My Town Tutors is the nation’s 1st National Directory of teachers who tutor. Our goal is to expand our network of local teachers who tutor to include teachers from all 50 states!

It is FREE for parents to search for a teacher in their area. Please help us find ONE MORE teacher who tutors!
Check out more psychology lessons and ideas.
Please Share!


Dennis Lehane, author of Gone Baby Gone, Shutter Island, and Mystic River, gave a great speech to the students of Boston College High School on June 11, 2003. This speech is great to share with high school students.
This speech can be shared either by viewing the speech on youtube or you can share a handout with excerpts of the speech to read as a class (see below).
Some of the important themes are:

  • Honesty
  • Accountability
  • Honor
  • Diversity
  • Friendship

The following quotes are useful in raising questions and starting discussion.
“It’s about honor. Do you have it?”
How do you define honor?
“Honor is day by day, minute by minute. If you have it, you live it, without question. Honor is not doing what is easy if it hurts a single soul.”
Do your daily actions reflect good values? Are you honest (with everyone, even yourself)? Are you kind and helpful? Do you show respect to everyone? For example do you clean up after yourself in the lunchroom?
“And my friends… they all have a couple of things in common:

  • None of them are whiners.
  • All of them are funny.
  • None of them are PC; and
  • All of them, every last one, owns their mistakes. They own their lives. They own their actions. That is honor.”

Do you really own your mistakes and your lives? Our society does not. Simply look at the “Hey stupid coffee is hot” signs (perhaps not the exact words) that are located on any lid of coffee that you buy or the Supersize Me case – “my kids are fat because of McDonalds.”
“Try to do good. Try to love the world even when it does not love you.”
“The question is how will you react when you have done bad things?…Will you stand up and say, I’m a man. I own this mess.”
“There’s only two things the world can’t take from you. Your friendship and your honor.”
“Anything worthwhile must be protected and nurtured. These two things you have – honor and friends – are, believe it or not, all you need. They are everything.”

“Don’t make excuses, make optimism.”
Below is the worksheet the students complete after reading the speech.


Name :
Philosophies of Success: It’s About Honor
Dennis Lehane’s speecch is filled with some great pieces of advice about honor, values, and friendship. I would like you to take some time and really reflect on the following questions.

1. Who is the most “honorable person” you know based on Lehane’s definition of honor? Identify the person and defend your selection with evidence to support your choice.
2. How valuable is your personal honor? Lehane points out, we will all make mistakes in our lives; “The question is how will you react when you have done bad things?…Will you stand up and say, I’m a man. I own this mess.” Describe a fairly serious mistake you have made. Explain the mistake in detail and the how you reacted to it. Did you “own it” or look to blame others? What actions did you take to make-up for your “bad thing?”
3. Write about your friends. Describe your relationships. Evaluate the strength of these relationships. How much value do you place on your relationship with your friends.
Below is the handout to share with students.
IT’S ABOUT HONOR
By: Dennis Lahane
Date: 6/11/2003, Boston College High School Commencement Speech
It is about honor. Do you have it?
Honor is not Mother Theresa in Calcutta. That’s beyond honor; that’s sainthood. Honor is not an impossible ideal, something beyond your grasp. Honor is day to day, minute by minute. If you have it, you live it, without question. Honor is not doing what’s easy if it hurts a single soul.
Honor has no room in its house for cynicism. Skepticism, yes. Always. But cynicism? No. It has no room in its house for greed, for the mindless pursuit of money or hollow success. Honor is the affirmative answer to one simple question you ask of yourself every day: Did I behave with dignity and respect toward all living things? That is the measure of honor and the measure of men.
If you are cynical, you will say, I wasn’t honorable today because the world was dishonorable toward me and I just had to fight back. Sorry, Charlie. Wrong answer. The measure of a man lies not in what the world does to him, but rather in how he comports himself within the world. When someone says, oh-so cynically, oh-so-jaded: The world is thus, you must reply: No. Thus, have we made the world.
I gave you the bad news first so you can create the good news for yourselves.
Well, I’ve got friends. If wealth is measured by friends, then I’m richer than Bill Gates. And, as I said at the outset, two of my closest friends in the world I met right here, freshman year. And my friends, a wide-ranging army of people from all walks of life, some conservative, some liberal, some wealthy, some not, some black, some white, some Catholic, some Jewish, some Presbyterian, some gay, some straight, some downright out of their minds, some with questionable fashion sense. My friends are a very varied lot. But they all have a couple of things in common: None of them are whiners, because I can’t handle hanging out with whiners; all of them are funny, because life’s too short not to be able to tell good jokes; none of them are PC; and all of them, every last one, owns their mistakes. They own their lives. They don’t place blame for their actions at any place but on their own doorsteps. They own their actions. That is honor.
Own yours. Go out into that messed-up world and try to make it better for your sons and daughters. Yes. Make money if you can. Pursue your own happiness. Yes, yes. But try, too, please try to do good. To empathize with and help those people who weren’t lucky enough to go to a private prep school, have caring parents, come from homes with food on the table and plenty of oil in the furnace. Try to love the world even when it doesn’t love you. Realize that you will fail, you will make mistakes, you will feel pain and you will cause pain and you will do bad things. The question isn’t whether you will do bad things, the question is how will you react once you’ve done those bad things? Will you leave the mess for someone else to clean up; will you place blame? Or will you stand up and say, I’m a man. I own this mess. I will not hide behind lawyers. Or press agents. Or lies. I do not need lies. I do not need an image. I do not need yachts. I need my friends. I need my honor. Because there’s only two things the world can’t take from you. Your friendships and your honor.
Those you’ve got to give away…
And those, I will bet you good money, you have right now. The honor you hold right inside of yourself, because you’re young, and you haven’t had too many chances to screw up yet or sell out. And you have friends. Some of your best may be sitting right beside you, right now. Some may have just finished teaching you for four years. Some, believe it or not, may be your parents, your sisters, your brothers. Some you haven’t met yet, but you will, you will.
Anything worthwhile must be protected and nurtured. These two things you have – honor and friends – are, believe it or not, all you need. They’re everything. They’re sacred. And, like anything sacred, the world will go after them and try to separate you from them. You cannot let it take them. Because when they’re gone, they don’t come back. Like your tenth birthday. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.
Look around at your friends, at your family. Right now. And then look inside, as only you can, at your honor. Your soul. It is what makes you an individual. It is what makes you, in essence, you. The one thing that separates you from anyone else. Are you going to give that up?
Go with honor into this world, gentlemen. Don’t make excuses, make optimism. Don’t make a day a little worse for your having been here, make it a little better. Protect your dignity and your grace and your honor and your friends and your family the way lesser men protect their money and their image and their crumbling structures.
I truly hope all of you will get what you want. I hope you live up to the measure of your dreams. I wish you great health and financial independence and a Jacuzzi. Sure, why not? But if you don’t get those things, you are not poor, you are not a failure, you are not a lesser man.
As long as you have you’re honor, your souls, your friends.
Thank you. It’s been one of my honors to speak to you. Go enjoy one of the great days of your life.
My Town Tutors is a website that connects parents with teachers who tutor. If you are a teacher who tutors, for a limited time, you can register for using promo code: usteachers. Teachers set the hourly and keep 100% of the fees! One of our teachers made $5,000 last year tutoring.
It is FREE for parents to search for a teacher in their area. Please help us find ONE MORE teacher who tutors!