Graduation Speech Essay

When I was younger, I would often return home to a familiar question: So, what did you learn today? My answer would always be "nothing" or "stuff." As I look back, I never lied, yet, I never told the whole truth. Many people think that you don't know anything with only 18 years of experience; I think they're wrong. I've learned a lot about myself and others from the relationships I have built throughout the years. I believe my most important lessons were "people" lessons. Those are the ones which could never be taught out of a book or in a lecture; you have to go out and experience them for yourself.

With student teaching approaching fast, it is often hard to reflect on what we have learned with all the excitement of what is to come. I have grown so much this last semester that I often forget who I was when I started this journey. This semester I have had the privilege of working with Mr. Trujillo the 3rd-grade teacher and have tutored Peyton in reading. Both of these important people have shown me many things that I would not have had a full grasp on if not for them.

Good evening. Some of you out there may not realize this but those of you who attended Suntime Middle School have been with this guy for the last seven years. I would like to ask you all, not just Suntime Middle School grads and who all else, to join me in thanking Mr. Weather for his patience and dedication to the success of our education over the years. We are the Class of 2000. The first graduating class of the new millennium. The past four years have been pretty wild. We started out as a bunch of rats in a small cage, but as time went by we learned and matured and became big rats in a new small cage, but in any case, the cage door is now opening; the handlers turning us wild things loose. As we leave "Where the Wild Things Are," home

Writing this commencement speech for you tonight was hands-down one of the most stressful things I have ever done. For days, I toiled over what to speak about, worried that as you sat there anxious to graduate I would bore you, or say the wrong thing. I tried to write a witty and funny speech designed to entertain you, but a lack of ability ultimately forced me to give up. This speech is the culmination of hours of brainstorming, three rejected rough drafts, editing galore, and finally me just putting my heart and soul on paper. It, as practically all commencement speeches do, contains all the expected words of praise and well wishing. It does not say anything that has not been said in the past, or that will not be said in the future, save

As I look back upon the past four years, in some ways it seems like my time at Kiper has been a lot like a day at the Magic Kingdom.

The Class of 2012. How long have we heard these words applied to us? Long years starting with broken crayons in kindergarten to inside-out sweatshirts in middle school to late English essays — 13 years of learning from the simplest counting to complicated algebra and calculus, from reciting our ABCs to reading Shakespeare. Imagine, us coming out of our respective middle schools into this monster of a campus. With three times as many people — people who drive. People who have cars and are legal adults. We’ve been here for four years. Count the quarters: there are 16 of them.

I did not get to know many of you. So, I cannot be certain of how you feel, but, as for me, this year has been, by far, the most enjoyable and eye opening one of my high school career. Enjoyable because of the new, interesting friends I've made and of the fun times I've had, and eye opening because of my being forced to look towards the future. Not just day dreaming and imagining about the rest of my life, but finally having to sit down and make some definite decisions concerning it. For me and many of you, colleges have had to be applied for and decided on and scholarships filled out. Some of you have been looking into vocational schools or the military, while others will be going straight into the work force. Whatever your case may be,

Depending on who you talk to, you get different opinions on what subject that you’ve studied in high school will help you most out in the real world. Ms. Bow tried to tell you it’s being able to diagram sentences and understand Shakespeare. Mr. Roberts, on the other hand, has a picture of a toppling bridge that says "Engineer missed just one Trig assignment." If you’ve spent a lot of time staring at Mr. Groon's podium during lectures, you’ve read that "He who knows only his own generation remains always a child." But what does this all mean, how do we truly apply everything we’ve learned in the past four years to the rest of our life, and what really is the most important thing to take away with us from high school? Well, I’ll tell you my

Years ago there was a traveler who came upon an old-fashioned pump from which he would have to pump the handle in order to retrieve the water. Beside the pump there was a pitcher full of water, and on the pump there was a sign. The sign instructions were to prime the pump with the water in the pitcher, pump the water for use, and then refill the pitcher. The thirsty man looked at the pitcher, the pump and the sign. He thought to himself, "If I pour this water down the pump, and it doesn't work, I will have no water to drink and it will be wasted. But, if I drink the water, I will be satisfied, but the next traveler will have nothing.

When they were trying to find someone to give this speech they first asked the most intelligent, smart person they could find. But she turned them down. So then they asked the most beautiful, lovely, attractive person they could find. She also turned them down. Next they asked the nicest, sweetest, kindest, most sincere person they could find. Then I decided it would be rude to turn them down three times in a row, so here I am.

Success. It is something that everyone wants, but no one knows exactly what it is. Some believe it to be how many friends they have, how nice their car is or even being able to stay awake through graduation. I believe it is something different. I believe that success is determined by what a person does with the gifts and opportunities with which they were blessed. Our times at Powell High School have given us both those gifts and the opportunity.

Here we are high school graduates. For many of you, tonight is a dream come true. Yet I think graduation is the attainment of a goal. A goal requires hard work. It drives people to better themselves on a daily basis. A dream, however, demands no work, no dedication, and no discipline. It is simply a faint hope. It is when a person turns their dream into a reality that things really start to happen.

As I have mentioned before, I grew up and attended school under Scholar Academic philosophy, but my experience in high school was a mixing bowl of various ideologies and philosophies, as our school kept exploring options on how to improve academics and student enrollment. The changes I experienced in high school sparked my curiosity for an education career.

It has been said that the best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up. But as I reminisce about our years together at Lafayette, I realize it takes so much more to attain your dreams. Struggles, victories, joys, sorrows, understandings, confusions, these conscious experiences have paved the way for us to be here tonight, leading us to the realization of our dreams.

For some of you graduates, this will be the last ceremony you might ever sit through. Most of us, though, and I regret that I am in this group, will sit through many more ceremonies -- ceremonies longer and more tedious that this or anything else you can imagine. If you think this is bad, try a college graduation. Think, that is, attend a wedding. And, if just for a moment you think that that is bad, just be thankful you have never attended or will attend a Bar Mitzvah.