of my English teachers had asked to read a book of poems I had put together on my own, and she passed it along to our assistant principal, who then allowed Dr. Hurst to read it.

When he called me into his office one day, I had no idea what I might have done wrong. I found out quickly that he wanted simply to commend me and encourage me in pursuing writing. He was that sort of principal, always positive and inspiring.

I saw Dr. Hurst this March when I went on vacation to Arizona, where he now lives. The nineteen years that have passed in the time I last saw him seem like only days. On the way to his house, I felt as if I were going to attend a high school reunion. My palms were sweaty, and I tried to conjure in my mind how he might look now.

Upon arrival, he greeted me with a hug. It felt as if I had gone back in time. We both look a little different now, but the rapport was the same as always. Spending the evening with him and his wife Lisa was nice, as we all reminisced together.

Dr. Hurst, who acknowledged me as his “colleague” now, shared some humorous stories about his time as principal that he would never have shared with me when I was his student. I found out that he, too, is interested in writing, and so we may share some online critiques of each other’s writing. I have to admit that I still feel a little uncomfortable calling him “David.”

As we get older and have more experiences, those sorts of occasions are what help soften the melancholy of endings. Everything must end—but it is always followed by a beginning. Being able to revisit and reconnect with those who have shaped the person you have become—even though that chapter of your life in which they were involved is long gone—is to be cherished.

 Me with my former high school principal, Dr. David Hurst

Another end of a year has come. No, it’s not the end of a calendar year, but anyone involved in education will know the time reference of which I speak. We educators, like the Chinese, have our own calendars. For most of us on a traditional school calendar, ours begins in August and ends in May.

I love education, and I love educating. Being able to give someone something that is part of what I love, my discipline, and getting paid to do it, is a marvelous privilege. I love getting to see people grow and develop, and in the four years of high school, adolescents make monumental strides in emotional maturation and intellectual development.

One of my favorite parts of my teaching responsibilities, but also one of the most strenuous, is the capstone experience my English IV students complete each spring. A capstone experience is a project sometimes undertaken by university-level undergraduates and most often graduate students, in the form a thesis or dissertation, which is accompanied by a presentation. While some might argue that much of what is “standardized” education may have no real-world applicability, the senior project does indeed instruct students in real-world skills.

The culmination of the senior project requires every senior to deliver a minimum 5-minute speech presented to a panel of community members who serve as judges. However, the senior project encompasses so much more than just the presentation.

Students begin work in the fall of their senior year by proposing the topics for their activities, which must involve a learning stretch. Some of the topics typically include learning to play a musical instrument, constructing a piece of furniture, or learning a skill such as cooking or sewing or rebuilding an engine. They are instructed to spend their fall semesters working on their projects, in order to face a completion deadline of February 28 the next semester.

When those students enter the English IV classroom in the spring, they begin researching a topic relevant to their projects. For instance, a student rebuilding an engine might research the Ford Motor Company. Another student crafting a wooden swing might research hardwoods and softwoods used in the building process. A student learning how to play the guitar might research musical trends in 20^th century pop culture.

Along the way, students receive guidance and are assessed on each individual component. During the overall process, I watch my students learn how to hone research skills, how to write more effectively, how to meet deadlines or suffer the consequences, how to explain step-by-step technical information to an audience, and how to present themselves to an audience as a polished “expert” on their respective subject.

I watch many of them, who had no discernible goals, suddenly realize that now they have a vocational or artistic skill they can use as a route to a career or for personal enjoyment, or sometimes both. I see students stretching towards to what sociologists would call self-actualization, which involves reaching one’s full potential.

During this process of witnessing students’ strengths and weaknesses, I come to feel closer to my students. One cannot watch another individual develop and expand without feeling this way—especially those who seem to need the most help. I know I will miss them when they have left my stead.

So with much exhaustion, a few tears, and a great sense of pride in my students who have stretched farther than they believed they could do so that I end the school year. They, along with scores of other graduates, will walk down the aisle, receive their diplomas, and exit their institutions to enter the world.

To those graduates: remember that education is not over. Your instructors may be exhausted and you may be graduated, but education is never over. And as American jurist Paul Freund once said, “At commencement you wear your square-shaped mortarboards. My hope is that from time to time you will let your minds be bold, and wear sombreros.”