Oprah Winfrey: 'We are more alike than we are different', Smith University - 2017

20 May 2017, Smith University, Northampton, Massachusetts, USA

For many years, I was in television. I've been in television since I was 19 years old. I started anchoring the news in Nashville at 19. And in the beginning, when you're 19, you're just happy to have a job. I was happy to be on TV. And I would run into people in the grocery store, and they would say, "Oh, you're that lady. You're on TV?"

"Yeah, I'm on TV."

It wasn't until I was about 30 years old, coming to Chicago, that I realised that I no longer wanted to just be on TV. I was actually interviewing members of the Ku Klux Klan one day, skinheads, from the Ku Klux Klan. You can learn from everything. No opportunity is wasted. And in the middle of the interview, I saw them signalling each other. And I recognised that I thought I was having a conversation, exposing how crazy their ideals were. And watching them signal each other, I could see that they were also having a private conversation. I thought I was using them to expose hatred and vitriol. But they were using me as their recruitment platform.

So I made a decision that I would no longer be used by television, that I would figure out a way to let television be used by me, to turn it into a platform that could be of service to the viewers. And in the moment of that decision, my life changed, because I no longer was just doing a show. I was no longer just being on a show. I made the clear intention to use every show to inform, to encourage, to inspire, to uplift, and entertain at the same time. And I decided that the notion of intention, knowing why you want to do something, not just doing it, but understanding the why behind the doing, could also change the paradigm for every show.

So I said to my producers, I will only do shows that are in alignment with my truth. I will not allow myself to be put in a chair, talking to somebody, who I am not aligned to in some way, that I can present myself in truth. I will not fake it.

I will not fake it.

This understanding that there is an alignment between who you are and what you do is what real authentic, what authentic empowerment is. It's what Gary Zukav calls in his book, Seat of the Soul, the real, true empowerment. The only empowerment is when your personality, when you use who you are, what you've been given, the gifts you hold, to serve the calling that you have been brought to earth to serve.

So when I figured that out, the show took off. The secret is, how do you use yourself? How do you use your whole self, your being, your full expression, as an offering really, as a full, open prayer to life?

That's what I've learned to do. My entire life is an open prayer to that which is the greatest, highest calling for myself.

So you actually do what Smith has been encouraging you to do since you entered the gates. You shift the paradigm to service. Service, you say. You save a life. You ask this question. Everybody who is still exploring where to go next, you ask the question, "How can I be used? Life, use me. Use me. Show me, through my talents and my gifts. Show me through what I know, what I need to know, what I have yet to learn, how to be used in the greater service to life."

You ask that question, and I guarantee you, Smithies, the answer will be returned and rewarded to you with fulfillment, which is really the major definition of success for me. If you ask the question, "How can I be used," and then get still enough for the answer. Because what I've discovered in all of my years of conversations and interviews with people, anytime you have to go and ask everybody else what is the answer to a question, it means you haven't gotten still enough yourself to quiet out the noise of the world, to listen to your inner GPS, your inner guidance that always knows, that knows right now what is the best next right thing for you to do.

It's your calling to serve because you are a woman of the world. And whatever your chosen field, I know this, that when you shift the paradigm to how can I be used? How can I use my art, my painting, my music, my medical skills? How can I use my listening, my caring, in service to that which is greater than myself? You shift the paradigm to service and the reward comes.

What I love about what has happened with all of the Smithy girls here is that you've learned to see the other. Don't think I didn't notice all the Black Lives Matter signs on all the houses, which I'm told you all, each house through discussions and discernment, came to the conclusion that that would be the banner that would be carried throughout all of the houses, that you all understood that social justice for all really matters.

I appreciate that. I appreciate that. You see the other, notice the other, and recognise that our differences make us whole, that our differences make us a whole nation. Differences make us a whole wide world.

You know, the reason why I could talk to over 37,858 people, but who's counting, in individual conversations from every place and station in life, is that I figured out early on what Maya Angelou had taught me, and that is we are more alike than we are different.

And the most important thing I learned, I want to share with you. I learned it through thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of conversations, every day, where I tried to be so fully present with every person, to see them, to hear them. And I started to notice early in my career, that after every interview, no matter who I was talking to, the person would say, when I finished the interview, "Was that okay? Was that okay? How was that? How'd that go? Did I do all right?"

So I started to think about, what is that? Why does everybody, including Beyonce, with all her Beyonceness, at the end of dancing on stage, hand me the mic and say, "Was that okay?" It's because every person, every argument you've ever been in, every confrontation or conversation, every person just wants to know they were heard. Every argument you have with your friends is not about whatever it is you're arguing about. It's ultimately about, "Do you hear me?" And many of you have even said, when you don't feel you're being heard, "Can you just hear me? Can you hear me? Can you see me? And could you understand that what I'm saying to you actually matters?"

And I have found that no matter what the conversation, or the confrontation, or the experience, if you can mirror back to that person, "Yes, I hear you, and this is what you're saying." Whether you choose to do it or not, just being heard makes all the difference, being validated, because everybody wants to be heard.

And what I've learned is, when you can do that, and create your work and your life based on an intention to serve with purpose, make it your intention to serve through your life with purpose, you will have a blessed life.

Margaret Edson: 'There’s not a bar graph for classroom teaching', Smith College - 2008

18 May 2008, Smith College, Massachusetts, USA

President Christ, my new friend;
Chair McPherson, taller far than a common board chair;
Trustees, you who care so much about this college, and who know how to party;
Faculty and Staff: how beautiful on the mountain are the feet of the messengers;
Class of 1983, my sisters: when the history of the college is written, time will tell that this class was the best looking;
Allison and Desirée, I met you in the processional and I just wanted to say hi;
Parents — Mom, Dad;
and Graduates, the Pride and Joy.

I remember on this day Smith women who have died and who continue to be part of my life:
Ruth Mortimer, Class of 1953, curator of rare books, my teacher and my generous friend; U.S. Army Captain Roselle Hoffmaster, Class of 1998: her death diminishes me, and I pray her life will expand me;
Nancy Boyd Gardner, Class of 1984, had the color of red hair that looked so good with dark green;
Beth McBeath, Class of 1982, whom I knew in the Glee Club and at whose memorial her senior year we sang the old revival hymn “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms”;
Louise Zanar, Class of 1978, whom I did not know personally, but who could play the harmonica with her nose.

“Filled to the brim.”
“Drunk to the dregs.”
“Unscrew the locks from the doors.
Unscrew the doors themselves from their hinges.”
(My task is to burden you with platitudes, and I accept with relish.)
“Only connect.”
“Think of things in themselves.”
“Stop, drop, and roll.”
“Do Not Walk on the Grass if You are Going Anywhere.”

Salutations, memorials, bromides: let us commence.

I want to talk about love — not romance, not love l-u-v.
I want to talk about a particular kind of love, this love: classroom teaching.

I have my posse of gaily clad classroom teachers behind me.
They like to be called ‘college professors’.
But we can’t all work for the government.

We gather together because of classroom teaching.
We have shown you our love in our work in the classroom.

Classroom teaching is a physical, breath-based, event, eye to eye.
It is not built on equipment or the past.
It is not concerned about the future.
It is in existence to go out of existence.
It happens and then it vanishes.
Classroom teaching is our gift.
It’s us; it’s this.

We bring nothing into the classroom — perhaps a text or a specimen. We carry ourselves, and whatever we have to offer you is stored within our bodies. You bring nothing into the classroom — some gum, maybe a piece of paper and a pencil, I dunno: nothing but yourselves, your breath, your bodies.

Classroom teaching produces nothing. At the end of a class, we all get up and walk out. It’s as if we were never there. There’s nothing to point to, no monument, no document of our existence together.

Classroom teaching expects nothing. There is no pecuniary relationship between teachers and students. Money changes hands, and people work very hard to keep it in circulation, but we have all agreed that it should not happen in the classroom. There is no financial incentive structure built into classroom teaching because we get paid the same whether you learn anything or not.

Classroom teaching withholds nothing. I say to my young students every year, “I know how to add two numbers, but I’m not going to tell you.” And they laugh and shout, “No!” That’s so absurd, so unthinkable. What do I have that I would not give to you?

Bringing nothing, producing nothing, expecting nothing, withholding nothing —
what does that remind you of?
Is this a bizarre occurrence that will go into The Journal of Irreproducible Results?
Or is it something that happens every day, all the time, all over the world, and is based not on gain and fame, but on love.

There are those who say that classroom teaching is doomed and that by the time one of you addresses the class of 2033, there will be a museum of classroom teaching.

[Aside} Pretend I just said something funny.

Ever since the invention of wedge-shaped writing on a clay tablet, classroom teaching has been obsolete. It’s been comical. Why don’t we just write the assignments and algorithms on a clay tablet, hang it up on the wall, and let the students come who will to teach themselves from our documents?

Why, since the creation of writing with a pen on a piece of paper, do we still bother to have schools?
Why, since the invention of movable metal type, don’t we all just go to the library?
Why do we have to have class? Why do we have to have teachers?
Why, since the invention of the microchip, don’t we all just stay home in our pajamas and hit send?

Technology is nipping at the heels of classroom teaching, but I perceive no threat.
How could something false replace something true?
How could a substitute, a proxy, step in for something real and alive?
How could the virtual nudge out the actual?

The other great threat to classroom teaching is the rush to data — data-driven education. I live by it!
We must measure everything — percentages, charts, tables.

I’m not entirely opposed to this.
And if data-driven education were a pie graph, I would have a piece.

But I was not educated and did not become a teacher to produce a bar graph. A scantron.

I love the classroom.
I loved it as a student, and I love it as a teacher.
I can name every teacher I ever had:
Mrs. Mulshanok, Miss Williams, Mrs. Clark, Miss Bogan, Mrs. Johnson, Mrs. Muys, Mrs. Parker, Mr. Eldridge, Miss Bush — and that’s just through sixth grade.
I could go on, I promise.

I loved coming to class: the chairs, the windows, unzipping my book bag.
And I loved my teachers.
There was content, I suppose, but that’s not what I remember.
I remember my teachers.
I remember being in the room.
And no data and no bar graph will be assembled to replace that, or even to capture it.

This week my students worked on dividing a pizza between two people, and they realized that if you make the line down the center of the pizza the two sides will be equal. After much trial and error, they came to this conclusion on their own, and I welcome you to try it. I think it’s really going to take off, and let this be where it begins.

When they take a standardized test, they will know , they will be able to fill in the bubble next to the pizza that is cut exactly in half. Do they know that will be the correct answer? Yes. But I don’t care that much. What I care about is how they got there, how they figured it out for themselves.

This skinny little high school grad got herself into Smith College by writing an essay about Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s theme, “The journey, not the arrival, matters.”

It worked for me.

Standardized tests measure the arrival, but they have nothing to say about the having of wonderful ideas. Do you know it/do you not know it is second, and how do you know it, and who are you, is first.

The only way this knowledge grows inside the body of a student, you or my students, is with a teacher, a classroom teacher. Of course, my students will insist they did it themselves, and I don’t try to disabuse them of that.

But the work you have done was in the classroom with your teachers!
That’s the miracle of today.
Why don’t we talk about it? Because we can’t point to it.
Because it doesn’t show up.
There’s not a bar graph for classroom teaching. There’s not data for classroom teaching, and yet it persists this year and the next year and ever since one biped showed another biped how to mash something with a rock, and eat it.

Bipeds, yeah.

Telling tens of thousands of people what to do is not teaching, it’s shouting, and we have a lot of that.

Showing somebody how to do something the way you do it is not teaching, it’s training. And there’s plenty of that.

But the reality that is neither shouting or training is classroom teaching.
From our bodies, to your bodies.
Nobody can touch it because nobody can point to it.
You have it forever.
When it grows inside you, it’s doing its work.

We can disappear.
We’ll never see you again, probably.
The chairs will be folded.
It will be as if we were never here.
There will be nothing we can count after today.
But not everything that counts can be counted.
Not everything that matters can be put into a pie chart.

The Board of Trustees has set a very great challenge for itself:
to educate us all for lives of distinction.
You are never going to be able to make a bar graph out of that.
That is immeasurable, and that’s what makes it so real.
I admonish you — because that’s my job — to think about the things that float away:
your love for your friends,
the smell of the lilacs,
the feeling your families have on this day.
You will have nothing to take with you.
The diploma you receive will be someone else’s.

Everything meaningful about this moment, and these four years,
will be meaningful inside you, not outside you.

I’ve been a classroom teacher for as long as you have been in the classroom. We started the same year. And I hope to go on for fourteen more years. That will make thirty, and I’ll be done.

At the end of that time, someone will bring me a box, and I will put in it a ceramic apple that somebody gave me thinking it would be meaningful or useful somehow. And I will have nothing, and that will be proof of the meaning of my work.

If you can point to something, you might lose it, or you might break it, or someone might take it from you. As long as you store it inside yourself, it’s not going anywhere — or it’s going everywhere with you.

This day is a day of love. It’s not a day of achievement, really. It’s a day of your family’s love for you, your love for each other and your teachers, and your teachers’ love for you.

[applause for teachers on stage]

In time, the bar graphs may tumble,
the clay tablets may crumble.
They’re only made of clay.
But our love
is here to stay.

Thank you.

Margaret Edson was a guest on episode three of the Speakola podcast and told the story of this speech. It’s a great listen. Please subscribe to the podcast.