Richmond Hill, Thursday, October 2, 2008
CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY
How are you?
Let me look at you.
You are all so beautiful.
With your wide smiles and shining eyes.
Are you always so well behaved?
I have very fond memories of my first few years of school. The school I went to was in my home. My mother, my mother the teacher, founded it.
She called it "Le Bocage." It is such a pretty word; do you know what it means? A "bocage" is a kind of garden, one with big trees, like a park.
My mother called her school "Le Bocage" because she felt that learning and knowledge needed to be cultivated, like flowers and plants, in order to bear fruit.
My mother was right to think that learning was like tending a garden.
At school, you learn how to read, write, and do math. But you also learn how to live together. You discover how big the world is, and how full it is of possibilities.
That is what education is. It is learning new things.
And the more you know, the more flowers and plants you will have in your garden.
I have a nine-year-old daughter named Marie-Éden.
Like me, she was born in the poorest country in the Americas, Haiti.
Maybe-just like us- some of you were born in a country other than Canada?
On that Caribbean island where my daughter and I were born-as in so many other countries around the world-not all children are lucky enough to be able to go to school. Either because there is no school or because, even though they are still children, they have to work in the fields. Girls must stay home to take care of their younger siblings or to do chores.
In some regions of the world, war prevents children from going to school altogether because they cannot get there safely.
And in some places, girls are not allowed to go to school and learn things like the boys at all.
For those children, going to school is a dream that will never come true.
So every morning when you walk to school, or take the bus, or have your parents drive you here, think of the children who are not as fortunate as you are.
You are very lucky.
I want you to take full advantage of the opportunities you are given, opportunities a lot of people don't have. And I want you to know how precious those opportunities are.
I think we should give a warm round of applause to your principals and teachers; they care about you and want to teach you all kinds of things.
You should tell them often that you care for them too and that you know how hard they work to help you.
You know, what you are doing-learning French-is pretty remarkable. French will help you to make even more friends.
I speak a few languages myself.
Do you know how to say "hello" in Creole? In Italian? In Spanish?
Maybe some of you also speak other languages besides French and English?
Isn't it great to be able to understand and speak different languages?
It is as though our spirits and our hearts are opening up, as though they are getting bigger and bigger.
I want to tell you a secret.
This school may bear my name, but it belongs to you.
It is your school. It belongs to you.
I want you to remember this: every time you learn something new, you are adding another flower to your garden.
Thank you for welcoming me so warmly and with such big, beautiful smiles. I will come back to see you again and to hear your stories about all the wonderful and exciting things happening in your school.
I love you all!
