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By Christopher Nikoloff Head of School
2012 G raduation Addre ss
Look at the World With a Baby’s Eyes, Suggests School Head
G
ood morning. I would like to welcome members of the board of trustees, the administration, faculty and staff, family, friends, alumni, and the true guests of honor, the graduating Class of 2012. As head of school, I currently hold the privilege of making a few remarks of farewell at graduation. The seniors who paid attention in British Literature will recognize this talk as a “valediction.” In an attempt to “forbid mourning,” I
will continue the tradition of confining my remarks to one page of single-spaced, size-12 font. This is the first graduation address I have ever written on an iPad. That is completely irrelevant to my talk, except that I have pictures of the newest addition to our family, Andreas, on my iPad and also my iPhone. I would show you pictures of Andreas on my iPhone but I cannot get it out of my robe. The main advantage to writing on an iPad, besides the manipulations it offers to stay within my word count, is that while writing I can take breaks and look at pictures
“
One of the reasons
of Andreas, although I almost never do. In fact, I am not confident that my wife and
Einstein made such great
doesn’t eat a golf ball or something like that. But do we see him in the same way he
discoveries was his
offer the advice to sleep like a baby, which is only two letters away from seeing like
ability to see freshly,
very well at all. Actually, you should aim to sleep like a toddler, not a baby. Toddlers
to see phenomena around
concert. But to really see what is around you I advise you to see like a baby.
him as if for the first
nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” If Einstein said
time.
was his ability to see freshly, to see phenomena around him as if for the first time. I
--Chris Nikoloff
Walt Whitman even a blade of grass was a miracle. He wrote, “I lean and loafe at my
”
I look at him very much in real life either. Oh, we watch him plenty to make sure he sees us? Which brings me to my advice for you today – “to see like a baby.” I would a baby, but my wife and I have been reminded recently that babies do not sleep crash within minutes of hitting the bed and can sleep through a Led Zeppelin
Albert Einstein wrote, “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though this, then it must be true. One of the reasons Einstein made such great discoveries think it is very easy to slip into looking at life as if it were not a miracle. To the poet ease observing a spear of summer grass.” He famously misspelled loaf, without the help of the iPad’s spell check, by adding an extra e, but he saw the spear of grass as if it were a miracle. Perhaps it is.
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