Convocation

I attended Seneca's convocation ceremony today to celebrate our 2009 graduates, including our Tech Comm grad certificate students. It was great seeing them, and the computer studies students I teach in EAC397 and other courses as well. There is the usual pomp and circumstance one would expect from a college graduation ceremony. It's an energizing day.

One of the things we do at convocation is confer Honorary Degrees on notable personages who merit such recognition. This year's recipients were brothers Craig and Mark Kielburger. You may know about them from their work with Free the Children, a foundation that seeks to educate children and keep them from slavery and sweat shops. This foundation is based on the premise that every child deserves a happy, healthy and safe childhood.

The origins of this foundation came from then-12-year-old Craig`s outrage on reading about a young Pakistani boy named Iqbal Masih who was forced into bonded labour in a carpet factory at the age of four, became an international figurehead for the fight against child labor by 10 years of age, and was brutally murdered in 1995 when he was 12.

Research into child labour, then sharing his findings with schoolmates, family and friends led Craig and his older brother Mark into social activism and contact with many public figures as they fought for rights for children.

Craig`s address to our convocation ceremony was uplifting and meaningful. He spoke about the time that he and his brother worked alongside Mother Theresa in Calcutta some years ago. He shared some advice she had given them. She took their hands into her rough ones ``like sandpaper from her years of service`` and said to them, ``If you cannot do great things, do small things with great love.``

My sons RJ and Devon are about the same age as Craig Kielburger. They didn`t grow up in Thornhill, as he did; they grew up in Fernwood and on armed forces bases, and attended inner city schools. Their parents didn`t have the money to send them to Harvard or to Thailand and India. Their parents barely had the money to keep them housed and clothed most of the time.

Their father overcame an abusive childhood to excel in his profession and rise to the top rank in his specialty, throughout the years influencing many young soldiers and providing an example of leadership and personal triumph. He continues to demonstrate his personal courage day to day, and offers his time to counsel addicts in making positive life changes.

Their mother is known for little except encouraging and inspiring her students, often sharing a kind word and a smile with a beleaguered store clerk, coaching others to get jobs and sort out their lives, leading laughter sessions, and reaching out through her writing and other activities to those who need to be reminded that they are unique, capable, and so very precious.

It was not our branch of the Agnew family that produced David Agnew, formerly head of UNICEF and currently the President of Seneca College.

Still, my Agnews are doing okay. I am not in the least disappointed that neither of my sons has yet achieved the international recognition that Craig Keilburger has deserved. When I think of my sons, I notice their average day-to-day activities just diligently going to work, getting there on time, and giving full value to their employer. They are honest, loyal friends to those who know them. They are compassionate, honourable men who treat women with respect, all people with kindness, and animals with mercy. They each have a good sense of fair play, good sportsmanship, and generosity. They act and speak with integrity. They clearly know right from wrong, and operate on principles of justice, equality, and respect. They can be counted on when times get tough, and they don't take themselves too seriously.

All in all, RJ and Devon may not do the great things that some others do. But I know that the small things they do, they do with great love. I couldn't ask for more, and of that I am very proud indeed.

Cracking ourselves up...

This is how my son RJ and I crack ourselves up from time to time. It usually starts with an innocent conversation...

So the other night we were just shooting the breeze during dinner. He said something about factoids, and I said I have so much interesting but largely useless knowledge in my head, that it is just full of factoids.

For example, I said, they did a study on sheep that found that because they spend all their lives in a flock, they don't ever like to be alone. And they found that if you have to separate a sheep from the flock, it gets very nervous, so one way to ease its fright is to put a large mirror beside it. That way, the sheep sees another sheep in the mirror and thinks it's not alone. I said, the same thing works for Alpacas (which I owned a few years ago). So if you have to transport a single alpaca, to a show, or when it's sold perhaps, if you put a large mirror in the truck or trailer, it calms down because it thinks it has company.

And what works even better is two mirrors so that the alpacas sees a multitude of alpacas on either side of him and feels he's in a herd again.

RJ said, you know, sheep can actually recognize each other by their faces. There was a Youtube video of where they put a Halloween mask on a sheep and all the other sheep in the flock ran away from it because they didn't know who it was.

I said, well, if sheep can recognize faces, wouldn't they look in the mirror and recognize their own face and think, Hey, that's me?

RJ said, Not in a Halloween mask.

And THAT is when we both started laughing.

See, now, don't you wish you could come to dinner at my house? :-)