To the editor:
As a middle-aged non-millennial, I was pleased, relieved, and inspired by the recent ConVal graduate letters affirming their respect for teachers and their acknowledgment that climate change is, indeed, an urgent and relevant topic for those now charged with the earth’s stewardship.
It is a testament to ConVal students that they perennially choose a faculty speaker whose gift is their ability to connect with young people. It would seem obvious to most humble observers of the tradition that students select a speaker whom they feel indeed has something to say to them in a profound way at a hugely symbolic moment in their lives, publicly, unabashedly, someone perhaps who courageously gives voice to their greatest concerns and aspirations in a way that both represents and inspires them.
It behooves an audience member to consider this. I wonder if Jeanne Cahoon, as she read over her letter alongside the students’, caught the irony in her own claim (that Dr. Milne’s speech has nothing to do with the young graduates) beside the testimonial of two of these same young graduates saying her speech had everything to do with them.
A reader might also take a moment to notice the level of sophistication and control of language the ConVal-educated student letters exhibited. The student letters were noticeably restrained in stating their claims almost as if they had internalized their teachers’ pleas not to overgeneralize about “everyone” feeling a certain way, as Cahoon’s letter did. The students channeled that Ethos lesson well, demonstrating how it undercuts their credibility as a writer to exaggerate claims.
Neither did the students resort to Trumpian insults, stooping so low as to mock what could be a speaker’s neuromuscular disability. They stuck to their lesson in Logos, using credible facts and evidence, not the logical fallacies of unrelated “drooling” insults. (Could Cahoon possibly have meant “Drool” in its favorable context, to convey admiration or envy as in “Drool with envy over her brilliance?” Climate change, I argue, is relevant to a graduation speech – in the context of our children’s future.)
Lastly, the student letters didn’t rely on the tired tropes of pitting teachers against every other working-class professional as Cahoon’s does. Instead, they applied their lessons in Pathos to tell their own powerful stories – of their own education, their own respect and admiration for their teachers, their own graduation experience. Congratulations, ConVal graduates. You prove yourselves ready.
Jeanne Sturges
Peterborough