On Tuesday, June 11, I will march with an incredibly talented group of Toronto High School graduates as part of the Walk With Excellence. This annual event, led by Itah Sadu, author and director of A Different Booklist Cultural Centre, is organized by a committee of students, educators and community members all devoted to excellence in education. The Walk with Excellence celebrates the achievements of Toronto’s students and the efforts of principals, teachers and community partners in a public demonstration of student achievement and success.
The festivities begin around 10:00 am, when I will assemble alongside of a few honoured guests and several hundred graduating students at CW Jefferys Collegiate Institute [340 Sentinel Rd, North York, ON M3J 1T9] before parading north along Sentinel Road into York University. I have written a poem to be printed on t-shirts and worn by high school graduates at the event. I am happy to participate in an occasion which showcases the pride, talents, and accomplishments of TDSB students and also marks the next step in an exciting journey in the lives of the community’s young people.
Walk With Excellence 2019
Excellence! Be great. Do well.
And bring it to everyone.
We will excel
And help everyone excel.
Let each person be supreme!
Excellence!
This is our dream.
But is it “only a dream”?
No! Only this makes sense!
And we will make it true.
We will help to give it
To us and them, to me and you.
We will live it.
We’ll talk and walk our excellence,
And we will march and sing
The excellence of everyone:
That is the most real thing—
everyone’s greatness and success.
It’s not here yet? Well, you can bet
It’s a world that we will get.
It’s the justice that is coming—
The only world that makes sense.
It’s the gift we will sing and bring
As we walk with excellence.
—A. F. Moritz,
10 – 23 April 2019
Here’s some video from the event!