When I graduated from eighth grade at Finkl Academy on the Southwest Side in 2006, I was among the few students who spoke at the ceremony.
It was the first time I spoke in public. I remember working on my speech at the school’s computer lab, scouring the internet for interesting quotes to share with my classmates. When I was done writing, I practiced in the mirror until I could practically recite the speech from memory.
By the time I got on stage in the gymnasium and stared down at a sea of parents, teachers and friends, I wasn’t all that nervous.
Last week, nearly 20 years after that moment, I was back on stage in that same gym. This time, speaking to graduates as an alumnus, I was a little more nervous.
The prospect of speaking in public wasn’t driving my nerves when I received the invitation to address the graduating class after writing about the positive effect Finkl and its staff had on my education. I’ve stood before an audience enough times to know what to expect. I was mostly nervous because I didn’t know what to say to graduates.
Maybe I was overthinking it. And I can hear some people saying, “It’s only eighth grade graduation. Why make big deal about it?” I wish I could tell those people they should look at the joyous faces of kids receiving their diplomas and end-of-year awards. If those milestones are important to them, they should be important to all of us.
To that end, I visited the school last month to meet a handful of students who were in that graduating class. I was curious about what they were most, and least, looking forward to as they left middle school. Whatever I planned on saying to them on a mic, I wanted make sure it was relevant to their lives.
I was happy to learn the kids are alright, as the saying goes. The students I met are bright, driven and resilient. One students is headed to the Air Force Academy High School and wants to be a pilot. Another student hopes to enroll in medical school.
The students, who are backed by a caring school staff, know what they want. But maybe just as importantly, they know what is standing in their way. The challenge of paying for college. Having the city’s best high schools far away. Their safety outside school walls.
Their concerns were familiar, because they were the concerns I had at their age, too. The neighborhood around the school has changed some from when I grew up there, but it’s still an immigrant, working-class area with some of the same obstacles.
After spending that afternoon with the students, I sat down to write my speech and decided to write about the advice I’d give myself two decades ago.
In the end it was a simple message. I told the students not be afraid to try. I also said as they continue their education, they will be met with choices, circumstances and uncertainty that can breed fear, which can make them second- guess themselves.
The world around them might be frightening, I told them. But I stressed they have to confront their fears in order to overcome them. Then, I shared Frank Herbert’s quote on fear from his epic science fiction novel “Dune.”
”… I will face my fear, I will permit it to pass over me and through me And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain,” reads a portion of the famous passage.
I didn’t let Herbert do all the talking.
I touched on my own teenage fears, navigating life as a first-generation American and college student. I talked about my anxieties as I left home for boarding school as a 14-year-old, afraid that I would fail or be alone. Not succumbing to those fears paid off, I said, before ending my speech.
Who knows if the message got through. After all, these students are still teenagers looking forward to the promise of summer. But I hope, at least, my presence showed some of them that the path ahead is possible.
They just have to be brave.
Emmanuel Camarillo is a general assignment reporter for the Sun-Times.
Want to write a letter to the editor or an op-ed? Check out our guidelines.
Get Opinions content delivered to your inbox. Sign up for our weekly newsletter here.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
