My Advice to the Graduating Class pt. 4

Then the second part of the advice goes like this, “…and do not do anything that will end your life.”
This advice covers the part that one should avoid things like suicide, drinking and driving and again doing drugs. This could include life threatening situations where you entangle yourself with some serious problems that would involve deaths and killings.

Though the advice covers these kinds of life situations, I also would like to emphasize more on the suicide side. This is because, time will come in life that problems will get the best of us. Our plans might no longer be possible that we just want to end it all, surrender to all the things that are negative. This can happen to anyone, even to the best of us.

So when I say that ,”… do not do anything that will end your life”… in a way I also mean that my students should not give up on their plans and dreams in life. Suicide is ending your life, ending your plans.
I do not want my students to give up. I do not want them to surrender or lose hope. I want them to keep on fighting.

I want them to always find new creative strategies to solve their problems so they can reach their dreams. I want them to know that problems always have solutions, it just being creative enough to look for new ways to solve it.

So that is it, that is my advice to our high school graduating students. For me, it is a good advice because it covers a lot of things and it deals with what they may encounter in their lives in the future. This advice may not even be heard, may not even be read. But I still feel that it is worth my time to write about it.

So again, to the fourth year graduating students, I say, ““Do not do anything that will ruin the plans of your life and do not do anything that will end your life.”

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My Advice to the Graduating Class pt. 3

So what is my advice then to the graduating class?

After all the ideas I had, after thinking about it a lot, I would choose this one. “Do not do anything that will ruin the plans of your life and do not do anything that will end your life.”

I chose this advice because it covers a lot of things, first of all, it tells the students that he or she should have a plan, a goal, a dream that he or she should follow. Having a plan in life is very important. People should focus on his/ her plans, stick with it and stop procrastinating or making excuses in fullfilling it. You can change your plans along the way or strategies but the fact is, having a plan is important.

This also means that anything that may destroy her or his plans, he/she should avoid it. This includes getting someone pregnant, getting pregnant or delving into drugs and many other disastrous things.

Such an advice is real because I have seen a lot of people’s dreams crumble because they got themselves pregnant or got someone pregnant. It becomes difficult for those people who are tackling those problems to continue with their dreams and plans of life because they will now have to prioritize their time and money in rearing a child and supporting a young family.

The advice though does not mean that one should not have sex or that one should get an abortion. That is another topic all together.

Delving into drugs is also a dream destroyer because what if you become addicted to it. Now that would mean everything in your life will then be going nowhere. You could go to rehabilitation for it, you could kill someone and get imprisoned, or whatever dangerous effects related to it. So drugs and pregnancy are a no-no.

A person, a fourth year student can have new and different experiences in college or in life but the caution here is that one should avoid the things that are hard to solve or hard to escape from. Stealing, drugs, getting someone pregnant are things that curtail responsibility and big consequences. It will not be an easy problem to just get away from.

If you want to try new experiences, there are a lot of things one can do. Travelling, learning a new talent, making a band, starting a new business, trying out fun but safe activities such as go-carting or going to zip-lines are just a few new things to try.

Small new problems that curtail no heavy consequences could mean failing an exam, failing a class, breaking up with a boyfriend/girlfriend or even shifting to another course.

So first part of the advice, “Do not do anything that will ruin the plans of your life…”

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My Advice to the Graduating Class pt. 2

Now, when it comes to the fourth year high school students, which has a different situation to college, I would offer a different advice. Again, I would like to remind the reader that all of this stuff is just in the realm of imagination; I am really not giving any speeches. I am no highly successful individual I am just an ordinary man.

When I was thinking about this, a lot of things came to mind which also means a lot of advices came to mind as well. One was that I could tell my students that they learn to appreciate art and support the local art and music scene. In a way, this was important but when it comes to talking about life, this was truly not a good advice. It was only applicable to art and not applicable to the many things they would encounter during college and after college.

Next was that, I also could tell them that they should live a creative life. But again, this could be misinterpreted because much of them will not be taking any art related course. Yes, I know creativity as we have said is not related to art but it could be misinterpreted and the advice could also be limited. I think if I would give this advice, I would make it sound this way, “Always be creative in solving your problems.”

But again, the same problem to the previous advices may arise because such an advice can be misinterpreted. This is because they might in a way try to solve their problems by creatively escaping it because I do believe problems are supposed to be faced head on and you just look for new strategies to solve it and not escape it.

Solving problems does not mean escaping it, blaming someone for it or not solving it and wait for it to go away which usually does not happen.

So in the end, I scrapped the idea of giving that advice.

So what is my advice then to the graduating class?

Due to the constraints of time and space, I will tell you all about it tomorrow.

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My Advice to the Graduating Class pt. 1

In a way, the possibility of me giving advice to fourth year high school students or any graduating class is nearly impossible. Usually such speeches are given to the High School Principal, the Adviser, the Dean or to any highly successful individual. But it was nice to think about it, I felt that I had something to say about it. So even if such a chance will never happen to me, I just wanted to write it down. It clears the mind anyway.
First of all, if this advice was for the graduating class of the fine arts students of U.P. Cebu, this would be the advice I would give which in a way was the advice we understood were given to us by our teachers when my batch graduated from college. It went like this.

No matter where you go, no matter what you do, continue to become an artist.

Such an advice meant that there will come a time that will not continue painting art and having exhibits. Especially in these trying times, the situation will come that we will no longer be visual artists. But it does not mean that we should stop being an artist. This is because we can still be artists, but have different mediums. We can still be graphic artists, be fashion designers, writers or musicians. It is a different medium but we are still out there creating and expressing ourselves.

Second, the advice also means that we continue to live a life of passion and always be creative. Passion and creativity are things not only limited to art. It can be related to business, teaching, sports, leadership and even living a life of advocacy. No matter where we would go, the advice meant that we should live a passionate and creative life.

So again, to the graduates of the Fine arts course of U.P. Cebu, I say ,“ no matter where you go, no matter what you do, continue to become an artist.”

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You Give Drawing a Bad Name

One of the things that I was very excited about to teach in high school was teaching kids about drawing. This was because I really believed that every high school kid wanted to learn how to draw. As I found out then and found out in a hard way, a lot of kids do not like to learn how to draw. I was wrong about it and a lot of them were scared to learn because of how grown-ups, adults or parents saw drawing.

The thing is, a lot of adults think learning how to draw is very difficult. They think that the skill of drawing is acquired through genetics. So if the parent thinks that he or she is bad at drawing, he or she concludes that her or his child will also be bad at it.

They also think that drawing is something magical. That only few can handle it. Artists or people who are skilled at drawing are something rare. For them learning how to play the guitar is more difficult than drawing. They place too much value; they place drawing on such a high pedestal or an ivory tower that when it comes to teaching it, these parents are not at all helpful; they give drawing a bad name.

The thing is, these old misconceptions about drawing have already been debunked long time ago due to the efforts of Betty Edwards and her theories about drawing from the right side of the brain. In this book, Betty Edwards shares that drawing is not about genetics or magic at all. Drawing can be learned by seeing things with the right side of the brain. Drawing like any skill can be learned and like everything else, anyone can be good at it with hard work and consistent practice. With such a breakthrough understanding of drawing, Betty Edwards revolutionized how we see drawing.

The lesson here is that any person, young or old can learn how to draw. He or she just needs to have the correct lessons and works hard for it.

The lesson here is that we must stop spreading such misconceptions that drawing is difficult to learn because it discourages kids to learn and be open to new ideas.

The lesson here is that if you do not know anything about drawing and share old opinions about it, you should shut up because clearly you are ignorant of the topic; you lack research which only means you have no right to share your opinions about drawing.

Stop giving it a bad name, will ya?

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