Secretary Cardona Delivers Remarks On The Importance of Mustering Will in Education at Teachers College, Columbia University
So as you go forward on your journey, Teachers College degree in hand, I encourage you to muster your will in three big ways.
First: keep the will to chase your passion, not position.
Look, I know how tempting it is to see your end goal as a particular job.
But if you wait for the position you want to demonstrate the will we need, you might miss an opportunity to make a difference for students – here and now.
I have the same passion today to serve my students, close achievement gaps, and give them every opportunity to succeed, as I did when I was a 21 year old 4th grade teacher with 23 students. Today, the scope is just greater. My passion never changed.
The second area where we need your willpower in education is in the will to prioritize systems, not superheroes.
I’m sure your studies here at Teachers College have shown you: there are pockets of excellence all over this country. Name any state, and you can find a superhero principal or an all-star superintendent doing incredible things.
With your Teachers College training, you might well become the next superheroes in education. I hope you will.
But let’s also be clear: what we need to focus on is building systems, not superheroes. Our goal is to have the improvements we bring to education outlast us in our current roles.
So if it’s working: sustain it. If it’s broken: reimagine it. And if it doesn’t exist: build it.
Remember: investing in our children is no different than investing in defense – both protect our tomorrow. We can’t do that without systems that last.
That brings me to my final piece of advice about how we apply our will in education.
It came from a special education teacher in Connecticut, Rindy Hardy.
At the time, I was just 21, and I was getting ready to leave after finishing as a student teacher. This was back in the 1900s.
At my farewell party, she pulled me aside and said, “Miguel, never forget – you teach kids, not curriculum.”
I think it was her way of warning me: you’re gonna get overwhelmed with the requirements of the curriculum. All the paperwork. All the rules. All the mandates from the central office.
But you can’t lose sight of what this is really all about: working for children. Working for families. Working for people.
Education is a people business.
See, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how many degrees you have.
It doesn’t matter what letters you have after your name.
It doesn’t even matter if you know how to write policy.
What matters is if you are able to use your God given gifts to improve the lives of the students you serve. If you do, you will always be happy.
Passion, not position. Systems, not superheroes. Kids, not curriculum. Imagine what’s possible when you put the full force of your will behind each of those priorities.
As Shirley Chisholm once said: “you don’t make progress by standing on the sidelines, whimpering and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas.”
Now more than ever, we need your courageous leadership in education.
That means breaking the mold. It means challenging the status quo. It means being willing to get a little uncomfortable for your beliefs.
If your bold ideas and leadership are not making some people uncomfortable, you are not pushing hard enough.
Today, as you embark on the next phase of your journey in education, one where you serve as master gardeners responsible for cultivating a beautiful garden of learners, you will use what you learned at Teachers College to make a difference for children, and for our country.
With you as master gardeners—our country is in good hands.
Congratulations again to the class of 2023, and thank you!