It seems just a few short days ago, I was preparing and presenting a speech for our graduates about tolerance and trust. \u00a0I encouraged them that there are things that will happen in life to shake our safety and security when others act on fear and anger.<\/p>\n
And, on the weekend, we faced the latest challenge to our belief in what we think the world should become when senselessly, fellow human beings were\u00a0slaughtered because of hate and intolerance. \u00a0My heart is broken and I’m left numbed by the long string of atrocities that span the globe. \u00a0Fear and reproach have no borders of boundaries, it seems, crossing all ethnic and cultural lines and founded in the wrongheaded belief that diversity somehow cripples us.<\/p>\n
Somewhere along the way in our development as a species, we have lost track of the common goal of humankind. \u00a0Like many of you, I’m sick of moments of silence and empty rhetoric. \u00a0I was always brought up believing that our commonly held goal was not to write laws that carefully restricted access to guns, but that our true aim was to craft a world where weapons of any kind would no longer be necessary nor allowed. \u00a0I teach children so that they will aspire to craft\u00a0a planet that values people over property and were “peace and prosperity for all” is the commonly held goal.<\/p>\n
In my heart, I’m standing\u00a0with the families and friends of those who lost their lives in Orlando. \u00a0I’m also thoughtful of those who have died\u00a0in similar circumstances around the world, that do not make the mainstream press, but who have succumbed to a similar mix of anger and ill will. \u00a0Terrorism in all its forms and locations is just wrong.<\/p>\n
I believe, as many have stated, that one thing is true. \u00a0If we seek to fight the crazy person wielding the gun and make him our enemy, we are missing the point. \u00a0It is not about the gun or the man wielding it. \u00a0It is about the beliefs that inspired his actions\u00a0and about how we, as teachers of each successive generation, inspire something far better in the minds of the children we serve. \u00a0We need a world of peace and understanding, now more than ever. \u00a0It makes our tenet at AAS of “Respect Self AND Others” particularly poignant.<\/p>\n
I wish you well as we leave school in the shadow of these events. \u00a0I hope you find and inspire peace and tranquility throughout the summer. \u00a0I wish you safe travels and an equally safe return here or arrival to\u00a0your new destination. \u00a0To a school of 65 nationalities that is\u00a0also diverse in all other ways possible, I can say only one thing: \u00a0I love each and every one of you!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It seems just a few short days ago, I was preparing and presenting a speech for our graduates about tolerance and trust. \u00a0I encouraged them that there are things that will happen in life to shake our safety and security when others act on fear and anger. And, on the weekend, we faced the latest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[133],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimplicity.hopto.org\/techtied\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimplicity.hopto.org\/techtied\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimplicity.hopto.org\/techtied\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimplicity.hopto.org\/techtied\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimplicity.hopto.org\/techtied\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zimplicity.hopto.org\/techtied\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimplicity.hopto.org\/techtied\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimplicity.hopto.org\/techtied\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimplicity.hopto.org\/techtied\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}