Dr. Matthew Bolton's Grad at Grad Reflection

The following Grad at Grad reflection was delivered by Dr. Matthew Bolton, Dean of Academics, at morning assembly on April 1, 2014 A Loyola Student is Becoming More Committed to Doing Justice

When we entered the first grade at my Brooklyn public elementary school, they sorted us into three groups: 1-1, 1-2, and 1-3. I was happy to be in class 1-1, not because I gave a lot of thought to the number itself, but because that meant I had a very nice teacher who never yelled. Across the hall in 1-3, on the other hand, the yelling generally started at first period and kept going through dismissal. This was one of the ways that we eventually figured out, as we moved up through the grade levels, what those numbers meant. We 1’s were the smart kids, the good kids, the kids who did their homework and followed the teacher’s directions. The 2’s were somewhere in the middle. And the 3’s, well, that was a whole different story: those kids punched each other, shouted back at the teacher, threw stuff out the window. If we were the good kids, they must have been the bad ones.

We were sorted again when we went to our local junior high school. Most of the kids who had been in the 1 class were placed in a gifted and talented program. We had some great teachers and some exciting elective courses. Our classes were mostly on the top floor. The regular kids were down on the lower floors. Special Ed. (where some of the kids from the elementary school “3 class” had ended up) was in the basement. The Special Ed. kids even had their own side entrance to the school. If you were a gifted and talented kid, you pretty much stayed out of their way.

When it came time to go to high school, a lot of the kids from the regular classes went to our zoned public high school, John Jay. But not the gifted and talented kids. To a one, we applied to and attended high schools outside of the neighborhood. I was accepted to and attended Regis High School. It was perhaps the biggest sorting process yet: my new classmates at Regis had been culled from the five boroughs, Westchester, New Jersey, Connecticut. I loved the school and felt like I belonged there. But if you had asked my classmates and me why we belonged there, we might well have said, "Because we're gifted." (Doesn't that sound like a Regis boy answer?). We felt, I believe, that we had earned our places at the school.

It was only towards the end of my time at Regis, and specifically through classwork and the Christian Service Program, that I started to think about what we earn and what we are given. I started to think about the extent to which I had

benefitted from those many instances of being singled out, of making the cut, of being sorted into a select group. In a senior history elective, I read Jonathan Kozol’s book “Savage Inequalities,” which talks about how greatly the quality of education in our country varies from one school, neighborhood, or socio-economic group to another. It made a big impression on me. At the same time, I was filling my Christian Service requirement by working at an elementary school in a neighborhood where most of the families were living below the poverty line. It was one of those instances when what you are reading and what you are doing seem to illuminate each other. Working with my elementary school kids, I found myself thinking about the kids who had been in those “3” classes: about what their experiences at home and at school had been like, and about where they were and how they were doing now. I thought about how each time we'd been sorted, the gap between us had widened.

Maybe more to the point, I was starting to understand how much of my own alleged giftedness was just that: a series of gifts, rather than a set of qualities that I inherently possessed. It was a gift to never have to go to bed hungry. It was a gift to have parents who read to me when I was little, who took me to libraries and museums, who made me turn off the t.v. and do my homework. It was a gift to have great teachers and to attend great schools. Working with kids who hadn’t had all of these gifts made me realize how much such unearned blessings had set the course for my own life.

All of you, too, have been given great gifts, not least of which is the gift of attending an academically excellent high school. Wait, you might be thinking: exactly which grad-at-grad characteristic are we talking about here: academic excellence or being committed to doing justice? Both, of course: they go hand in hand. If you are truly becoming academically excellent, you have already come to realize that you must be committed to doing justice. Because receiving the gift of a great education puts you in a select group. It puts you in an obligated group.

And the greater the gift, the greater the obligation to repay it in some meaningful way.

So the challenge I’ve often felt, and that you may find yourself feeling as well, is this: how do we repay the gifts that we have been given? I'd leave you with that question, and with the suggestion that you reflect on the many gifts that you have received. What have you been given, and how will you give back?