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As I Stand Before You...
When
she started seventh grade at East Ridge Middle School in Tennessee,
Maggie Ervin didn’t expect to end the year feeling confidence
in herself and faith in her future. But by June, she stood before
her classmates, teachers, and parents to deliver her school’s
graduation speech.
She spoke not of matters gleaned from textbooks but of an
emerging self-assurance—one that allowed her to try out
for cheerleading and to sing at her grandmother’s funeral:
“Last year, I would have been completely scared. This
year, I feel God gave me something I never really asked for,
yet he knew I needed. He gave me faith and confidence, and
the mind to know what to do with it.”
Maggie’s words remind us of the hard-earned childhood
victories that are truly formative. She returns us to an adolescent’s
perspective, where auditioning for cheerleading and singing
at a family funeral are equally formidable endeavors. And
she portrays the everyday dignity we miss in our children
when we don’t watch for it.
Hoping to uncover lessons like Maggie’s, WKCD gathered
out-of-the-ordinary graduation speeches last spring from the
Class of 2000. While these young speakers have since moved
on, their spirited words and stories linger.
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Click below for WKCD Graduation Speeches |
Joquim Morales
New York City
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“It
feels like just last week when we first came to Chelsea High
School. We got out of that train station, cab, car, or what
have you, we looked at the building and said, ‘Please tell
me that ain’t my school.’”
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Los Angeles
| “I
went from being an honor student with a 4.0 GPA in gifted classes
to a girl in a continuation program. At the age of 15, I dropped
out of school for a year because my mom went for Mexico and
left her baby boy with me, only days old.”
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San Francisco
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“I
spent the first semester [of my junior year] riding a superficial
high, stepping on those whom I needed the most, to get to what
I thought at the time was higher ground.”
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Grass Valley, California
| “Experience
is like a knife, it can harm you or help you depending on whether
you grab it by the blade or the handle.”
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Chicago
| “So
now I am going to let this little light of mine shine.”
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>>>>Go to 2003 Speeches
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