A word cloud of US Chargé d’Affaires Brian Aggeler’s opening remarks at the inauguration of the new Woodrow Wilson School in Tetovo on 9 September 2011. Full text follows below.
Good afternoon! It’s a real pleasure to be here with you all today for the inauguration of the Woodrow Wilson School. I’d like to thank our hosts Elita and Adrian Masha for inviting me to be a part of this event with so many other friends and with the students and families of this new school.
This beautiful new facility will provide a place of learning for children starting out their educational adventure in Grade One, to those preparing to move on to University and adulthood. It will be a place to develop imaginations and expand horizons. Not only will students have the opportunity to study history, geography, science, and math but they will also have the chance to learn tolerance, kindness, teamwork, negotiation skills, and hopefully, good manners. I hope they will learn good citizenship, and the skills we all need to be a force for good in our communities and the world. As President Woodrow Wilson himself said: “Tell me what is right and I will fight for it.”
Before he became President, Wilson was an educator who served as President of Princeton University. President Wilson was widely respected for his ideas on education reform and had introduced democratic ideals into the structure of the university – students were chosen based on merit rather than family ties, classrooms were open to discussion and even dissenting student ideas, and even the architecture of the university was laid out to create common areas and to facilitate contact between students and professors. The reforms he instituted remain an important part of the US educational system today that brings education to more people than at any other time in human history. So this new Woodrow Wilson School continues a very proud tradition of excellence and access here in Tetovo and throughout the region.
The opportunity you all have to nurture a more tolerant and open community is a rare one that I hope you all seize. This weekend, the United States and friends around the world will pause to remember the terrible events of September 11, 2001. Ten years later, we still remember the awful loss, but we can also recall the outpouring of support the U.S. received and the resilience of communities that came together to rebuild and move forward. The United States, like Macedonia, is a wonderfully diverse country. President Obama said, “As a nation of immigrants, the United States welcomes people from every country and culture. These newest Americans—like all the innocent victims we lost ten years ago—remind us that despite any differences of race or ethnicity, background or belief, we are all bound together by the common hope that we can make the world a better place for this and future generations.”
Creating a better place for this and future generations is something you all here can work towards as well. So to you students gathered here today, let me wish each and every one of you great success in this adventure you are embarking on today. I hope you do really well and get good grades, but I also hope you remember that you are a part of making your community and your country a better place – regardless of your ethnic background or your religion.
Thank you all. Faleminderit. Blagodaram. And good luck with the upcoming school year!
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