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I have to acknowledge that Quiz Bowl just isn’t a sport.

I’ve been writing academic papers, so I’m once again going to post from the past. This is the graduation speech I gave in high school, and it makes some references that the general public wouldn’t understand. I apologize for that, especially since I just read a letter on manners from the 18th century that says it’s inconsiderate to make jokes that people won’t understand. There are many similar rules to manners in the 18th century. I would never make it. 

I’ve been thinking about the old speech since one of my current papers is a commencement speech.  It’s nice to be reminded that I was as much a research and history geek then as I am now.

Anyway, here’s something from my 18-year-old self: 

            First, I would like to thank all of you for coming.  I’m sure some of you are not familiar with the Concord graduation, and you previously believed people were joking when they told you it takes at least 2 hours to graduate 17 students.  They weren’t joking.

            I woke up this morning, and I realized that today would be the day I would graduate.  More importantly, I realized that I hadn’t written my salutatorian speech.  That made me a little nervous.  I started writing things like “salutations from the salutatorian.”  It was not good.  That’s my first bit of advice to my fellow graduates- don’t be like me.  Don’t procrastinate.  Anyway, like anyone in my generation, I went to find the sagacious assistance of an extremely wise being.  I’m tempted to say this sagacious being is my mother and have her love me forever and ever, but let’s be realistic. I went to Google.  That’s my second bit of advice to my class: if you don’t know, Google does. 

            Well, I typed “high school” into the Google search bar, hoping to discover the meaning of the last four years of my life.  About 400 million results showed up.  The journey of a thousand pages begins with a single click, so I looked at the first website that appeared.  As always, it was Wikipedia.  Being a good high school student, I of course immediately clicked on it.  I am tempted to make Wikipedia my third point of advice, but Mrs. Scott still has my diploma, so I don’t think I will.

            Anyway, Wikipedia defines high school as “an institution that provides all or part of secondary education.”  Coincidentally, it also said that high schools originated in Scotland in 1505, and by the 18^th century Scotland had the world’s most literate population.  As much as I loved that little fact, the entire entry didn’t really tell me much about my high school experience.  Sure, there’s a lot of time spend with books and pens and paper and “secondary education,” but we are all going to remember the times we spend together- going to Stratford and realizing that it can actually be pretty cool for a man to wear tights and speak in Shakespearian English, or sitting in “American Literature and Composition,” trying to keep Mr. Case from destroying our brains with the poison called grammar by discussing the world events of the time, or lacrosse, or really anything, or going on Senior trip and hanging out in the Lodge living room until well past midnight doing puzzles and talking about what we are going to do the next day. 

            So I went back to the Google search on high school.  The second website was on high school sports.  I knew that website wouldn’t tell me much about my school.  We have some pretty awesome extracurricular activities- I’m sure my fellow graduates and myself will more readily remember dance company, Model United Nations, and National Honor Society than our everyday classroom experiences.  Still, the closest we get to inter-school athletic competition is Quiz Bowl, and as awesome as I think Concord Quiz Bowl is (with much thanks to my mother and her enthusiastic determination to my mother to make sure everyone turned in their permission slips on time… I was usually one of the last)  I have to acknowledge that Quiz Bowl just isn’t a sport. 

            The next website was on high school reunions, which made me think of Sarah Boor.  It’s not official, but she’s our class planner, and without her teamwork with Mrs. Schulingkamp we never would have made it to Asheville for our senior trip.  Sarah’s already planning our 10 year reunion.  I’m confident it will be great.

            The next group of results on Google were on High School Musical, which made me think of all the great experiences with the arts we’ve all had here.  So much of my class is so artistically talented.  I just love being around them.  I love seeing what my fellow graduates have created-, an amazing painting by Alex or something crazy made out of clay made my Danielle, or Lydia and Jesse singing together. 

            At that point, I decided that my high school experience cannot be defined by a search engine.  High school is about you.  You learn the random things they teach you in classes.  You learn how to make friends and how to keep them.  You learn about working together to make something beautiful, like in theatre and choir.  You learn about yourself.  You learn how to think for yourself.  To me, that is what high school is about, and with the assistance of our teachers, who have given us the tools to become who we are, and our parents and family for cheering us on, Class of 2010- we’ve made it. 

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