Graduation Speech : An Educator

On February 11th, 2016 I attended the Houston Independent School District’s (HISD) school board meeting. I received a first-hand experience of how educational decisions are made and I also witnessed all the intricacies of the process. An article entitled Understanding Your School Board states that “school boards are entrusted by the public to translate the needs of students into policies, plans, and goals that will be supported by the community” (www.tasb.org). In other words, the board and its members are responsible for making and enforcing essential decisions for the school district. They are ultimately a strong determining factor for their students’ academic success.

II. Main Point (state as a single declarative sentence): The progress that I have made helped me lead up to writing well-developed essays. The main reason I believe my essays are improved because of the time I take on my pre-writing.

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests, faculty, staff, graduates of the Class of 2012, families and friends.

Welcome fellow graduates and honored guests to the sixtieth anniversary of commencement for Stoll Community College. For those graduating, this day marks the culmination of a period of courage, commitment, and accomplishment. For these reasons, I am greatly honored to be chosen as student speaker for this outstanding class of graduates and I hope that my words will give a measure of justice to the significant event that has brought all of you here tonight. Hopefully, we will laugh a little, perhaps cry, and give some much-deserved praise.

As for Teacher C, this is her first year teaching as a full-time kindergarten teacher. Prior to being a kindergarten teacher she worked as an instructional support teacher for kindergarten. The primary socioeconomic status of School C is low. It is considered a Title 1 school which means that they reach out to lower socioeconomic families to provide quality education to their children. Most of the families that they work with are single parent families, or divided households with more than one child. Teacher C claimed that most of these parents are incredibly hard working and busy. She said you can see this with the amount of support students are sometimes not able to get at home due to the parents working. Therefore, at School C teachers try their best to provide as much meaningful instruction in school, so that that the families can focus on providing for their children in other ways. Teacher C only utilizes 1-2 hours of technology a day due to the fact that her only access to technology while in school is a computer and projector. These are the only tools that they have available to enrich students’ learning. Through the computer, Teacher C uses power point presentations, short videos, pdf documents, and learning based games. The use of the projector is how she gets everything onto the board and makes it big enough for everyone to see. During the day, Teacher C tries to use these resources at least 2 different times for content such as learning phonics, or

I agonized over writing this speech for a long time, because I felt like nothing I could say would make a difference, first because I don't know if what I could say would be good advice, and second because I don't know if advice about things like being true to yourself and setting goals and all that is actually helpful. How can I give advice that I can't even follow in my own life? And even if you are mesmerized for my two minutes, you would walk out of here and your life wouldn't be any different. Or maybe you'd be inspired for a day, and then forget. But still, the speech had to be written.

Christopher Columbus, reflecting on his voyage which led him to the discovery of America, said, "Following the light of the sun, we left the Old World." I am sure that after four years of high school, we have all formed our own opinion of Christopher Columbus - especially if you had Mrs. Powers - but whether you view him as a genocidal rogue or the first American Hero, I find his quote fitting for where we stand today.

Good evening and welcome to the commencement ceremonies of the class of 2006. It has been a long journey, somewhere around 18 years, but we've finally reached the piece de resistance of our high school years.

We all have had many stones read to us, and even read many ourselves. In elementary school they were stories of Lad, Jane and Spot. Each of us beamed with pride as we stumbled over that first line of "See Lad go," or "Run Jane run." Then, in junior high we learned about plot and theme, and the characters of the stories actually developed personalities. Now, as graduating seniors, many of us have learned that stories can teach us valuable lessons about life. Even the simple stories from elementary school contain lessons that we can relate to our own experiences. One story in particular that just happens to be from my favorite producer, Disney, and emphasizes the importance of friendship is "The Fox and The Hound." As this story

It has become apparent now more than ever that having a college education is an unavoidable requisite in order to better ourselves. Every year thousands of students graduate high school and start to enroll in college. Another key factor in the decision towards obtaining a college degree is the example the young student saw at home; however, not all of the young students entering college come from a family with college graduate parents, which can play as a huge motivation in their path toward their college degree. Many people see this as the start of a new journey into the path of success since most Americans grow up with the idea that a college education will help us better our lives as well as to bring us success. According to Scott-Clayton from Columbia University, “Individuals with bachelor’s degrees earn about 60 percent more than those with just a high school diploma.” Today, we must not only acquire a high school education, but also graduate with a Bachelor’s degree. A college degree itself won’t guarantee you success, but it would give you the necessary tools and knowledge to achieve economic and personal success. In the future, the knowledge you achieved from your college education will become beneficial in plenty of ways.

My Father once said to me, “Work hard for four years of college, or work hard for the rest of your life.” What he meant, was that if I pour all my effort and hard work into achieving a degree during the four years I am in college, I will most likely live comfortably the rest of my life, as opposed to not having a college degree; breaking my back every time I go to work. However, the college life has many elements that prevent it from being a piece of cake, elements consisting of society 's views of college. Attaining a higher education becomes strenuous when the outlook on college begins to be highly criticized as corrupt by society. My college experience has led me to think the exact opposite of what society believes , and I am

Throughout the previous years of my education, I have explored a variety of English and writing courses where I learned to dissect and explore the various meanings and intentions of authors and poets as well as my peers. Aside from the mandatory conventions that must be mastered in writing to ensure clarity, there are some characteristics that run deeper. These are what dictate whether or not a writer may truly become successful. A common theme that has been reinforced in my experiences is that of respect.

Hi Mrs.Reid it’s honestly the biggest pleasure to be in your class, and it’s obvious that you’re a great teacher. You already told us so much about yourself and I think it’s awesome how open you are with us. So, I wanted to return the favor by telling you probably the greatest memory I have in my entire life. I mean not that I lived too long to have tons and tons of memories but still this memory to me will never be replaced or memories it’s kinda like over a span of days you know what I mean? Believe it or not this story begins at my first job technically last job McDonalds while I was working drive-thru.

Wait time has always been a struggle for me as a teacher. During my first year, I always tried to count the prescribed three seconds before moving on to the next question or rephrasing; however, those three seconds always felt like an eternity. As I waited in silence for the student to answer the question, I began to panic, thinking that they did not understand because I had failed to teach them. Other times, I would wait three to five seconds, and just as I would begin to move on, the student would begin their answer and be interrupted. I realize now that this was an issue with my “Wait Time 2,” which I was not aware existed until reading this chapter! It took me a long time to calculate just how long to wait between questions and probes, and the amount of time differed for each of my classes. One aspect I wish my pre-service classes would have addressed is apathetic students. Apathetic students can often destroy the productive atmosphere of a class discussion, as each of the teacher’s questions are met with lengthy silence. While teaching my advanced-level classes, I was always greeted with at least two or three hands being raised to answer my questions; however, my on-level classes had a considerably lower amount of enthusiasm for answering questions. Even as I called on specific students to answer questions, they refused to raise their eyes from the page, or simply shrugged and said, “I don’t know.” The most frustrating part of this experience was knowing my students

My educational experience is just now beginning as of now I am taking an English class also over summer I took an online academic skills class. Although online classes don’t do college justice you don’t really get the full college experience. As of now I am just focusing on my general education then eventually I hope to attend an RN program. So as of my educational experience this far would be high school and as Dweck author of Brainology would say I had a fixed mindset during high school even during grade school. Fixed mindsets care so much about how smart they will appear that they will reject learning opportunities. Which is exactly what I did during high school. Always thought as long as I was passing why try harder to get a better grade. Even if getting a better grade wouldn’t necessarily be hard.