I have agreed to speak at an academic awards banquet on May 19th at my high school. At 5:05am, I was struck with what I would like to say to these young achievers. I want to tell them that most of the information that they have learned is useless. All the studying they have endured of math, English, dates, concepts and history is useless in and of itself. Have you actually learned from it? That is the question I want to throw in their face. Have they learned that their parents are probably right or have they learned that their parents are completely wrong?In other words, if you have read Shakespeare’s Hamlet and you know “What a piece of work is man” as a quote but you don’t know what Shakespeare was really talking about then you have missed the point of learning. Studying for a perfect SOL test or a 5 on the AP does not prove that you have learned anything. Shakespeare, Galileo and the other masters of the past explored uncharted territory trying to give us a map to answers that although feeble yet brilliant are merely suggestions to questions only God answers.  If the student has learned the old answers but is too scared to come up with new answers then the student has achieved conformity and nothing else.I would also like to tell them that they should be careful not to consider high school the peak. It is really just the start. It is up to them to formulate a new dream because the sand in this hour glass has emptied. Learning something about yourself and the world around you every day is the best remedy for taking your life too seriously. At 5:07am I realized that talk would be too existential.  I should just read a Dr. Seuss Poem and eat my chicken slyly holding inside my head the irony of life.  ”What a piece of work is man.”AH