New Canaan High School Class of 2014 Graduates [VIDEO]

Recently graduated from the University of Chicago, carrying a degree in English and philosophy and grand ideas of what lay ahead, a 22-year-old Robert Darken took a position in the mid-1990s with an international relief agency operating an emergency winter food distribution program halfway around the world, in Azerbaijan.

Eager to travel and write though with little thought given to what skills he actually possessed, Darken in his romantic vision for what this experience would be played a major, central role in solving enormous problems of want and hunger.

Yet as his plane descended into the Azerbaijani capital, a thought—uncomfortably clear in its truth—occurred to the young man.

“We emerged from cloud cover, and suddenly a million yellow lights spread out below,” Darken recalled early Tuesday evening as he addressed the 2014 graduating class of New Canaan High School and their hundreds of families and friends as commencement speaker at Dunning Field.

“What had been nothing more to me than a blank spot on a map was being filled in beneath my feet. I began to realize in that moment that the romantic visions I had created in my imagination would very soon come up against hard reality. I dreamed of traveling the world, doing good deeds, benefitting people. Quite suddenly I realized that this was not a sightseeing tour. My experience was rapidly narrowing to one specific location, where I would work with one specific set of people on one specific task. Time slowed down unbearably. I felt a gnawing fear in the pit of my stomach. The yellow lights of the city hovered beneath me, without getting any closer. At that moment the insight that occurred to me most clearly was exactly how much I did not know.”

In a speech as dryly entertaining as it was profound, Darken—for 15 years (with a four-year break in there) a New Canaan High School English and Social Studies teacher—encouraged the students to recognize such uncomfortable truths when they appear, and to position themselves for their appearances by respecting and embracing uncertainty and difficult situations as a chance to learn and grow.

“I’ve had the pleasure of teaching many of you,” Darken told the students as a hot, humid sun thankfully gave way to a milder evening.

“I’ve watched you rack up amazing achievements in academics, athletics and the arts. But I have to tell you this: What will live on in my memory are the not the achievements marked by trophies or captured by your GPA. They’re the little moments when I witnessed your acts of kindness toward one another. Your humor, your genuine curiosity, your perseverance, your ability to be graceful in both victory and disappointment. Those are the signs that show you’re outgrowing your childhood. You’re not kids anymore, you’re becoming men and women of character. Now you’re moving beyond this place to grow further somewhere else. Your plans have a concreteness and certainty to them: They’re set down on black and white on a double-paged spread in the Courant. I know it feels satisfying to have a firm plan for the future, and of course one mark of maturity is to have a plan. At the same time, there is so much you simply can’t know about how those plans will work out in reality. The way you respond to unexpected events, to setbacks, to uncertainty, will have a big impact on the character you are shaping for yourself.”

Hundreds of relatives and friends gathered at the high school for the stirring graduation ceremony, holding cameras aloft during the annual commencement exercises that included a processional set to the traditional “Pomp and Circumstance,” two songs from the outstanding NCHS Madrigal Ensemble and a Recessional “From Lambs to Rams: Tribute to the Class of 2014” from Daniel Konstantinovic and senior Connor Buck.

Several figures from the community addressed the students and supporters—here’s a sampling of what they said:

Class President Sophia Curiale: It is finally here. This is the day we could barely envision as freshmen. Our high school graduation. Four years ago, we began an amazing journey. Since then, we have made more incredible, lifelong friendships than we ever could have imagined. Learning not only academic lessons but life lessons that we will all benefit from, as we continue this journey onto adulthood. Today marks a milestone in my life, and in your lives, my fellow graduates.

First Selectman Rob Mallozzi (also parent of a ’14 grad): Before I go any further, if there are any spelling, grammatical or punctuation errors in my address today, please note that I’m a graduate of Darien High School, class of 1980. This is a melancholy moment for me, as it is for many of you. This date has been circled on my calendar since November of 2013. That’s the date when I was re-elected and I realized that I would be one of the speakers at my own daughter’s graduation ceremony. So this will be mercifully short speech because I don’t know that I can hold it together that long.

Principal Dr. Bryan Luizzi: You Tweet, read books online, have instant access to current events and your electronic social networking has shrunk the known world down to size of an iPhone screen. With all of this going on, we are still just at the threshold of the technology revolution. And in the years ahead, it’s your generation that will take the technology of today to new and dizzying heights. Judging by the amazing things you have accomplished these years throughout the New Canaan Public Schools, I believe that many of you sitting here tonight will be the leaders in these efforts in the years ahead.

Senior Gita Abhiraman: My family moved to New Canaan when I was in second grade, this changed the course of my life. I made lifelong friends with whom I would produce plays and write novels. Even getting rejected from 17 publishing companies didn’t stop us. I had teachers who raised me like their own, writing journal responses through the night, and fostering my every creative impulse. In no other community could I have found such inspiring classmates and dedicated teachers.

Senior Alex Klapper: If I have learned anything these past four years, it is that ‘real life’ truly began for us in high school. We uncovered the mystery of Boo Radley in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ contemplated the nuances of adolescent anxiety in ‘The Catcher in the Rye,’ waited with bated breath as Jay Gatsby was rejected not once, but twice, by the love of his life, and we debated Hamlet’s insanity, as he sought to avenge his father’s death. We were taught to critique, analyze and most importantly, question. In an age of digital confusion and increased interconnectivity, it becomes necessary to demand the best from our peers, our mentors and ourselves.

Senior Isabel Lawrence: Freshman year, coming from our respective teams at Saxe or from different middle schools entirely, we entered NCHS in much the same way. Full of excitement, maybe a little dread and hopefully lots of optimism at what the next stage in our lives would hold. What tied us together as a grade, however, was the need to plant our roots in the ground and find security in this new environment. At this time in our lives, you could say, we were looking to be the pursued. The ones who fit in, who had a place, who at least looked like they knew what they were doing, whether or not we managed to pull that off.

Senior Jack O’Rourke: Rarely in life will there be a more opportune time than this to rattle off a list of clichéd pieces of advice about seizing the day, making the most of your lemons and so on. Yet, I stand here prepared to relate to you, my fellow classmates, perhaps the most clichéd piece of advice you might ever hear in a graduation speech: Do what makes you most happy. To my classmates, reflect on your time here at NCHS. The last four years have been transformative for all of us.

Board of Education Chair Hazel Hobbs: Life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent what you do with it. You’ve had a top-level education at New Canaan High School, graduating and prepared for success in a complex global society. And yet I’m sure you’ve had disappointments. Did you do poorly on a test? Not play a part you wanted? Or lose an important game? Yesterday is over. As time passes, not achieving some goals may work in your favor. There’s an important lesson to be learned: Failure doesn’t last forever. Deal with disappointments quickly. Forget about defeats and learn from them. Forgive yourself and move on. Learning to forgive yourself also helps you forgive others—another very important lifelong skill.

Darken described his time in Azerbaijan and the modest tasks to which he applied himself as part of the larger relief program: unloading trucks, counting food supplies, writing reports, seeing that employees were paid.

“I didn’t change the world in the big unrealistic ways that I had envisioned,” he said. “But I did change the world a little bit in the sense that I myself was changed. When I looked down from that airplane and found the lights of Baku spread beneath me, the uncertainty I felt was also the beginning of humility.”

One of the most powerful, enduring memories Darken had there came on a day when one Azerbaijani man, grateful for the warm clothes given to him, asked Darken and three others to his house for a simple meal of green beans and bread.

“I understood that this man was genuinely grateful for the warm clothes we had handed out, and he wanted to express friendship in a way that people do all over the world, by sharing a meal with us,” Darken recalled. “That afternoon, that unnamed man was my teacher, teaching me about our shared humanity. I had come to change the world, but I was the one changed. I had come to benefit others, but I was the primary beneficiary. Graduates, now you are the ones descending through the clouds into a future of a million lights. You can’t know exactly what’s in store for you. Embrace the fact that you don’t know. Spend time with people who are different from you. Ask questions. Have new experiences. Never stop growing into your best selves.”