Last Friday we celebrated the farewell of the LXVI graduating class of Gaztelueta with a very emotional event. After taking photos of the groups of students and the whole class, and due to the weather, the event took place inside the school premises, where they unveiled the class crest and shared a meal with the teaching staff and the school management.
Alfonso Fernández Urbano, student of the course, addressed his classmates with some moving words in which he encouraged them to continue with the legacy that the school has left in them.
" Good afternoon, Don Mikel, teachers and colleagues:
I don't know about you, but at the beginning of the year I was more aware than I am now of the moment we are in. Today is the farewell of the graduating class. The farewell to the school. The end of 15 years in Gaztelueta. It is said soon, but it is not at all. Much less so this year, which has been suffered like another 15.
This day, which seemed indivisible on the horizon - full of hiztegis and mathematical works - has been approaching until it is in our hands today. I want to enjoy it, because soon it will be so far away again that we may even forget it with time (or wine). First, I would like to make it clear that it is a pleasure and an honour, not only to speak before you, but to BE among you. Being part of the 66th graduating class.
I would like to take this opportunity to say three things. First, I would like to thank you, then I would like to ask you for a favour and finally I would like to share a thought with you.
At As soon as you leave Gaztelueta, you realise that many of the bad times we may have had here would have been worse elsewhere and that this school is truly a utopian bubble. So it seems to me worthy and just to remember and thank today the work of those who have contributed to form this good environment that we have enjoyed for 12 years. Among them, Opus Dei, which has created schools like ours within a Christian education. The priests, always present to help us in this same formation. The people who work daily in the school, making everything more comfortable for us: in the secretary's office, in maintenance and in the dining room.
And thanks above all to you; our teachers, who without any kind of obligation have not only given us classes, but have also taken care of us, our growth as people and our formation in values. Without you, this beautiful journey would not have been the same. Thank you for the good and the bad.
But it is unfair to give all the credit to the Baccalaureate staff. I think it would be nice, on a day like today, to remember the teachers who have been with us since we were 3 years old. The teachers from Seaska, from the police, from the central school, from the first years of ESO, from the last ones, up to those who are sharing lunch with us today.
During this school year, as in any other, debates-commentaries on current news have arisen in class. Almost always in relation to how bad the world is. In the economy, society, politics, wars... There was a teacher who, in one of these, stopped, looked at us and, with a "what a bitch" smile on his face, said "it's in your hands".
Today I see myself surrounded by future engineers, lawyers, doctors, businessmen, psychologists... But what the marks of any subject do not say, nor does it appear on the academic transcript, nor does it give pennants and stripes, and yet it is what I most like to think about is that many good people come out of here.
To be a good person, as simple and childish as it may sound, is to be loyal, honest and sincere, while it is so easy to lie and hide behind a screen. It is to fulfil our obligations to the best of our ability, while it is so easy to do the minimum and the wrong thing. It is not taking advantage of anyone. It is, when things are going badly for you, smiling at those you know are doing even worse. It is, however difficult it may be, always taking the right path.
Being a good person does not mean making a lot of money, or being very famous, or working very little. Not at all. But I have faith that it takes good people to change the world. And I am glad that so many of us are here today.
The favour I ask of you is that we never lose this, which we have been able to take partly out of the school, and that we can always be proud of it.
About the promotion: I have been thinking about it this year, when I look at the pavilion's class lists; and we are not a special promotion: neither particularly good, nor particularly bad. We are, quite simply, just another promotion. In the eyes of most of our teachers, in the eyes of the school and in the eyes of the other future and past 65 graduating classes. Our crest will be next to that of the 65th graduating class, constituting the 66th graduating class and next to that of next year's 67th graduating class. And that will be almost our entire footprint in the school.
So what makes us different? It seems to me that the key is to know that this promotion is the most important for each one of us. This is our graduating class, the one we are part of, the one we have contributed to and the one that has helped us, in one way or another, to grow as students, colleagues and people. I think that's the key, to appreciate what is ours and not to worry that it's not the way we want it to be.
If you look around you, you will see the people with whom you have shared, laughed and cried throughout your lives. Most of us have been together since Seaska; 15 years together. Isn't that enough to know that we have been vital to each other for so many years? With the good and the bad that each of us has, we have formed a group of people that we have relied on. It has taken us 12 years to finish it. But it has taken us this far, to be who we are today, to be with those we are today from Infantil. With each of our imperfections, our imperfect - but our - promotion has been forged. The 66th. It may not leave a deep mark on Gaztelueta -although some teachers deny it-, but it has left a deep mark on each one of us, whether we like it or not.
That is why I would like us to pay tribute to our graduating class. On 27 May, the day of the sports festival, it will almost certainly be the last day that we will all be together. I would like to ask you, from the bottom of my heart, that when we parade, flag in hand, uniform perfectly in place and spotless, and to the sound of the march, you take a look back over the 12 years at the school. Hold on to those memories, as if your life depended on it. Think about what you have learnt, about all the cuddles you may have had, about your teachers (regardless of good or bad experiences) and about your classmates -some of them almost brothers and sisters- and live it as if you were about to die. Because it may seem that after that parade, those beautiful memories that have made you who you are will be lost like tears in the rain. But nothing dies as long as we remember.
Thank you very much for everything.
