Essential Questions

Today I had the honor of delivering the student address at the graduate commencement at Oklahoma City University.  Below is the text with a few edits.  

Michael Slack

5/5/2012

Student Address: Graduate Commencement

Oklahoma City University

Essential Questions

There is only one thing I’d like to talk to you about today.  Just one thing.  And that one thing is an instructional strategy and approach I learned while a public school teacher in Atlanta, GA.  The strategy is called “Essential Questions.” 

Essential Questions are questions that a teacher asks his students before the lesson begins.  These questions give students clues into the fundamental content of the day’s lesson.  These questions tell a student what to listen for, what to watch for, what to expect, and what’s to come.  So if I taught a lesson on triangles, I might ask the essential question, “How many sides does a triangle have?” or “What is the area formula for a triangle?”  During the lesson, when I say, “A triangle has three sides,” the students know to underline, circle, and highlight that bit of information because they know it will be on the quiz, which I like the call, “The Moment of Truth.” 

The really good teachers put tremendous effort into asking the right Essential Questions every single day.  I was only an ok teacher, so I did this sometimes, but not always.  But this practice is extremely important for students because it doesn’t always come naturally for people to think “now” about questions they’ll need to answer “later.”  It takes time to learn that you have to ask the Essential Questions, before you get to the Moment of Truth. 

I’m telling you about Essential Questions because the 2012 graduates are wrapping up a phase of our lives where we’ve been preparing to answer a series of Essential Questions that are inwardly and academically based.  “How many pages does this paper need to be?” “What’s going to be on the final exam?”  “Do I have enough credits to graduate?”  These are all questions we had to answer before we could arrive here, at the Moment of Truth.  But these questions aren’t the only ones I’ve been preparing to answer in my 5 years of studies at Oklahoma City University.

The faculty and staff at OCU have the great foresight to prepare us to answer the Essential Questions that force us to look beyond the class period, beyond the semester, and even beyond graduation.  They have the foresight to prepare us to answer the Essential Questions we will try to answer for the rest of our lives.  Questions like: “What kind of person do I want to be?”  “What impact do I want to have in this city, this state, and this world?” and “How will I be remembered?”  They’ve asked us these questions both explicitly and implicitly through OCU’s exposure to service learning classes, University participation in volunteerism and fundraising, and, most importantly, by surrounding us with a cloud of witnesses who have served at times as model responses to these “Essential Questions.”

I want to share with you just one brief anecdote about how the faculty and staff have helped me to think about and answer some of life’s Essential Questions.  I could tell 50 stories, but I suppose we should walk across this before too long.

I learned how to answer the essential question, “What kind of person do I want to be,” before I even attended my first class as a freshman when a leading University administrator walked up to me, introduced himself, called me by named, and told me he was excited that I was on campus.  I was stunned.  This campus leader came up to me, he know my name, my major, and the name of my scholarship.  Looking back on that moment I realize now I was being taught what it means to be a Servant Leader.  I hope that if I ever ascend to a position of authority or importance, I will remember this lesson – time invested being gracious and humble yields enormous returns.  This interaction took one minute at most, but it made me, a freshman, feel important.  And it is a memory that has remained fresh in my mind to this day, almost 8 years later.  And I imagine it will remain with me for many more years.  What kind of person do I want to be?  A Servant Leader. 

This interaction precipitated reflection on the characteristics of a Servant Leader and I’ve mentioned a few of the obvious characteristics like humility and generosity.  But one of the less obvious characteristics that I’ve come to appreciate more is the attitude towards service which is best described as: Eagerness.  I think Servant Leaders have a special antenna in their brains pays special attention for opportunities to serve.  The Servant leader seeks out and enjoys those moments when they help make someone else’s life better.  How do I want to be remembered?  As someone who is eager to serve.  When my Moment of Truth comes and I consider the impact I’ve made in this world, I hope I can answer, “I enjoyed working with others to make this world a better place.”  That’s what OCU has taught me. 

I wanted to share these thoughts on Essential Questions today because we’ve succeeded in answering the Academic Essentials Questions of our lives.  And now, we have decades to answer a different set of questions, Life’s Essential Questions.

            As we go out from this place, I hope we continue to ask ourselves how we can be servant leaders in our community; actively, eagerly, working together towards a better community. 

Thank you so much for this time, and congratulations to my fellow graduates and good luck out there.