Address to AEC Graduates, June 2012
by Phil McBurney, Director

This is my 13^th year in adult education, and for 13 years in a row I have given an address to adults graduating from high school.  This is also my 60^th year in school.  That’s right.  I’ve either been a student or a teacher or an administrator since 1952.  Some of your parents weren’t even born in 1952.  So it’s time for a change for me.

After many years of teaching high school, I started my career in adult education in 1999 at McLeod Adult Learning Centre, just across the river.  A lot of centres started in 1999, including AEC.  Our first graduating class was 17 people.  I have vivid memories of that year and those seventeen people.  In addition to being the school’s program coordinator, I had also taught most of them.  Over the last 13 years I have kept all my speeches to graduating classes, so I hunted down my speech to the McLeod Class of 2000.

Looking it over, I see that I called them heroes.  I have a literature background, so I compared what my students did that year to what classic heroes in literature do.  They take on an impossible quest or task, descend into the underworld to face their demons and, most often, emerge victorious—stronger, better people.

In fact, one student from that first graduating class named Bonnie provided a vivid example of the hero.  Bonnie was well into her forties.  She was forced out of school in Grade 9, and had worked at a series of bartending jobs ever since.  She once told the story of how she had dispatched an unruly drunk by clubbing him several times over the head with the receiver from a nearby pay phone.  School had not been kind to Bonnie.  She had been bullied, labeled, made to feel stupid, and, eventually, quit or was expelled.

As part of my Grade English class, like many of you this year, Bonnie needed to write the Grade 12 provincial exam.  We had done our practice and were as prepared as we could be, but on the way to the exam on the first day, Bonnie had a full-blown panic attack, to the point where she needed to pull her car over so she could relax and breathe.  When she finally herself down to the point where she could drive, she made her way to school and wrote the exam—about a half hour late.  How did she do?  Well, she got 81% on her essay and 85% on the exam overall.  The provincial average was 67%.  That night, all those years later, she made a point of calling the one teacher she the one teacher from Grade 9 that she felt she could talk to.  She was hosting a grad party, so we could all hear her.  “Hey, Mr. Gaston.  Mr Gaston, it’s Big B.”  Even 25 years later, he knew who she was.  “Guess what, Mr. Gaston.  I did it!”

Bonnie’s is the classic story of the hero, someone who decides to face their demons.  Many of your stories, I am sure, are similar.  You’ve done something quite remarkable.  Coming back to school as an adult—with all the adult responsibilities like work and family, not to mention the anxiety, especially if school is not —is not an easy thing.

Being a hero doesn’t necessarily mean you need to be a fireman rushing into a burning building.  It simply means putting yourself in a position where you could fail, having the courage to take a risk, even in the small things.  I know the journey most of you have been on.  I’ve seen hundreds of adults graduate just like you today.  I’ve seen some amazing transformations.  I love it when I see hesitant students “lock in” and get it done.

We’ve just posted a cartoon on our Facebook page depicting stick figures in various postures ascending a staircase.  The figure on the bottom stair sits glumly saying, “I won’t do it.”  The figures on each stair gradually become more animated, with the one at the top leaping in the air in triumph.  A phrase accompanies each stair level, starting at the bottom.

I won’t do it.
I can’t do it.
I want to do it.
How do I do it?
I’ll try to do it.
I can do it.
I will do it.
Yes, I did it!

So, to you, AEC’s Class of 2012—Congratulations.  Yes, you did it!

[P.S. This is my final blog as Director of AEC, as I am due to retire shortly.  I have had a long and interesting career as an educator, but I have to say that the most interesting and rewarding years have been in adult education. ]