By Jocelyn Tolpin ’17, Commentary Editor

It’s the morning of the second day of school. This day not only marks our entrance back into reality by reminding us that school is a daily thing, but it signifies the official beginning of the semester with Convocation.

Every year the convocation ceremony follows the same pattern. The band plays while the teachers walk in. A few are presented longevity awards. The student council president, chairman of the Board of Trustees, and Head of School make speeches. Then, an invited guest speaker talks to us about success and imparts some wisdom.

This year our speaker was a 93-year-old alum named Jay Kislak. Kislak graduated from Newark Academy in 1938 and matriculated into the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated in 1942 and became a naval aviator (alongside George Bush Sr.). Afterwards, he took over the family business of real estate until his retirement in Florida, where he became a collector of artifacts related to his home. He donated his collection, valued at about $150 million to the Library of Congress. Nowadays,

he serves as chairman of the billion-dollar Kislak Organization.

We thought that this man would tell us incredible stories about the depression and World War II or what Newark Academy was like back in the day.

But what did we learn from such a successful, ambitious, experienced man?

• Newark Academy has become much more diverse since the 30’s. Instead of being surrounded by white boys in tweed jackets, the community now incorporates females and many more dark faces.
• Jeb Bush is the best candidate for president and will likely win the election, while “that woman” has trouble telling the truth and, well, controlling her husband.
• Kislak and his buddies liked to hang around the tennis courts and watch the girls play tennis. These girls, because they work in communications, held the knowledge of where the men were going to be deployed. The girls, though, were not allowed to disclose such information. The moral of the story? No is just the beginnings of a negotiation. Especially when dealing with women.
• Someday the 11 year old girls sitting in the front row of the auditorium might mature and grow and join the tennis team.

No doubt Kislak is an intelligent man based on what he accomplished, but how did he demonstrate this intelligence to us? How did he validate the age-old wisdom that he must have acquired after living and thriving through the Great Depression, the Second World War, and the entire Cold War? What did we learn from Mr. Jay L Kislak?

I asked different students about their opinion on Kislak’s presentation. An anonymous student from the class of 2017 described to me their reaction: “He definitely could’ve done a better job of relating his experiences to us. He could’ve told us some very interesting stories. Instead, he demonstrated the clear distinction between our generation and his and he showed us how much society has progressed with some questionable comments.”

Noah Schwed, another member of the class of 2017, wrote, “I think the lessons were there; he just phrased things poorly and ordered them incorrectly. The order in which he presented his speech kind of caused him to send across the wrong message. For example, when he was talking about the sixth grade girls joining the tennis team when they get older…”

An anonymous female student of the class of 2018 agreed with Noah, “The dark faces comment definitely stuck out to me as phrased very poorly. I understood that he was trying to say that it’s a good thing, but he said it in a bad way.”

An anonymous teacher laughed with me about the speaker: “I was trying so hard to keep a straight face while sitting up there. I started looking at the other teachers to see how they were suppressing their emotions. I thought it was amusing. Old people think differently. Did he teach us anything though? Was he inspirational? Not really.”

Mr. Kislak was definitely amusing, but he wasn’t the type of entertainment that Newark Academy was looking for. Although he was unprepared and a little bit insulting, his intentions were good. After all, from Mr. Kislak, we learned about how much has changed over the span of 90 years. Through his improvised lecture, he presented to us a primary source of the extent to which society has progressed since the 1930s.

This article reflects the opinions of one writer, not The Minuteman as a whole. To share your opinion, comment below! Also be sure to check out an alternate viewpoint by Roman Wright ’19.