The Puzzle

People can achieve remarkable things when we give them a chance.  I’ve seen it more times than I can count.  Here is one that I will never forget.

One day when I was working at a major research university, I was walking across campus on my way to get lunch.  As I walked, I noticed a young man ahead who started jumping up and down and waving at me.  I didn’t know what to think, but as he approached, I could see he was smiling.

Six years before, when I was a high school principal, I spent the first two weeks of the year visiting every second period classroom to deliver an opening message of welcome and encouragement.  In this talk, I explained that one of the best things about school was that it gave students an opportunity to discover their talents and passions.  I shared that we hoped they would all take full advantage of that opportunity.  I encouraged them to find at least one thing in school that they were good at, that excited them, challenged them, or that brought them great joy, and to go as far as they could in developing those interests.  Then I shared a metaphor.  I suggested that all of us are like pieces of a giant jigsaw puzzle.  I pointed out that while, like the pieces of a puzzle, we are more alike than different, each of us is also unique: just as a puzzle has no two identical pieces, there are no two identical people.  More important, we all have different talents and interests that when shared can be beneficial to all.  I encouraged the students to find their unique qualities and to share them.  I observed that in a puzzle, while each of the pieces has individual meaning, the joining together of all the pieces creates meaning that is greater than the sum of all the parts.   I shared that while they might not yet know what their individual contribution could be, school offered an opportunity to explore that and encouraged them to contemplate how they could grow into their unique capacities.  I finished the presentation by giving every person in the room a puzzle piece as a reminder but told them that they didn’t have to keep it if the metaphor wasn’t useful for them.  Most of them kept the piece.

As the young person on campus came up to me, he reached out his hand, and said, “Hello!  You won’t remember me, but at the start of your last year as principal at my high school, you came to my class and gave a talk.  I was a 9th grader and had just moved with my family to the United States from Mexico.  I didn’t speak much English yet, but your talk inspired me.  I am here because of you, and because of all my teachers who taught me, believed in me, and encouraged me.  I am the first person in the entire history of my family to attend college.  Thank you!”

I thanked him for his kind words, but added, “No, you are here because of YOU.  YOU did the work”.

Then, looking directly at me with a gleam in his eyes and a broad smile, he reached into his back pocket, took out his wallet, opened it up, and pulled out a puzzle piece.