Graduation Speeches 2007
It gives me great pleasure to address the Class of 2007, this afternoon on the occasion of their graduation, a class I truly feel affection for and admire, and I am delighted to have the opportunity to reflect on the past school year, and leave one final thought. The Class of 2007 is filled with thoughtful leaders, extraordinary athletes, active citizens and brilliant artists. Each one has contributed so much to our community. The next class has a lot to live up to; the legacy the Class of 2007 leaves behind is one every class can aspire to. Truly, the legacy it leaves is one of sound leadership.
Why is leadership important? What is the role of leadership in the world? Only with leadership can one inspire and effectively change the world, whether one's leadership role is public, dynamic, and expressive or undisclosed, consistent, reliable and steady; both demonstrate the commitment to do what is proper. Both can demonstrate and anticipate the need for leadership and practice when the opportunity presents itself. In the position of leader, your vision becomes the vision of the institution, your pride in it, infectious, your voice, the one that is heard, your happiness becomes our happiness.
"The very essence of leadership is...vision." How does this statement fit with the legacy the class leaves? Simply, as a class, you have lived up to your ideals, to your commitment to leadership, to having a high school filled with spirit. As a class, you have determined that not only is the joy of life important, you all took seriously the idea that one needs to do one's "duty in all things": your duty as leaders of the High School. You were role models, thoughtful and representative of the mission, of the ideals of the school: These include understanding, respect, individual, independent thinking and life long learning, friendship, cooperation and responsibility. Your commitment to success, while defined individually but pursued collectively, was your foundation for the year. You supported each other as a class for the good of the whole school, even with the challenges that diversity brings. It was most interesting to witness the desire amongst all of you to be close, to be effective, to get along, and to come through in the end with a feeling of togetherness. I believe you succeeded in your vision to know each other, to appreciate one another's differences and find common ground. This was especially evident at the end of the year events; Founder's Day with eye-patches, pirate flags, confetti and all, the senior project presentation evening, where you supported each other in so many admirable ways, the senior banquet and the gorgeous prom, which were wonderful events of celebration. These moments represent not only your vision in practice, but represented your promise to me in creating a place where all things are possible, where academic preparation and ultimately, excellence, work in concert with pride and joy in the love of learning, love of school. Personally, I have experienced a lot with the senior class, the breaking into my office to leave trash and fake, but very real looking roaches for me to enjoy first thing in the morning, or the 3000 Dixie cups lined in the second floor hall with just enough water in each one to make it impossible to clean up quickly, also first thing in the morning. Your legacy is firmly planted in my memory.
The senior class is the pride of every principal and represents the heart of the high school, and graduation represents the time of reflection, and celebration of the many achievements of a group of individuals, and within this time of remembrance, some grief even, because the time of the Class of 2007 is over, and we are left with memories and hopes for the next senior class. At this time, let me leave you with the following thought: Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote " Don't waste life in doubts and fears; spend yourself on the work before you, well assured that the right performance of this hour's duties will be the best preparation for the hours and ages that will follow it." You are well prepared for the duties of life, and the leadership you demonstrated this year is a very good indication of what is to come for each one of its members: perhaps a commitment to service, perhaps a commitment to the arts and letters, to science, business, technology, or design.
In order to continue on your paved path to success as you define it from this moment on, preserve your courage, your generosity, your consideration, practicality and good judgment. Be consistent and fair; be honest. Be brave, live passionately and love your lives. For the rest of us, let's remember to do the same.
Thank you to your family and your faculty who brought you to this place, and thank you for all you have left the school.
Ruth Geyer Jergensen
High School Principal
I am honored to speak here today. But I must admit, deciding what to say was a challenge. So I put off writing this speech and time passed. Delay became procrastination, and then procrastination turned into panic, until finally I asked myself, "What would the class of 2007 do?" So, I googled graduation speeches and I cut and pasted the following in your honor.
Well, this is it; the day all of you have been waiting for has finally arrived. As you walk across this stage, you are starting the next chapter of your lives, heading into the great unknown, where you will get a chance to spread your wings and fly. What I am trying to say is the years have flown by, and it is not going to be long before you are in the stands watching your kids graduate. Until then be true to yourself.
Thank You
Did you really think you were going to get off that easy? Seriously parents, do you have any idea how difficult it is to sum up in a few words what your children were up to in the high school over the last four years? How do you categorize a class where there are so many:
Activists, poets, painters, athletes , filmmakers, dancers, photographers, writers, graphic designers, singers, actors, philanthropists, and entrepreneurs.
How can I describe such a diverse group? Where is the common thread? I was close to despair but then late one night, while I was practicing my sarcasm, inspiration struck. I knew what the class of 2007 shared. This is a group of young men and women who, from the moment they set foot in the high school, were determined to be themselves, even if they were not always sure which self that was.
But before I continue, I want to let you all know this is not some Disney be yourself feel good humbug. I will not be waxing poetic on the glories of individuality. Teaching this class was no picnic. As ninth graders they were barely housebroken. Rules were suggestions and everything, from assignments, deadlines, even grades, were considered open to negotiation. Some days it felt less like teaching and more like trying to herd cats. A tremendous amount of energy was expended, and even if we all managed to end up in the same place, they each arrived in their own time and no two of them took the same path.
However, something happened on the way to senior year. They continued to be demanding, and opinionated and their relationship to the rules had not always improved, but teaching them was different. This year there were times I faced an uncomfortable truth. I was in the way. My presence was holding them back. So I would find an excuse to leave the room and when I would return the work was organized, the project was planned, and they would let me know what we should do next. They displayed the same passion and creativity in everything they did. In their performances and portfolios, in their senior projects and the senior banquet, and now on the college list.
So it is right that we applaud their accomplishments, but before we do we should remember, that although they did it their way, they did not do it alone. Their achievements were only possible because of the loving support of their parents and families. So let's hear it for the parents and families of the class 2007.
Now that the feel good portion of the speech is over, this is where I am supposed to talk about how it is up to you to change the world. We broke it and now your generation is supposed to fix it. It is not fair, but that is what our parents did to us, so now it is your turn. But before you get depressed, you should realize that as long as we do not end up needing canoes to get the annex, you will have done a better job with the world then we did.
In closing, I would like to ask a favor. Continue to be passionate, opinionated, and demanding. Remain individuals . Resist the temptation to fit in. Do this for two reasons. First, as Friedrich Nietzsche said:
" The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself ."
And finally, remember, for four years we put up with you being you - why should the rest of the world get a break.
Thank You and Congratulations to the Class of 2007.
Thomas Murphy
Tenth Grade Dean, High School History Teacher, History/Social Studies Department Chair
I sat down to write this speech, and I started to stress a little. I started thinking about what a great writer Kortney is, and all your expectant eyes watching me, waiting to hear something memorable and profound, pomp and circumstance, something about your selves in some way, and "Oh, my lord," I thought to myself. "How am I ever going to write something that is all I think this should be, and all that this occasion calls for?" I texted Kortney to see how she was doing, and was much relieved to learn that we were in similar places with this. I remembered Tom saying that he procrastinates too sometimes. I was reminded that the best I can do is to be human and to share the truth of my experience with you. I have truly lived and grown here, and been given permission and invitation to be myself, to stretch and use every single gift I have been given, and to just have fun too. I hope the richness of my experience, and the gratitude that I feel to this school and to all my teachers, friends, acquaintances, and just plain familiar faces, comes through in what I have to say today. I think that part of why writing this speech is proving to be difficult is that I do not want to sit with all the feelings I have about this really being over. This is it. This marks the end of our high school careers, whatever that has meant to each of us as students, and to each of you who support us. College is full of hypothetical promise, but what we have here is a whole slew of incredible things manifested, trustworthily real, and that is pretty hard to say goodbye to. I learned in Ileana's memoir class that my best writing comes when I slowly, millimeter by millimeter, trace my thoughts and feelings with words. That, of course, involves having all the thoughts and feelings, which is going to take a lot more courage than writing the grand onslaught of adulation that came when I wrote little trial pieces of this in my head while riding the subway, or while falling asleep at night. So, here goes:
First - I would like to thank you for nominating and electing me to speak this afternoon. I am really honored that you trust me to speak in front of your families and closest friends, partly in your name. I told a friend of mine who does not go here that we voted to determine who would speak today, and he said, "So, your valedictorian doesn't speak?" And it is with pride that I tell people that at Elisabeth Irwin there is no valedictorian, I have no class rank, and I do not remember even my closest friends' SAT scores. That is just not what is important to us here.
Everywhere I hear people say that they hated high school, as though that were some inevitable, communal, human truth. I get to bear witness to the fact that it does not have to be. We get to share with the world that high school can be a loving and enjoyable experience.
Sadly, I only came to Elisabeth Irwin last year, as a junior. While I look at the Little Red lifers with envy, I have been afforded the gift of perspective. In my years at other schools (and I guess I hear it every now and then here too) I have heard students ask over and over again "Why are you teaching us this? What does this have to do with the real world?" I remember Nick O'Han once saying that one of the goals of progressive education is to remove the walls that stand between the classroom and the "real world." We walk through walls here. We spent a day on the floor of the Stock Exchange in my Economics class, visited the Doctors Without Borders mock refugee camp in my Human Rights Class, explored the Cloisters Museum with Marc and Janet, two of the most knowledgeable art historians I have ever met, and the city streets with Nick O'Han in his Gotham class. My music class and I saw the New York Philharmonic perform Stravinsky's Rites of Spring, and got to see what the riot was all about. I saw Eric Begosian's Suburbia with my drama class, a play full of adolescent insecurity, and conflicting desires, and people just about our age whose lives are completely devoid of purpose. Those are hard things to watch.
Before I came here, I often felt that school was trying to narrow my mind, squish my thoughts into the mold they had prepared for me. I never get that feeling here. There is no filter on truth in our classes. We learn the good, the bad, and the ugly about the world we live in. I have seen footage of some things here that are so hard to watch, and I cannot imagine experiencing--Hotel Rwanda, images from Abu Graihb, soldiers mourning the loss of their comrades. And all those truths that we learn, and get to chew on and digest and discuss, have helped us grow to be a bunch of really worldly, aware, and dedicated people. I used to have this idea that private school kids lived in a big green bubble, and you guys really proved me wrong. We are safe enough here to be a little mushy, grow little soft spots on our hearts, and the combination of that and all that we learn in class and in discussion with each other, makes indifference almost impossible.
I think the full disclosure we get is a sign of how respected we are here as students. That is one of the things I appreciate most about going to this school. Not everyone can walk into high school every day knowing that they will not be made fun of, that no one will tell them they should spend more or less on their shoes, that they are not smart enough or that they are too brainy. And we get to take that experience of respect and bring it with us wherever we go. In that simple way I think we have been conditioned through our experience here to carry a spirit of equality and egalitarianism out into our lives beyond EI. We do not only move beyond the classroom's physical walls here. Here, hierarchical, racial, cultural, and socioeconomic walls are permeable too. In all my years at statistically diverse public schools, I never had nearly as diverse a group of friends as I do here. This community is not just diverse; it is integrated. I learn about Sikhism from Sarvjit, joke about Jewish things with Micah, exchange heartfelt beliefs with fellow students who are devoted variously to their church, their strictly human humanism, and their own conceptions of God, or lack thereof. I meet people's parents and grandparents and stepparents when I go to their houses, and eat their families' flan, spaghetti and meat sauce, environmentally friendly organic cereal, traditional take-out, and middle-eastern meat patties.
We are here this afternoon to celebrate all the hard work, and deep thought, and late nights, and early mornings, the slacking off we regret, the work we wish we had had the perspective to let go of, the friendships we wish we had not gotten ourselves into, the people we cannot imagine not loving, all that our EI experiences have held. And we are also here to mark the fact that all that is about to change. It will never be the same again. The only way I have found to make that somewhat okay with me is to subsist on the faith that what each and every one of us is moving on to will hold many of the beautiful things that our experiences here have, and myriad things that we cannot even imagine yet because we have never experienced them. And for now, we can live together in the beauty of honesty and communal experience--in our feelings of sadness and achievement, love and loss, our hopes and fears for the future. I hope we can take the time we have left together to grow our relationships a little deeper, and to learn a little more of what we have to learn from each other.
I thank you all so immeasurably much for this time in my life. May we all go out from here to find the happiness we seek.
Rakhel Shapiro
Class of 2007 Graduate
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