“Does anyone here have a pen license? By the end of today, I hope you’ll all put down your pencils and start using them.”
Blackfriars’ 2025 Ducks of the Year Luke Tsavdaridis urged students to accept their mistakes in his acceptance speech.
“When you use a pencil, you always have the option of erasing your mistakes, but you can’t do that with a pen,” Luke said at yesterday’s awards gathering.
“How many times when you’re writing something, or studying for a test and doing it with a pencil, do you just cross something out and write it off as just a careless mistake?
“But when you use a pen, you erase those mistakes. To be honest, they don’t look very good on paper. But we move on and keep working. The difference is that with a pen, you can see your mistakes, whether they’re small and careless or big and ugly. With a pencil, you can’t see them.”
“In life, we can’t erase our mistakes. All we can do is build on them. And how can we build on that mistake when we don’t know what it is or even that it happened?”
Try and try again
Luke, who achieved a “perfect” ATAR of 99.95 for his achievements in Chemistry, Physics and Spirituality, and Religion and Meaning, used the example of Shuji Nakamura, the inventor of blue LEDs.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the material (gallium nitride, GaN) was so difficult to process that most researchers gave up trying to make practical blue LEDs. Nakamura, who works for a small to medium-sized company in Japan, just kept trying.
For more than five years, he faced experiments that went awry, crystals that cracked and malfunctioned, and devices that emitted little light.
In 1993, he succeeded in producing the world’s first high-brightness blue LED. It wasn’t just blue, it was bright enough to be useful. This single success reshaped the global lighting and electronics industries.
“So don’t be ashamed of your mistakes,” Luke said at the awards gathering. “Get to know them, get to know them. And this starts with letting go of the pencil and starting to use the pen.”
To the Class of 2026
Luke, who is taking a “gap year” in 2026 and plans to study medicine in the future, also offered some advice for the Class of 2026.
“Take care of yourself. You will be tested in more ways than any exam throughout the year,” he said.
“Whatever challenge you are facing, talk to someone you know and trust.One of the best ways to study is not to not study at all, but to get enough sleep.
“Don’t underestimate the importance of balance. The results you achieve in Year 12 may have an impact on your life after school, but the skills you gain from learning how to balance your life in Year 12 will have an even greater impact on your life after school.”
“So don’t sacrifice your favorite sport or playing your instrument. And don’t sacrifice too much time with your friends and family.”
He also emphasized the importance of “independent thinking.”
“The most successful people in history have dared to forge their own unique paths to get there, and today I challenge you to do the same.”
The annual Awards General Meeting recognizes graduates who have achieved an ATAR of 90 or above, Blackfriars Scholarship winners and other award winners.