Micah Davis (written by Elias Peters): Charles D. Owen High School - 2017

10 June 2017, Charles.D.Owen High School, Black Mountain, North Carolina, USA

Ryan Burton: 'Street poet and philosopher Drake once said', La Plata High School - 2015

10 July 2015, La Plata, Maryland, USA

Finn Stannard: 'Announcing yourself to the world is pretty terrifying because what if the world doesn’t like you?', St Ignatius College, Riverside - 2018

June 2018, St Ignatius College, Riverside, Sydney, Australia

Full video is on SBS website, where story first ran

I’ve been working towards this speech for four years. In those four years, I have come to understand who I am and how to not be sorry for being myself.

The first time I told someone I was gay I was 13. It took me 18 months after realising that I was gay to tell my parents. Coming out was a scary experience. Even though I knew my parents loved me there is always a fear that comes with telling those you love something important and I was afraid of changing myself in their eyes.

Life was easier living as the straight eldest son. I had spent so long behind the façade of a confident, heterosexual man that I wasn’t sure if I knew how to be me. I think a part of me wanted to hold onto who I’d always appeared to be … something safe. Announcing yourself to the world is pretty terrifying because… what if the world doesn’t like you?

I decided that it was finally time to tell someone the truth. It wasn’t easy, but I told my mum that I thought I might be gay. She said to me that she loved me and that nothing could change that. The next day my dad simply said: “I don’t mind” and that he’ll “always love me”.

That night I went to bed and knew that I’d done something big – I’d told those closest to me exactly who I was and now I got the chance to be myself. Last year I came out to my two younger brothers and I finally got the chance to exhale. I got to be more me than I had been in a really long time. I found that nothing really had changed with my family.

I was still the boy that my mum teases daily and that my dad relies upon for just about anything to do with technology. After years of not being true to myself and denying who I really was, I had overcome my fear. So, to my wonderful family. Thank you for loving me and accepting me as your son and for letting me be exactly who I am.

While my family handled the news of my sexual identity perfectly, outside of home, being gay has not always been easy. I have been the subject of countless rumours and unpleasant jokes. Telling friends was difficult and came with a lot of anxiety. My main fear was no longer being accepted, of losing my friends, and being the subject of derogatory jokes.

I didn’t know it was possible to be myself at school. I felt that if I was gay - or different - I could never be accepted. I quickly grew tired of hiding behind the mask I’d made for myself.

I struggled with symptoms of depression and anxiety. Sometimes these were made worse due to what might seem like minor things going on in the classroom or playground. For example; we routinely use the word ‘gay’ as a synonym for something bad. Often this term isn’t being used in a homophobic manner but the impact these words can have on a young man coming to terms with his sexuality can be immeasurable. It was these, seemingly small, yet cumulative experiences that made me feel like I would never be accepted.

After a rough week, I talked to my parents and they suggested I see the school counselling team. Seeking support was the first and biggest step towards accepting who I was. Talking to someone when we need help is integral. We need to challenge the belief a lot of men have where we put off asking for help, hoping it will all just go away.

Once I started to accept who I was and realised that I couldn’t do it all alone, I found my life getting a lot brighter. I’ve become a lot happier at school, I’ve met new people and come to understand who my real friends are. All of this seemed impossible to the boy I was a mere 12 months ago.

I’ve been so fortunate over the years to have friends who love and accept me for who I am. My friends have stood by me when things got hard and would step up when I needed support. To the boys who see me having a boyfriend as normal as having a girlfriend, I’d like to say thank you for accepting me and allowing me to be me. Having friends who appreciate you for who you are is one of the most important parts of life. They make the good times even better and help us through the bad ones.

To our school, the teachers, my head of house, to our counsellors, Mr Lowe and Dr Hine, I would also like to say thanks. Thank you for accepting that we are all unique. And that there are many ways for us to be a member of our wolf pack. We are so privileged to be at a school that empowers and respects diversity.

Adolescence is a time for the discovery of oneself, uncovering who you truly are and with that comes the fear and uncertainty of real acceptance. But as I have learned, denying who you are takes away your ability to be accepted by others and to accept others in return. In my experience, denying who you are only limits our ability to be happy and to give happiness. A life living behind a mask is not one any person should have to live.

So, with that in mind, my message to you all is this:

Surround yourself with the people who let you live as your true self and never be afraid of asking for help. Find your own identity and be comfortable with who you are. Being different, whether it’s being gay or being part of another minority group, can be challenging but it does not have to be scary and isolating.

We, the students, have a unique and special opportunity to mould our community to be something great. One of support and encouragement, where we advocate for one another. Where we stand up and care for each other. This means that when it’s time for us to say to the world “this is me, this is who I truly am”, our friends will stand by us and accept us for who we are. Everyone here, sitting in this room is your brother. As your brothers, you might not like them all the time but you’d be damned if you left them to fend for themselves especially if they are struggling or feeling alone.

Be the friends that call out that unintentionally homophobic or racist joke. Stand up for your friend when you hear rumours about what they did on the weekend. Be the change you want to see and others will follow. I believe that this school can become something special. Maybe it will be somewhere safe where we can learn from each other and be who we are, welcoming people who are different than us. But we can only do this together.

I have come a long way from the scared Year 8 boy who would hide in his room in the dark. Since then, I have come to know who I am and what I stand for. Accepting and loving who you are is one of the greatest challenges you will ever encounter. Every person in this room is currently, or will at some point, experience this challenge. No amount of school or tests can teach us to love and accept ourselves and others. But every single one of you can help, in your own way, by accepting others for exactly who they are."

Rashema Melson: 'Beat the odds and let the sun shine', Anacostia High School - 2014

11 June 2014, Washington DC, USA

Rashema lost her father before she was one year old, and in her last two years of school, achieved a 4.0 grade point average while living in a homeless shelter with her mother and two siblings. She was top of her class, and graduated to Georgetown University.

Family and friends. Welcome to Anacostia’s class of 2014 Commencement exercises. The two years I have spent at Anacostia have been wonderful and I have could not have asked for a better experience. I have been taken care of by the best principal, teachers, and coaches in the city. These educators actually care about our wellbeing, it is not just a paycheck to them. I feel as if I have grown into the arms of a second family. They are a security blanket that covers us wherever we are.

During my journey, I have made wonderful friends. Sweating, crying, succeeding on the court, track and the classroom. I have to shout out my family for always supporting me and being by my side. I have to shout out my school for always being available and helping me when I was in a jam. Also for pushing me when I felt as if I was about to give up.

My amazing track coach Ms. Perry was like a mother, sister and best friend to me at the same time. She is always been someone who I could come to for whatever and whenever, no matter the time of day. And when I needed an ear for my problems and advise as well. I love her so much, she is definitely a life changer.

Mrs. Shumerman, our wonderful counsellor, who not only told me to follow my heart, but helped me to as well. I adore her.

Mr Smith, Anacostias excellent DC CAP advisor who helped me get through the tough, frustrating college process without a problem. Without him I probably would not have even applied and made it through. Especially the financial aid portion.

I would also love to thank Mr Wong, Coach June, Coach Cross, Ms Friesen, Coach Strafford, Coach Thomas, Mr Billner, and Mrs Witherspoon for supporting me every step of the way. And I will be remiss if I didn't thank all of community partners and [inaudible 00:01:45] supporters I have gained the past month.

Throughout my journey here, I have learned that time doesn't wait, pity, or adjust for or to anyone. And life does not fail, life is not fair. But despite that harsh reality you must keep striving for success, through the pain, tears and fissures of loves devote.

People say life is short, live it up. I say life is endless, turn up, earn it up, but don't burn it up. Your life decisions lead you to where you end up. For the longest darkness of the struggle I tried my best, but I started to think it would never be over. I started to give up, but then God gave me a sign that He wasn't putting me through this to punish me but to show up the side of me that's resilient, that persistence is a goal of life.

I see a promising future ahead and I didn't do it all alone. I had gracious help for which I will be forever grateful. Before I received my diploma and head off to Georgetown, I just want to leave you all with a piece of advice Class of 2014. Always be who you truly are on the inside. Never be afraid to go out after your dreams. And regardless of the forecast that has been predicted upon us, beat the odds and let the sun shine. The future lies within the reach of our hands and if we keep striving and don't let anyone knock us off our path or deter us from our goals we can do anything we put our minds to no matter what. Resilience, perseverance, discipline, determination, and dedication is the key to your success. Each step we take is paved with possibilities now go unlock the doors to your future.

Shaan Patel: Valedictorian dumps girlfriend on stage, Ed W. Clark High School - 2015

2015, Clark High School, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

So, I was gonna stand up here today and talk about my biggest accomplishment during high school, which most of you may already know....how I brought sexy back.

Unfortunately, that idea didn't make it past administration, so instead, I want to tell you a story about this girl I met. I've known her for four years now and she's become my best friend. Although we've had some ups and downs in our relationship, she will always be in my heart and I will never forget her.

When I first met this girl, I was unsure about how close we would eventually get. Many of my friends told me to stay away from her and instead, pursue this other girl who seemed more attractive and lived closer to home. Plus, the first few times I hung out with her, it didn't seem like she paid much attention to me because she already had so many other friends.

Nevertheless, I stuck it out through though and am glad I did, because as it turns out, I discovered that this girl is absolutely perfect for me. She has introduced me to some of my best friends. I've spent most of my life for the past four years with this girl; I've had so much fun with her. We ran joggers together, dissected cats together, had a senior barbecue, and she was even with me the night of homecoming. Sometimes, I would be with her from the early morning to late at night - four, five, even six days a week. But I've cherished every minute with this girl and I love hear with all my heart.

I could not have been happier with any other girl. However, the relationship I once had with this girl will never be the same because one week ago, she died of my life(?). This girl's name is Clark High School.

I hope my mom's blood pressure is back to normal now and so, we all share this one common best friend, Clark. She has always been there for us, unconditionally, during our times of joy, pain and excitement. Although she departed from our lives, her memory will live on. As we continue our journey through life, she shall never forget this friend, whom all of us have come to know so intimately. Remember all that she has given us, what she has taught us, the friends she introduced us to, the laughter and the happiness she has brought us.. And most important, the exceptional character she has brought out in each and every one of us.

Although I will be spending the next four years of my life with another girl, this one will always stay in my heart. And so finally, I'd like to thank God, my parents, my family, and my friends, for helping me make the decision four years ago to take the road less traveled and meet this girl. Because for me, it has made all the difference.

Jeremy Ludowyke: 'I think we need to talk about men', MHS Speech night, Principal address - 2017

28 November 2017, Melbourne, Australia

I think we need to talk about men.

It seems the world has finally had a gut full of the damage violent, abusive men do. Each day that goes by there is a new revelation in the media of their damage, particularly to women and girls.

It has been less than three months since the New York Times published allegations of sexual harassment and assault perpetrated by Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein and in this time mostly women have come forward with reports of predatory sexual behaviour that run the gamut from unsolicited lewd texts to sexual assault by over 60 men in the movie industry.

There have also been allegations of sexual misconduct perpetrated by 3 of America’s past 5 Presidents. In the case of Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, these allegations were widely canvassed prior to and during their election campaigns yet both were elected regardless.

Public figures who until then had been universally admired such as Rolf Harris, Bill Cosby and Jimmy Saville have been charged with systematically preying on young women and girls over decades. Their predatory behaviour was no secret to many of their colleagues yet these colleagues remained silent and allowed the abuse to continue.

This wave of disclosure and exposure exemplified by the #MeToo movement has also reached these shores, as inevitably it would and should. In the past month, 500 Australian women have come forward naming 65 men as abusers in the media industry alone. The first high profile case of Don Burke was broadly in December. No doubt here will be many more.

I have no doubt that a culture of systemic and pervasive misogynistic abuse of women is not confined to the media industry alone. Let’s consider a uniquely Victorian industry.

In the past decade, the Police have instigated investigations into sexual misconduct perpetrated by over 30 AFL footballers. Most recently this has included a Richmond player distributing an explicit image of his girlfriend to his mates immediately after the Grand Final after assuring her he had deleted it.

Earlier this year, two of the AFL’s most senior executives were sacked following revelations of predatory sexual behaviour towards young women in their workplace. This is the same workplace where a list of the Top ten hottest female staff members had been circulated amongst most of the male staff.

There are three very hard truths we must confront about this as men.

First, we can no longer dismiss this as the behaviour of a few bad apples. There is a false comfort in confining and defining this problem as the despicable acts of an evil few. If this were true we just pluck out the bad apples and the problem goes away but unfortunately the core of this evil lies much deeper.

The second hard truth is that these abuses were enabled and perpetuated by the systems of power surrounding these men. The senior managers of Children’s hospitals in the UK welcomed Jimmy Saville’s charity visits to their wards in full knowledge that he would use those visits to sexually assault the young children in their care. 

When a woman made a police report of sexual assault by an AFL footballer, senior officers intervened saying they needed to make the complaint disappear.  A young actress’s publicist sent her to Harvey Weinstein’s hotel room in full knowledge of what she would encounter, alone.

It’s not just the apples that are rotten. There is something very rotten in the systems that overtly and inadvertently protects these men and moves to marginalise and silence those who speak out. In the words of one Hollywood insider who had heard ‘stories’ about Weinstein’s predatory behaviour:

Since this story broke last week, I have been struggling with my shame. It shouldn’t matter what my place was, my level of success, my degree of power. It should only matter that I knew this was happening and I stayed silent.

We all stayed silent.

The final hard truth is that there is something rotten about the way we men think and act towards woman and the way we think and about ourselves as men.  You only have to look at the raw statistics to understand the magnitude of violence and abuse towards women in Australia.

Every week at least one Australian woman is killed by her current or former male partner. One in every 3 Australian women over the age of 15 has been physically or sexually assaulted by a man they know. Almost every Australian woman has been subjected to some form of sexual abuse or harassment.

These women are our sisters, our daughters and our mothers. But they are not defined their relations to men. They are every woman.

But there is another way of looking at these statistics.

Every week at least one Australian man kills his current or former partner. One in every 3 Australian men will physically or sexually assault a woman they know. And almost every Australian man will subject a woman to some form of sexual abuse or harassment or at least be complicit in this.

These men are our brothers, our sons and our fathers. These men are us.

To all of the men out there who want to say back that is not me, I have never done any of these things, I sincerely hope that it true. But let me ask you this.

Were you ever in a group of men when someone made a disparagingly sexist or misogynistic remark or joke about a woman?  Did you do anything about it? Did you snicker uncomfortably about it but otherwise let it pass?

Have you ever witnessed a woman being wolf whistled or leered at in public? Did you do anything about it or did you decide it wasn’t your business? Well it is your business.

I want to light upon street harassment for a minute to illustrate why it is your business and I do so deliberately because I am guessing and hoping that there are not too many wolf whistlers in this audience.

A 2015 US study found that 85% of women had experienced sexual harassment in the street by the age of 18. I wonder how many men have been subject to sexual harassment in the street by the age of 18?

What is the motive, the message and the impact of street harassment? 

This is how one woman has described it.

The words of street harassment fall on a spectrum of disrespect. They are not just words, they are a threat. The threat of implied violence lies behind every word. The words are nothing compared with what they could be and they are intended that way, as a smirking warning to all women.

It is our responsibility as men to face this uncomfortable truth about our own culture, about masculinity.  Men are not inherently violent or abusive but we make ourselves so by our silence and inaction and permit others to be so.

Not all men will abuse or assault women but it is the responsibility of every man to call out both friends and strangers when they perpetuate the sexist and misogynistic attitudes and behaviours that allow abusers to go unchallenged. Unless you speak out, your silence will be taken as complicit support by perpetrators.

The research clearly shows that allowing everyday low-level sexism and sexual harassment to continue feeds the climate and attitudes that perpetuate sexual violence. It is the seed from which the rot grows. The research also suggests that if a man is called out for using abusive language by their peers the risks of them progressing to more serious forms of abuse drops by 80%.

It will take a critical mass of good men to turn around the male culture that allows the rotten seeds of sexual violence to propagate.

It will take a critical mass of good men to change the way their peers think about and treat women. It will take a critical mass of good men to root out the rottenness in the hearts of men that engenders violence and harassment of women.

Every year this school will send out into the world 330 good men to add to that critical mass.

 I hope sooner rather than later, the tide will turn.

As Edmund Burke said, The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

Mark Merry: 'How do we become wise?', Yarra Valley GS Valedictory Address - 2017

26 October 2017, Yarra Valley Grammar School, Melbourne, Australia

This was the headmaster's address to graduating Year 12 students.

We are here to mark the end of thirteen years of formal education. This is cause for considerable celebration and acknowledgement of hard work, contribution and perseverance. Congratulations and well done.

Ought we now to consider our graduates to be educated?

Well…No!

I would hope that none of us in this room would describe ourselves as educated. This may sound a strange thing to say, but let’s consider the term.

To be ‘educated’ suggests that our studies are complete. We have learnt all that there is needed to be known…the process is finished. We have grown enough. Today more than ever, what we need to know and understand can shift in an instant. A better aspiration for us in a racing world is not to be educated but rather to be in the process of educating.

Of course, education is not confined to schools and universities and the process doesn’t stop. It’s continuous and it’s evolving. It’s not a store of knowledge that we rely upon but rather a set of skills to find, capture and use: the right knowledge at the right time and in the right way.

Our graduates are acquiring those skills.

·         Our science and mathematics students employ the skills of experimentation, observation, analysis of data and equations to find solutions. 

·         Our humanities students analyse text, find evidence and propose theories,

·         Our artists express themselves in creative and unique ways. They show us an alternate view of the world.

·         This is very clever stuff…important skills which will stand them in good stead. But it’s not enough.

I have a greater aspiration for you and it’s bound up in a word which has gone out of fashion. We don’t use it very much anymore because there doesn’t seem to be a lot of evidence of it…but we should. The word is “Wisdom”. Wisdom…or to be wise. It’s good to be clever…but as Euripides once wrote:

“Cleverness is not wisdom”.

Wisdom is more than ability and more than knowledge. It’s more than just being clever.

Wisdom is not just having knowledge or just having access to facts. Google does not bestow wisdom. Google is a shorthand way of finding information, most of it accurate. Michel de Montaigne was one of the most significant philosophers of the French Renaissance, known for popularizing the essay as a literary genre. He invented the essay…Not a popular figure amongst some students.

He wrote that:

“Learned we may be with another man's learning: we can only be wise with wisdom of our own.”

It’s not enough to learn and repeat what other people think, we need to learn to think and understand for ourselves. We can’t and we shouldn’t outsource our thinking. To create an original thought in a world awash with the thoughts of others literally at the push of a button is becoming increasingly difficult.

Wisdom is not just having strong opinions either. The American philosopher William James asserted that:

“A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.”

We see this in all aspects of modern commentary, on social media and in political discourse. One side of politics today has a tendency to tell us what we must believe and say whilst the other side will believe and say anything.

There’s not much wiggle room for original thought.

Julius Caesar called it out when he said:

'Libenter homines id quod volunt credunt.”

'Men readily believe what they want to believe”

It’s hard to have an original thought where trolling forces conformity and not just opinion but now facts are subjective. I am a keen observer of US politics. I do this by watching MSNBC, CNN and FOX to try to understand how others with different views see the same events.

The bizarre thing is that we seem to be living in parallel universes where meaning is lost amongst “alternate facts”, “fake news” and political spin. It’s no longer just difference of opinion, it’s become a difference of facts.

The Nazi Minister for Information and Propaganda Josef Goebbels once cynically said that:

“A lie told once remains a lie. A lie told a thousand times becomes the truth”.

I don’t often reference Josef Goebbels. Our world has become a world where we only commune and speak to those who agree with us…the rest of the time we yell formulas at those who don’t.

If cleverness and knowledge are not enough… what is wisdom? How do we become wise?

Wisdom or sapience (from the Latin sapientum: to be wise) is the ability to think and act using knowledge, experience, understanding, common sense, self-knowledge and insight. Importantly, wisdom is also associated with virtues such as compassion, ethics and benevolence.

Let’s look at the checklist and ask ourselves if we can tick all the boxes:

·         Knowledge

·         Experience

·         Understanding

·         Common sense

·         Insight: Socrates: “Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.”

·         Self-knowledge: Aristotle said: “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”

·         Compassion:

·         Ethics

·         Benevolence

The US President Theodore Roosevelt once wrote:

“No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care”

Remember when we could quote American Presidents? So wisdom seems to be a combination of the intellectual and the ethical, the mind and the heart. Wisdom is not a factor of age. I have met many wise young people and many unwise older people. Wisdom is attainable, but we need to work on ticking all of the boxes.

It’s quite a confronting question…am I now or will I ever be considered to be a wise person? Do I tick all the boxes? Do I have the energy, the capacity and the will to become wise? Do I even want to be wise? Perhaps asking these questions of ourselves are the early stages of the getting of wisdom?

One considered to be one of the great wise persons of the last century, Albert Einstein once quipped:

“It is not that I'm so smart. But I stay with the questions much longer.”

It’s my earnest hope that as you enjoy life after school, continue to learn and to aspire to be wise, and that you like that genius Albert Einstein,

“Stay with the questions much longer.”

Thank you, God bless and good luck with all that you do….

Peter Butera: 'The title of Class President could more accurately be Class Party Planner', Class President speech - 2017

18 June 2017, Wyoming Area School District, Pennsylvania, USA

When Valedictorians 'go rogue'. Class President Peter Butera had some criticism for the way his school is governed. It didn't please the school authorities and he was shut down.

“Good evening, everyone. The past four years here at Wyoming Area have been very interesting to say the least. To give you an idea of what it was like, I’m going to take this time to tell you all a bit about what my Wyoming Area experience was like and the people who were a part of it.

I would like to start off by thanking my mom, my dad, and my baba, who have raised me since the day I was born and have helped me become the person I am today. Every one of us graduating have those special people in our lives that care for us every day, and love us unconditionally. And to all of you here today, we cannot thank you enough for everything you’ve done for us.

I would now like to recognize a few teachers who are extremely committed to their jobs as educators, and have worked to make me and many others, better students every day: Mr. Hizynski, Mr. Pizano, and Mr. Williams. In addition to these three, there are a number of other very good teachers at our school as well. It is dedicated teachers like these that truly help to develop students and prepare them to further their educations.

Not only does Wyoming Area have some great teachers, but a couple great administrators as well. Mr. Quaglia had been our principal for 3.5 years, and was as great a leader as they come, always extremely caring and reasonable. Over the summer, our school hired a new principal, Mr. Pacchioni, and despite the hesitancy that some students may have had about getting a new principal our senior year, he quickly put that to rest by coming in and always looking out for the students here since day 1.

Throughout my time at Wyoming Area, I have pursued every leadership opportunity available to me. In addition to being a member of Student Council since I was a freshman, my classmates have also elected me Class President the past 4 years, which has been my greatest honor, and I would like to thank you all for that one final time, it really means a lot. However, at our school, the title of Class President could more accurately be Class Party Planner, and Student Council’s main obligation is to paint signs every week. Despite some of the outstanding people in this school, a lack of real student government and the authoritative attitude that a few teachers, administrators, and board members have, prevents students from truly developing as leaders.

Hopefully in the future, this will change. Hopefully for the sake of future students, more people of power within this school, who do not do so already, will begin to prioritize education itself as well as the empowering of students. Because at the end of the day, it is not what we have done as Wyoming Area students or athletes that will define our lives, but what we will go on to do as Wyoming Area Alumni. And I hope that every one of my fellow classmates today, as well as myself, will go on to do great things in this world, and find true happiness and success. Thank you all for coming out to this great celebration today.

The full text is also on Peter's facebook page.

Related content: Sarah Haynes, Ravenswood school captain, 'Ravenswood's not perfect", 2015

"I don’t know how to run a school. but it seems to me that today's schools are being run more and more like businesses where everything becomes financially motivated. Where more value is placed on those who provide good publicity or financial benefits."

Full transcript and video

Larissa Martinez: 'America can be great again without the construction of a wall built on hatred and prejudice', McKinney Boyd High School - 2016

8 June 2016, McKinney, Texas, USA

Good afternoon. My name is Larissa Martinez and I am delighted to be standing here as the valedictorian of the class of 2016. In all, it's been a great year so far. As we are graduating today, the leader of the free world, Beyonce, dropped a new album Lemonade, and the greatest entertainer in our generation is leaving the White House. First and foremost, I would like to thank all of the parents and family members who are always there to make sure we would make it all the way to today. I would also like to thank all of the faculty and staff at McKinney Boyd because this school wouldn't be the same without them. Now I know some of you may be prepared to call me out, like Damian from Mean Girls, but I assure you that I do in fact go here.

Even though two fifths of you don't know of my existence. To each and every single one of you I saw thank you. You taught me that it's OK to be different and to overlook those differences, and accept you for being yourself. You also taught me that it is OK to push people to the side while rushing to class. I would also like to give special thanks to the people that have changed my life in one way or another and have stuck with my for the last few years. I know I am not always the easiest person to deal, so thank you for being there when I needed you the most. I would also like to thank my sister Andrew for giving me one more reason to keep going when it all seemed pointless. Finally the person I am most thankful for is my mother. You've been there with me through thick and thin. You are my best friend. While most mothers move move mountains for their children, you literally moved countries. Every sacrifice you have made, you have made for us. You are my number one fan and you never lost faith in me, even when I lost faith in myself. For that and many other things I will be eternally grateful.

Let me be frank. I am not going to stand up here and give you the Hallmark version of the valedictorian speech. Instead I would like to offer you a different kind of speech. One that discusses expectations versus reality. Many of you see may see me standing up here and must think "Her life is pretty great." Her parents must be very proud. I decided to stand before you today, and reveal these unexpected realities because this might be the only chance I get to convey the truth to all of you, that undocumented immigrants are people too. Those are only half truths. They are the expectations.

My reality is slightly different. On July 11 it will be exactly six years since I moved to McKinney from Mexico City, where I was born and raised. When people see me standing up here, they see a girl who is Yale-bound and has her life figured out. But that is far from the whole truth. So now I would like to convey my fair share of realities.

Reality number one: At the age of 11 I was nothing more than a girl with an abusive and alcoholic father who had to depend on her mother's strength. I was a girl with a dream that one day I would become an American and a girl that thought moving countries would solve all of the problems in her life.

Unexpected reality number two: At the age of 12 I was faced with the task of having to adapt and embrace a new culture. Often my intelligence was questioned due to my background. I was also faced with giving up part of my childhood so I could look after my little sister Andrea while my mom worked from morning until late at night. School became my safe haven because, despite not having internet, a washing machine, or even my own bed. I always had knowledge at my fingertips thanks to my school. And I realized that my be the only way I could help my family. Although we do not all share the same struggles or the same obstacles throughout life, we do share some of the sentiments. I know what it is like to be put down, to have your achievements put down, to not be acknowledged to be powerless. So at this time I would like to commend each and every single one of you here for preserving through your own challenges and being the resilient human beings you wanted to be. And from not letting any obstacles getting in the way of you today. We all have struggles. Struggles we want to face behind closed doors because others discovered them, it would be at our must vulnerable state and we would never be looked at the same way. Well, after all of these years, I have finally mustered up the courage to stand before and share a struggle I have to deal with each and every day.

Unexpected reality number three: I am one of the 11million undocumented immigrants living in the shadow of the United States. I decided to stand before you today, and reveal these unexpected realities because this might be the only chance I get to convey the truth to all of you, that undocumented immigrants are people too. I was hesitant to speak about this today, because of the great divide in opinions concerning the topic of immigration in America. But I feel like I owe it to you to be honest, and I owe it to myself. The most important part of the debate, and the part most overlooked, is the fact that immigrants, undocumented or otherwise, are people too. People with dreams, aspirations, hopes and loved ones. People like me. People who have become a part of the American society and way of life and who yearn to help make America great again - without the construction of a wall based on hatred and prejudice. We are here without official documentation, because the US immigration system is broken. And it has forced many families to live in fear. I myself have even been waiting seven years for my application to be processed. So I hope that all of you leave here today knowing that we are trying to do it the right way, but we don't know how.

I ask for all of you to try and look beyond the way the media portrays us and the dehumanizing accusations some politicians have made. I ask for you to please keep your hearts open and try to find the love and understanding that makes us human. Because after all we are people, just like you. While I can't predict the future, and tell you how successful you are all going to be. But by sharing my story today, I hope I can convince all of you that if I can break every stereotype based on what I am classified as - Mexican, female, undocumented - so can you. We do not have to let expectations become our reality. I am no expert in this journey we call life. But I am living proof that beating the system is possible. We do not have to conform to the limitations that others put on us. There will always be people that judge us, and set expectations based on their preconceived ideas of who they think we are and who they think we should be. However we have the ability to prove them wrong. In those moments when you need a reason to continue moving forward, close your eyes and picture yourself in the future setting. They told me I couldn't so I did. Thank you

Jack Aiello: 'What we need is a cinnamon roll revolution!', Thomas Middle School - 2016

9 June 2016, Thomas Middle School, Illinois, USA

Hello everyone. I’ve decided that since we’re in the middle of an election year, I would do my graduation speech in the style of some of the 2016 presidential candidates, along with President Obama.

Let’s begin with Donald Trump

[As Trump]

Hello and congratulations you are now getting to hear a speech from the magnificent Donald Trump. And let me just tell you that Thomas has been such a great school, I mean, quite frankly, it’s been fantastic, I mean we have had so many great experiences here. You know one of those would have to be starting foreign language.

We’re learning languages from Spain, from France, from Germany, and China. And you know, people say I don’t like China,  I love China. I mean I have so many terrific friends in China. But I took Spanish, and let me tell you by the way, that it was fantastico. Moy fantastico.

And y’know, Foreign languages was one great thing, another one would have to be the showdown between the teachers themselves. We won in sixth grade, we won in seventh grade, but then we lost in eighth grade, but that’s okay, teachers, we’ll forgive you.

And let me just tell you by the way, if we have an entire team of Mr Craigs, who is fantastic by the way, he’s terrific. If we have an entire team of Mr Craigs,  we will win, and we will win, and believe me, we will win.

Infact quite frankly we will win so much you’ll be sick of winning.

And again, this is such a terrific crowd, and I know you’re all loving this speech, but I have to hand it off to Senator Ted Cruz.

[as Cruz]

Thank you Donald, Let me start by saying this. God bless the great school of Thomas. You know some of the greatest memories here at TMS were in the creative arts classes. Like in family and consumer science, baking the whacky chocolate cake, or sewing our very own miniature pellets. I had a Lamborghini on it, and I can assure you that that Lambhorgini is still a throw pillow on my bed, each and every day.

Or in music class, experimenting with the different tones of the boomwhackers. Or jamming on the ukuleles, creative arts unquestionably part of the great TMS memories.

And I know that President Obama shares some of the great feelings that I have about Thomas. Isn’t that right Mr President?

[As Obama]

You know, that right Ted. I’d like to start off by thanking our excellent Principal Mr Cate, he’s done a terrific job preparing us for high school. But back to the memories. Some of the greatest memories we had were gym class and PE. We diod all the regular sports you’d expect liek basketball and soccer, but we also did some unique ones too.

Like on rainy days we’d go into the small gym and do yoga.

And I am proud to say that I have completely mastered the downward dog.

You know we also did a unit entirely on dance. Dances like the Bavarian Shoe $. And we also did some Hawaiian dancing too. In fact I remember how one of the Hawaiian songs goes, it goes a little bit like this.

I wanna go back to my little grass hut,

Where all the old Hawaiians are singing [Hawaiian]

Aloha to that.

Anyway, TMS has given us some terrific memories, and now I’d like to pass it on to Secretary Clinton.

[As Hillary Clinton]

Thank you President Obama. I’d like to start off by thanking the great hardworking teachers of Thomas Middle School. They’ve been our champions. They’ve given us the skills we need to get through sixth grade and through seventh grade and eighth grade, and now we’re going to take those skills and apply them to high school.

And thanks to our teachers we have all the skills we need to succeed in this next chapter of our lives.

And they all deserve a big round of applause.

And I know that Senator Sanders agrees with me.

[As Bernie Sanders]

Yes I do agree with the Secretary.

And hello. Thank you for allowing me to speak to you today.

Let me start with the lunches they are delicious. Things like pizzas and tacos and chips, you name it! And some of the best cinnamon rolls I’ve ever tasted!

I do have one improvement for them though. We need to make them free!

Why should students have to pay for their own cinnamon rolls, doesn’t make any sense!

What we need is a cinnamon roll revolution!

You know another great experience would have to be going to Taft. Who can forget activities such as nightlight and cross country orienteering. Or indulging ourselves into some truly delicious meals like pot roast with noodles!

And finally to conclude this entire graduation speech. I would just like to say that the bottom line is this. As far as schools go, TMS is in the top one half of one half of one percent of schools, in the entire country!

Thank you all and congratulations to the class of 2016.

David McCullough: 'You are not special. Because everyone is', Wellesley High School -2012

1 June 2012, Wellesley High School, Massachusetts, USA

David McCullough is an English teacher at the school. This address went viral and had over 2 million views on Youtube.

Dr. Wong, Dr. Keough, Mrs. Novogroski, Ms. Curran, members of the board of education, family and friends of the graduates, ladies and gentlemen of the Wellesley High School class of 2012, for the privilege of speaking to you this afternoon, I am honored and grateful.  Thank you.

So here we are… commencement… life’s great forward-looking ceremony.  (And don’t say, “What about weddings?”  Weddings are one-sided and insufficiently effective.  Weddings are bride-centric pageantry.  Other than conceding to a list of unreasonable demands, the groom just stands there.  No stately, hey-everybody-look-at-me procession.  No being given away.  No identity-changing pronouncement.  And can you imagine a television show dedicated to watching guys try on tuxedos?  Their fathers sitting there misty-eyed with joy and disbelief, their brothers lurking in the corner muttering with envy.  Left to men, weddings would be, after limits-testing procrastination, spontaneous, almost inadvertent… during halftime… on the way to the refrigerator.  And then there’s the frequency of failure: statistics tell us half of you will get divorced.  A winning percentage like that’ll get you last place in the American League East.  The Baltimore Orioles do better than weddings.)

But this ceremony… commencement… a commencement works every time.  From this day forward… truly… in sickness and in health, through financial fiascos, through midlife crises and passably attractive sales reps at trade shows in Cincinnati, through diminishing tolerance for annoyingness, through every difference, irreconcilable and otherwise, you will stay forever graduated from high school, you and your diploma as one, ‘til death do you part.

No, commencement is life’s great ceremonial beginning, with its own attendant and highly appropriate symbolism.  Fitting, for example, for this auspicious rite of passage, is where we find ourselves this afternoon, the venue.  Normally, I avoid clichés like the plague, wouldn’t touch them with a ten-foot pole, but here we are on a literal level playing field.  That matters.  That says something.  And your ceremonial costume… shapeless, uniform, one-size-fits-all.  Whether male or female, tall or short, scholar or slacker, spray-tanned prom queen or intergalactic X-Box assassin, each of you is dressed, you’ll notice, exactly the same.  And your diploma… but for your name, exactly the same.

All of this is as it should be, because none of you is special.

You are not special.  You are not exceptional.

Contrary to what your u9 soccer trophy suggests, your glowing seventh grade report card, despite every assurance of a certain corpulent purple dinosaur, that nice Mister Rogers and your batty Aunt Sylvia, no matter how often your maternal caped crusader has swooped in to save you… you’re nothing special.

Yes, you’ve been pampered, cosseted, doted upon, helmeted, bubble-wrapped.  Yes, capable adults with other things to do have held you, kissed you, fed you, wiped your mouth, wiped your bottom, trained you, taught you, tutored you, coached you, listened to you, counseled you, encouraged you, consoled you and encouraged you again.  You’ve been nudged, cajoled, wheedled and implored.  You’ve been feted and fawned over and called sweetie pie.  Yes, you have.  And, certainly, we’ve been to your games, your plays, your recitals, your science fairs.  Absolutely, smiles ignite when you walk into a room, and hundreds gasp with delight at your every tweet.  Why, maybe you’ve even had your picture in the Townsman!  [Editor’s upgrade: Or The Swellesley Report!] And now you’ve conquered high school… and, indisputably, here we all have gathered for you, the pride and joy of this fine community, the first to emerge from that magnificent new building.

But do not get the idea you’re anything special.  Because you’re not.

The empirical evidence is everywhere, numbers even an English teacher can’t ignore.  Newton, Natick, Nee… I am allowed to say Needham, yes? …that has to be two thousand high school graduates right there, give or take, and that’s just the neighborhood Ns.  Across the country no fewer than 3.2 million seniors are graduating about now from more than 37,000 high schools.  That’s 37,000 valedictorians… 37,000 class presidents… 92,000 harmonizing altos… 340,000 swaggering jocks… 2,185,967 pairs of Uggs.  But why limit ourselves to high school?  After all, you’re leaving it.  So think about this: even if you’re one in a million, on a planet of 6.8 billion that means there are nearly 7,000 people just like you.  Imagine standing somewhere over there on Washington Street on Marathon Monday and watching sixty-eight hundred yous go running by.  And consider for a moment the bigger picture: your planet, I’ll remind you, is not the center of its solar system, your solar system is not the center of its galaxy, your galaxy is not the center of the universe.  In fact, astrophysicists assure us the universe has no center; therefore, you cannot be it.  Neither can Donald Trump… which someone should tell him… although that hair is quite a phenomenon.

“But, Dave,” you cry, “Walt Whitman tells me I’m my own version of perfection!  Epictetus tells me I have the spark of Zeus!”  And I don’t disagree.  So that makes 6.8 billion examples of perfection, 6.8 billion sparks of Zeus.  You see, if everyone is special, then no one is.  If everyone gets a trophy, trophies become meaningless.  In our unspoken but not so subtle Darwinian competition with one another–which springs, I think, from our fear of our own insignificance, a subset of our dread of mortality — we have of late, we Americans, to our detriment, come to love accolades more than genuine achievement.  We have come to see them as the point — and we’re happy to compromise standards, or ignore reality, if we suspect that’s the quickest way, or only way, to have something to put on the mantelpiece, something to pose with, crow about, something with which to leverage ourselves into a better spot on the social totem pole.  No longer is it how you play the game, no longer is it even whether you win or lose, or learn or grow, or enjoy yourself doing it…  Now it’s “So what does this get me?”  As a consequence, we cheapen worthy endeavors, and building a Guatemalan medical clinic becomes more about the application to Bowdoin than the well-being of Guatemalans.  It’s an epidemic — and in its way, not even dear old Wellesley High is immune… one of the best of the 37,000 nationwide, Wellesley High School… where good is no longer good enough, where a B is the new C, and the midlevel curriculum is called Advanced College Placement.  And I hope you caught me when I said “one of the best.”  I said “one of the best” so we can feel better about ourselves, so we can bask in a little easy distinction, however vague and unverifiable, and count ourselves among the elite, whoever they might be, and enjoy a perceived leg up on the perceived competition.  But the phrase defies logic.  By definition there can be only one best.  You’re it or you’re not.

If you’ve learned anything in your years here I hope it’s that education should be for, rather than material advantage, the exhilaration of learning.  You’ve learned, too, I hope, as Sophocles assured us, that wisdom is the chief element of happiness.  (Second is ice cream…  just an fyi)  I also hope you’ve learned enough to recognize how little you know… how little you know now… at the moment… for today is just the beginning.  It’s where you go from here that matters.

As you commence, then, and before you scatter to the winds, I urge you to do whatever you do for no reason other than you love it and believe in its importance.  Don’t bother with work you don’t believe in any more than you would a spouse you’re not crazy about, lest you too find yourself on the wrong side of a Baltimore Orioles comparison.  Resist the easy comforts of complacency, the specious glitter of materialism, the narcotic paralysis of self-satisfaction.  Be worthy of your advantages.  And read… read all the time… read as a matter of principle, as a matter of self-respect.  Read as a nourishing staple of life.  Develop and protect a moral sensibility and demonstrate the character to apply it.  Dream big.  Work hard.  Think for yourself.  Love everything you love, everyone you love, with all your might.  And do so, please, with a sense of urgency, for every tick of the clock subtracts from fewer and fewer; and as surely as there are commencements there are cessations, and you’ll be in no condition to enjoy the ceremony attendant to that eventuality no matter how delightful the afternoon.

The fulfilling life, the distinctive life, the relevant life, is an achievement, not something that will fall into your lap because you’re a nice person or mommy ordered it from the caterer.  You’ll note the founding fathers took pains to secure your inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness –- quite an active verb, “pursuit” -- which leaves, I should think, little time for lying around watching parrots rollerskate on Youtube.  The first President Roosevelt, the old rough rider, advocated the strenuous life.  Mr. Thoreau wanted to drive life into a corner, to live deep and suck out all the marrow.  The poet Mary Oliver tells us to row, row into the swirl and roil.  Locally, someone… I forget who… from time to time encourages young scholars to carpe the heck out of the diem.  The point is the same: get busy, have at it.  Don’t wait for inspiration or passion to find you.  Get up, get out, explore, find it yourself, and grab hold with both hands.  (Now, before you dash off and get your YOLO tattoo, let me point out the illogic of that trendy little expression–because you can and should live not merely once, but every day of your life.  Rather than You Only Live Once, it should be You Live Only Once… but because YLOO doesn’t have the same ring, we shrug and decide it doesn’t matter.)

None of this day-seizing, though, this YLOOing, should be interpreted as license for self-indulgence.  Like accolades ought to be, the fulfilled life is a consequence, a gratifying byproduct.  It’s what happens when you’re thinking about more important things.  Climb the mountain not to plant your flag, but to embrace the challenge, enjoy the air and behold the view.  Climb it so you can see the world, not so the world can see you.  Go to Paris to be in Paris, not to cross it off your list and congratulate yourself for being worldly.  Exercise free will and creative, independent thought not for the satisfactions they will bring you, but for the good they will do others, the rest of the 6.8 billion–and those who will follow them.  And then you too will discover the great and curious truth of the human experience is that selflessness is the best thing you can do for yourself.  The sweetest joys of life, then, come only with the recognition that you’re not special.

Because everyone is.

Congratulations.  Good luck.  Make for yourselves, please, for your sake and for ours, extraordinary lives.

You can purchase this speech and other writings by David McCullough here.

Sarah Haynes, 'Now I’m very sorry to all the parents here today, but Ravenswood isn’t perfect – and I’m sure you already know that' Ravenswood - 2015

December 2015, Ravenswood School for Girls, Sydney, Australia

Firstly, thank you Reverend Park, for bringing greetings from the Synod, it seems like yesterday that we welcomed you to your first speech day as moderator, and hope that you will look forward to joining us at more events like this in the school calendar in the future. Please note that you will always be welcome in the Ravenswood community.

Good morning Miss Steer(?), Moderator, Chairman of council, Staff, Parents and most importantly, Girls.

I'm eighteen years old, I've spent seventy two percent of my life at school, fifty percent at Ravenswood, and about ninety-five percent of this week stressing about this speech.

The remaining five percent was spent enjoying the stories from those celebrating up at Schoolies. Special mention to those who made it back here today from the Gold Coast and have managed to stay awake this long. Very impressed.

Walking out of the Ravo gates and leaving the Titanic, or Cheese-wedge of a building behind, was a surreal experience. I felt like I was entering uncharted waters. I'm now faced with very difficult decisions. Like, what am I going to do with my life? And, if I wake up at 11.30, do I have breakfast? Or lunch?

There's a lot that I've missed about Ravo in the past four weeks. It's hard to leave something that has literally encompassed half your life. The structure, the activities, my great teachers, and most importantly, you girls. It can be kind of lonely not seeing your smiling faces every day. Plus, if I ever take another selfie, it'll never live up to our run for final assembly.

It's not very often one gets the chance to represent such a great group of girls, and to speak in front of as many people that are here today. Speech day is a day to celebrate the successes of the year.

Year Seven, you have survived your first year of high school, and will no longer be victim of jokes of arriving to class way too early.

Year Eight, you've managed to make it to the end of the year, despite losing Bin Man Max(?)

Year Nine, you've survived what used to be called Middle school. Unfortunately the concept of Middle school didn't survive Twenty Fifteen.

Year Ten, you've made it through a year filled with way too many formal jokes, and well done, honour #thatssoRavo hashtag.

Year Eleven, you've made it to the beginning of the end, get excited.

And Year Twelve, I don't think any of us need reminding on our triumphs for Twenty Fifteen.

Now I've spent a lot of this year speaking about the achievements and successes of Ravo, but I'm going to do something a little different this year. Be honest. Everyone knows that I've always had a strong love for my school and the people that are part of it. But, I also know that a lot of people here today know that I've experienced a lot of other feelings towards my school this year.

About half way through this year, at a time when my family needed Ravo most, it let us down. I know that there have been rumours and gossip about my sister leaving the school and I'd rather not add fuel to the fire, but I'd prefer to say that people who I trusted and respected made an unjustified, cruel and incorrect decision. There are a lot of flaws in the whole procedure, but my aim today isn't to point out all of those in a personal vendetta. I'm sharing this today because I want to be honest with everyone here, and I would have felt insincere if I had to get up here today and pretended like I still love everything about the school when so many know that I don't.

For a large part of this year I was hurt, betrayed, and very much begun to hate certain things and people within the school. But, as some important person once said, ‘there's no point hating something you love’. I do still love my school, and most of all my year group and teachers that carried me through this final year. There are still a lot of great things about it. But, there are also a few that aren't.  There's no point hating something you love, but there's nothing wrong with realising that what you love isn't perfect.

I wrote two speeches today, just so I’d be able to say that Ravo isn’t perfect. I’ve given a fair few speeches in my lifetime, but once I became school captain, everything I ever wrote had to be sent and censored by those higher up than me.

I thought this was something normal as all other Ravo captains had to do it, but what I learned was that not all school captains had to do it.

I was never trusted to say the right thing which I found kind of silly because if I wanted to say something audacious like I am today, I could always have sent someone a different speech.

Anyway, earlier this year I was speaking at an open day, I was selling the school which used to be something I loved to do, because I loved everything about Ravo.

I thought I’d be really clever and so include the school motto in there. So I concluded my speech with: ‘Ravo’s isn’t perfect, but we’re always towards better things’.

I sent this to those in charge of me and received a reply: ‘Great speech, but change the ending. No parent wants to hear that the school isn’t perfect.’

Now I’m very sorry to all the parents here today, but Ravenswood isn’t perfect – and I’m sure you already know that.

I want to be clear again that I’m not saying anything to merely get back at the school.

I just want to be honest and share one of the greatest lessons I’ve learned at school.

Nothing is perfect and nothing should be expected to be perfect.

As my main gal Hannah Montana said:  'everybody makes mistakes, everybody has those days,’

But how often do we really recognise and believe this? If a school can’t admit it isn’t perfect then how can they expect extraordinary adolescent girls to realise that perfection is unattainable.

Before 2015, I really do think I looked at Ravenswood through glassy eyes, seeing its wondrous perfection that it wants to sell everyone.

So as you can imagine, being elected school captain was the most humbling experience. But, it also freaked me out. Like a lot.

I hate to admit it, but I think I came home and cried every night the week after being elected. I'd always looked toward previous school captains and couldn't find flaws in them. The excelled in all areas and just seemed like they had it all together, all the time.

And here I was, crying. Because I think I was happy, crying because I didn't think I could do the job as well as they had, and crying because there were people who had made it very obvious to me they didn't want me to be school captain. Or probably crying because I was overtired, or dinner wasn't ready on time, or something like that. I'm embarrassed to say I've actually done that before.

I think we've all felt at one point, that we weren't good enough, or deserving of something. I saw Ravenswood as perfect, I saw other school captains as perfect, and I knew that I wasn't. But like Ravo, I wanted to give the impression that I was.

This Didn't go too well for me, as within the first term, a friend of mine came to me and said, “Hey Sarah, you know I'm actually really glad you're captain, because you're not as perfect as the others”. At the time it felt like a bit of a backhanded compliment, but it's now something I'll cherish. I'm far from the model student. I've been kicked out of Geography class, sorry Geography, we'd never have worked out. I've had a detention. I've said things I shouldn't have. I've hurt people who didn't deserve it, I've even had my skirt above the patella.

Now these aren't things to be proud of, and they aren't things to look up to, but they certainly aren't things to be ashamed of. They are things to learn from. And school's all about learning, right? And we learn from mistakes. But, I think we're all still afraid to make them, and admit to them, myself included.

The only dangerous thing about mistakes, which I think Ravo may have lost sight of this year, is being able to recognise and admit to them.

Have any of you not done something you want to do, for fear you would mess it up? I can't do art, I won't be able to draw; I can't swim at the big pool at the swimming carnival, what if I'm the person that finishes dead last? I can't do house dance, I can't dance. That last one is very much me. I used to think that I was saving everyone from seeing my dance moves, but now I really think it would have been entertainment for everyone.

What I try to remind myself all the time is that mistakes are inevitable, so we shouldn't let them stop us from getting involved or trying something new. And hey, if it doesn't work out, always towards better things. I'm trying to be clever again and slip in the school motto.

The person who doesn't make mistakes is unlikely to make anything.

In my final weeks at school, I overheard a conversation between my parents that went something like this:

 'Oh, Chris, I'm kind of worried for Sarah finishing school.'

'Why is that, Robyn?'

'Well, you know, at school she was somebody, after school she's going to be nobody,'

I'm sure my parents would be very embarrassed to have me say that, and to be honest I'm embarrassed at my attempt to impersonate them. But what they said was actually very very true. Ravenswood gave me so many opportunities to be somebody. Whether it was sport, debating, community problem solving, Duke of Ed. I will admit, a few of these I did work hard for, but I also got very lucky.

From about Year Six, I used to get picked out by staff to participate in a lot of things. I would get picked to speak at events, or help out at open days, and I'm really really thankful for these opportunities. But, I don't feel like everyone else was as lucky to receive the same opportunities.

Some people work hard and get noticed and good on them.

But some people work hard, struggle and get overlooked.

I don’t know how to run a school. but it seems to me that today's schools are being run more and more like businesses where everything becomes financially motivated. Where more value is placed on those who provide good publicity or financial benefits.

Perhaps this is a naive view.

Perhaps this has become a necessary evil in today’s society.

But either way I’d love to see Ravo work towards something better – where each member of the school feels valued equally, as they should be.

So, here's to the girls who worked hard enough to receive an award here today. And here's to those who failed a few tests and can work harder next year.

To the girls who got a detention, but can make the concious effort to behave better next year.

To the girls who made the top sporting teams, and to those who missed out, but can train better to make it next year. 

I'm sorry for giving a speech that's a little more serious than my usuals, on a day that probably needs more humour. Blame the people who made this year a difficult one for me, but also forgive them.

Jessica Hagee(?) wrote 'the nasty people may not deserve your love or admiration, but your scorn earns the both of you.'

The bumps along the road made me appreciate the support of all you girls so much more. I cannot thank you all enough for supporting me. Enduring these long speeches, and endulging me as your captain for Twenty Fifteen.

To the class of Twenty Fifteen, you've been remarkable. I'm so proud to be one of you, and I've loved being a part of our year group.  So much so that I may or may not have taken, slash, stolen our year group photo from our common room.

Don't tell Miss Steer(?)

If you've already forgotten everything I've said, remember these two things.

Ravenswood isn't perfect, but it can always work towards better. And don't let perfect be the enemy of good, or mistakes scare you from taking chances. I'll now leave you all with an irrelevant quote that makes me smile.

'Before you criticise anyone, make sure to walk a mile in their shoes. That way, you're a mile away from them. And you have their shoes.'

Speakola is a site that compiles speeches - of all types.

A considerably more brutal take down of a private school was this one by Shane Maloney, delivered to Scotch College in 2001.

Jake Bailey: 'None of us get out of life alive so be gallant, be great, be gracious,' Christchurch Boys High School, Senior Prizegiving - 2015

7 November, 2015, Christchurch, New Zealand

I wrote a speech and then a week before I was due to deliver it they said, you’ve got cancer. They said if you don’t get any treatment you’ll be dead in three weeks. And they told me that I wouldn’t be able to come and deliver this speech here tonight.

But luckily, that speech isn’t about what is to come - it’s about what an amazing year it has been. And you didn’t really expect me to write a whole new one from my hospital bed did you? It started like this:

"If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."

Bernard of Chartres compared us to dwarfs perched on the shoulders of giants. He pointed out that we see more and further than our predecessors, not because we have keener vision, nor greater height, but because we are lifted up and borne aloft on their gigantic stature and knowledge. Thank you Christchurch Boys’ High School for the height you offer.

Tena koutou katoa. Good evening everyone, I am Jakob Ross Bailey - Senior Monitor of 2015.

To all the fine young men who have gone before me, and to the fine young men sitting before me, thank you for supporting me as your Senior Monitor this year. Yes, at times I have wondered whether I deserved this job. At times I have doubted I could get it done to the standard I thought it should be done to. But despite my fear, I have never stopped striving to be a leader who did not let you down. And consequently, I am grateful for what you have given to me in return. I want to share with you all some words which I hold particularly close to heart, words which meant a lot more to me this year than they ever could have before. “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

This job would not have been possible alone, and consequently I must thank a massive team. Firstly, to my deputies, Sam and Jesse. You have been solid and inspirational, strong where I was weak, and an amazing source of support. I always felt you had my back, and that made every day so much better. To the Monitors of 2015, I owe all of you so much. I treasure the connection I have had with each and every one of you. Thank you for accepting me into a group which I could have so easily not been accepted into, for giving me a chance, for the brotherhood that we have had. Maybe the best thing that this role has given me is a connection with you all I wouldn't have had otherwise, and it means more to me than you will ever know. As I said on Monitors Camp, you are all exceptional people of outstanding calibre, each and every one of you will go far, and I have learnt things from all of you.

I must acknowledge the sturdy leadership and support I have received from Mr Hill and the solid guidance received from Mr Fraser, Mr Williams and Mr Dunnett through this year. It has been at the core of how I have conducted myself this year, and at times I would have been very lost without your guidance. You have all taught me much, and I will carry it through life with me. Thank you for the opportunity you gave me, I hope I have done you proud.

I want to acknowledge the support I have received from, and sincerely thank the Old Boys. In particular I thank you Terry Donaldson and Jim Blair for being men of fine character who encouraged me to walk beside you, and I have been honoured to do so. The Old Boys helped me to grasp what 130 years of history means in action. What it means to value tradition, to appreciate our rich history and to comprehend the mark the Old Boys have made on the worlds of the military, the arts and culture, commerce, law, community service and sport. I have been privileged to be supported by these wise men who spoke softly about their accomplishments, and gently of how much we have to learn and to offer - and about the responsibility that comes with that privilege. And these are the words I wrote before they sat beside my hospital bed. Thank you.

Sadly, it has been both a short and long few years but here we are now, ready to move on men. We’ve worked hard to get to this point but haven’t done it by ourselves. As guys we become the type of men we are, not overnight, but as a result of our decisions, the choices we make, and those who surround and support us. And it is those people we need to thank.
To our teachers, thank you for sharing your talent and knowledge, and the occasional movie. What you did for us often went beyond the call of duty. You took the time to explain assignments, repeatedly because we weren't paying attention. You allowed us to come to you for extra help when you could have chosen not to. You put in effort to make lessons more interesting so we wouldn't just tune out. You demanded excellence from us whether or not we wanted to give it. And even to a bunch of teenage boys, it didn’t go unnoticed.

To our parents, thank you for supporting us in more ways than it's easy to reconcile. Not just this year passed, but for the last 13 years of school. Every day you dragged us out of bed, made sure we were semi-fed and clothed for school, herded us out the door. You helped us with homework, paid our class fees. You came to our various events, attended our sports matches and worked with the school as required. You commiserated over our daily dramas and were there for us, but you also gave us enough space to become the men we are today.
To those sport coaches who provided us with strong counsel and guidance, thank you for making school about more than just classwork. Through our sports, we’ve learned how to power on through adversity and give it our best effort, win or lose. We learned the importance of discipline and good sportsmanship, and how to work closely with others to achieve a common goal - and had a lot of fun doing it.

As you heard earlier, my middle name is Ross. I was given it not long before I was born because my 'great' uncle, Ross, drowned in Sri Lanka. Mr Ross Bailey was a Christchurch based kidney transplant surgeon working for the Asian Commission for the Global Advancement of Nephrology. He was known for making a serious difference to an extraordinary number of people's lives back when organ transplants were an amazing feat, and all humility aside, was
the best in the world at it - a true pioneer, the first person to perform a kidney transplant in New Zealand. He was also an Old Boy of Christchurch Boys’ High. He came from a working class background, the only one of his siblings to go to university and he went on to save numerous lives because, well, he could. Because he sought higher things. His funeral saw the Cathedral in the Square bursting at the seams with people he had helped. He had done so much in his short years giving life to the dying. He dared to make a difference. A graduate of CBHS, from a working class background putting Altiora Peto into action.

Now we can't all save lives by transplanting organs. But we can make a difference in our own way.

Christchurch Boys’ High supports academic, cultural and sporting success, and as a school we are exceptional in each and every one of those fields. But we can’t all be the best scholar achieving straight excellences or the best sportsman in the 1st XV, believe me. While we can’t be the best at everything or even at times, even anything, what we can choose is to have moral strength. Moral strength is another of the Boy’s High values. I wrote about this before I knew I had cancer. Now I have a whole new spin on it.

Moral strength is about making a conscious decision to be a person who doesn’t give up, when it would be easy to. To be lesser because the journey is less arduous. Jim Rohn said ‘Let others lead small lives, but not you. Let others argue over small things, but not you. Let others cry over small hurts, but not you. Let others leave their future in someone else's hands, but not you. Of course doing this will mean at some point we may have to face our fear of falling short. Fear of looking like a fool. Fear of not being enough. Being Senior Monitor meant facing these fears, most often daily’. But none of us get out of life alive so be gallant, be great, be gracious, be grateful for the opportunities you have. The opportunity to learn from the men who have walked before you and those that walk beside you.

CBHS, I have been absent for 3 weeks – could you please stop sending my mother texts asking if she knows where I am every morning. That aside, I have missed you all. For the last 5 years I have been proud to be a student who attended Christchurch Boys’ High School. And from today onwards for the rest of my life, I will be a proud Old Boy, giving back to those before me, as they have given to me.

My challenge to each of you, and to myself, is to continue to grow, to develop for the better. The future is truly in our hands. Forget about having long-term dreams. Let’s be passionately dedicated to the pursuit of short-term goals. Micro-ambitious. Work with pride on what is in front of us. We don’t know where we might end up. Or when it might end up.

Some of us will not cross paths again. Some of us will likely be seen on TV. Others in print. Some of us will also probably end up in prison. I have thoroughly enjoyed growing up with you all. It has been an honour and delight to share these years with you. I know that as I look out at all of you, I will measure my time here in the friendships I've enjoyed in these last years. Some were pretty casual and others were much closer but I'll remember each one fondly, as I'm sure you all will too. And when many of our high school memories begin to fade, that's ultimately how we may measure the time we spent here, not in the classes, or the lunchtimes,
or the exam results or years, but in the friendships that we made and the times we shared together.

And so here we stand. Our rule is over and it's up to the next class to step into our shoes and take over. I hope that those of you who follow will carry on a proud legacy. May the lads that follow benefit from the school’s work to replicate the hall and the community spirit that undeniably comes from sitting together, as one, strength and character of this mighty institution combined.

I don't know where it goes from here for any of us - for you, for anyone, and as sure as hell not for me. But I wish you the very best in your journey, and thank you for all being part of mine. Wherever we go and whatever we do, may we always be friends when we meet again.

Altiora Peto lads

Clare Wright: 'Be ambitious, be creative, take risks', Northcote High School - 2014

26 October, 2014, Northcote High School, Melbourne, Australia

In keeping with the spirit of reconciliation, I’d acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands on which we gather today, the Wurrundjeri people, and pay my respects to their Elders, past, present and emerging. I recognize that this has always been a place of teaching, learning and celebrating rites of passage.

I’d also like to thank Kate Morris for inviting me to give the valedictory speech tonight. It’s a great honour and a great pleasure to have the chance to join you all in this special milestone event.

I reckon I’m well placed in several respects to stand behind the microphone.

For one, I was myself a Year 12 students once, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and I well remember my own Graduation Night in this very room.  I thought it was boring and unnecessary and bloated to bursting by long-winded speeches delivered by pompous, self-satisfied adults giving well-meaning advice that I was sure we’d all forgot by the time we spilled out onto Swanston Street and tried to find an underage drink.

I’m also the parent of two kids at Northcote High, one who will be doing his Year 12 next year.   So I have some idea of the anxieties and pressures that beset today’s high school students, particularly at the pointy end of your secondary education.  I know from the inside what those uncertainties and misgivings about the next step look like.

And, because I work at a university, I’m actually on the front line of what does happen next in that great leap forward.  Not all of you will go on to a tertiary education, but most of you will experience not only the sense of elation in finally achieving some hard-won freedom and autonomy but also the disappointment and frustration of life’s inevitable crash landings.  I watch those first year students wave and flail around and bob up and down in the heaving tide of new experiences and expectations, but I’ve yet to see one drown.

So now that I’ve convinced you that I’m the right woman for the job tonight, or perhaps that I’m one of those smug windbags I abhorred when I was 17, let me begin.  I want to tell you a bit about me, a bit about you, and a bit about the country we live in.

First to me: my favourite topic.  I did my Year 12, or HSC as it was known then, at MacRobertson Girls High School in 1986.  (The Maths Methods students have just figured out I’m 45.)  I got straight A’s for my final exams, with a perfect 100% in English.  It was the last perfect thing I ever did, though it would take me until I was about 40 to realize that perfection wasn’t the goal.  I took a Gap Year, worked and lived in Canada, travelled in Europe on the money I made waitressing in Toronto.  I lied on my job application.  Told the restaurant manager I was 18 and knew how to make a good coffee.  (I was from Melbourne wasn’t I?)  I snogged boys and ate a lot of junk food.  From those experiences I learnt that it’s hard to make a good coffee, that it’s much easier to get boys to kiss you than to take you seriously, and that eating fast food was about as satisfying as being a fast girl. 

I came back to Australia and started an Arts/Law Degree at Melbourne Uni.  I did Law because that’s what you were expected to do if you got straight A’s in your Year 12 exams.  I spent a lot of the first semester of Uni crying.  I felt homesick in my own home and I hated Law.  (Well, I actually loved the intellectual rigour of Law as a discipline, but I could see that Law as a profession was going to right for me.)

But in the midst of that confusing, lonely year, I was very lucky.  I fell in love twice.  I fell in love with the boy who is now my husband and the father of my three children.  We’ve been together for 26 years, enjoying a relationship of true companionship, respect, conversation and humour.  I also fell in love with History, the Uni subject I most adored, despite the fact that I had no idea what I could possible do with it.  And I was fortunate for another reason: when I told my parents I wanted to drop Law and just study History, they told me to do whatever made me happy.  They told me to do what I must do, and do it well.  (I later discovered that’s a line out of a Bob Dylan song, but it was well chosen for the occasion.)

And so, that is what I have done.  I did an Honours degree in History, a Masters degree in History, a PhD and postdoctoral research in history.  I’ve published two history books and made two history documentaries for tv.  I’ve won awards and received numerous grants and scholarships.  But I also need you to know that my path to professional success and personal fulfillment hasn’t been all straight and narrow.  I’ve suffered periods of depression and anxiety, moments of profound despair, and run myself ragged in the attempt to be 100% in control and on top of my game.  I learnt the hard way that it’s ok to fail every once and a while.

I tell you all this because I’m sick to death of watching successful women either undermine their own achievements or blame themselves for every blemish. 

Girls, be proud of your accomplishments, don’t apologise for your strengths and talents, don’t be afraid to take up too much space, don’t be silent about your dreams and your grievances.  There is enough in our public culture to demean and trivialize you, and enough in even our own homes to threaten and belittle you, that you do not need to contribute to your own denigration.   And boys, trust the women around you.  They will be your friends, your workmates, your bosses, your lovers and your staunchest allies.  Give them credit where credit is due, and give yourself some credit too: credit for having the courage to swim against the tide of prejudice and discrimination that can so easily carry us away.

Since the death of Gough Whitlam earlier this week, there has been a lot of reflection about the legacy of this larger-than-life former Prime Minister.  Whitlam came to power at a time in Australia’s history when there was a great wave of restless energy and ambition, largely on the part of young people, to change the world that they had no choice but to live in.  The era was not unlike the gold rush period that my latest book is about: a youthful population who were angry about the fact that they had no right to participate in the institutions or systems of making the very laws that governed them.  Later, once men had secured democratic voting entitlements, women also began to fight for their rights to be heard, to be recognized, to be treated as full and equal citizens.  And in the 1960s white men and women came together to support indigenous Australians to also be included in the democratic process.  At this same time, young men were being sent off to fight a war that most Australians didn’t support – imagine that: instead of leaving school and going to uni or learning a trade or starting your own business, you are being shipped off to Vietnam whether you like it or not — and non-European people could still be excluded from entering the country under the legal framework of the White Australia Policy.  Successive conservative governments had turned a blind eye to the changes in the Australian population and the global movement towards social justice.

And then along came Gough – with the election campaign slogan IT’S TIME.  Time for a better, stronger, fairer Australia.  Time to use power to make a difference.  You will have heard a lot this week about his reforms: indigenous land rights, single mother’s pensions, free tertiary education.  But I want to read you some lines from one of my favourite of Whitlam’s speeches.  He said these words in Ballarat on 3 December 1973, while unveiling a newly restored Eureka Flag.

He said: “the kind of nationalism that every country needs … is a benign and constructive nationalism [that] has to do with self-confidence, with maturity, with originality, with independence of mind.  If Australia is to remain in the forefront of nations … if it is determined to be a true source of power and ideas in the world, a generous and tolerant nation respected for its generosity and tolerance, then I believe that something like ‘the new nationalism’ must play a part in our government and in the lives of us all”.

With his deeds in the parliament, and his carefully chosen words at moments like these, Whitlam created a vision of the sort of country Australia could be.  He wanted this country to be the BEST country it could be.  He didn’t try to instill fear and anxiety among the Australian people.  He didn’t say that it was okay to be a bigot or a racist or a homophobe or a sexist pig because what harm was there in a little fun right?  He didn’t try to set neighbor against neighbor; community against community, in the hope that a scared and vulnerable population would cling to the familiar terrain of what they already knew of the world and its ways.  “Better the devil you know”, goes the saying (or the Kylie Minogue song if you’d prefer), but that is such a monumentally unadventurous and conformist position from which to face life that no self-respecting teenager could ever agree.  “Workers of the world: you’ve got nothing to lose but your chains” is the aphorism I prefer.  If you don’t try to change the world, who will?

So what does all this have to do with you.  Gough Whitlam was the Prime Minister in 1972, long before you were born.  Ancient history.  And I’m certainly not trying to turn you all into Marxists.

But listen closely to Whitlam’s language: self-confidence, maturity, originality, independence of mind, generosity, tolerance.  These were all values and attributes that Whitlam wanted for Australia.  And as you make this tentative but inevitable leap from high school to the world of work and higher education, they are exactly the skills and outcomes I wish for each and every one of you.

Some, but not all, of you will be high flyers.  Few of you, I sincerely trust, will be low hanging fruit. You have been given far too good an education to resort to that.  Most of you will live quietly productive lives, making objects, making homes, making children, making money, making grand designs.  I hope more of you are producers than consumers.  You will be happier, believe me.  But all of you will have to make choices about what sort of person you want to be and what sort of a country you want to live in.

And here I have only one piece of advice: do what you must do, and do it well.

Be ambitious, be creative, take risks with your ideas, your philosophies, your opinions. Make mistakes, learn from them, reach out when you are flailing and throw others a line when you can see that they are not waving but drowning too.

In other words, be your best self.  It’s all — and everything — you can be.

Tony Wilson: 'That was my advice on happiness, so here’s my advice on misery', Penleigh & Essendon Grammar School - 2000

17 October, 2000, Moonee Valley Racecourse, Melbourne, Australia

Ladies and gentleman, graduating students, PEGs staff, and last but not least, Moonee Valley punters who have stumbled into the function by accident and have no idea what’s going on

On my last day at school, I became the second person in the history of Camberwell Grammar to be sent home for an inappropriate costume. The first instance occurred in 1988 when a guy arrived wearing Rambo style fatigues, a semi automatic and live ammunition. He didn’t actually fire any rounds, and I’m not sure anyone could find a specific school rule dealing with semi-automatics, but the police were nevertheless called, and he was sent on his way.

When I was giving my marching orders two years later, it was for the lesser offense of smelling of rotten fish. My mother, who has a nasty habit of over-enthusing in the task of dressing up any of her children, decided that the costume for me was the polar bear suit. So while half the year was out enjoying a big night on the town, Mum and I sat at home together, drawing claws on my ug boots, sowing my sister’s old 'lambie' to the front of Dad’s white pyjamas, and attaching a dead thirteen pound cod to the end of a homemade fishing rod.

In the cool of the morning, my cod was an enormous hit, accompanying me in all the flour throwing and water fights. But as the day warmed up, both me and the fish started to smell worse and worse, until I was told at lunchtime that I should make a trip home to de-fish. 

The dressing up era at my old school has now ended, the headmaster obviously deciding that if the day was generating problems as diverse as live ammunition and dead fish, it was time to reassess. Actually, the official reason that was given when they banned dressing up was said to be that too many Camberwell Grammar boys were dressing up as women, a fact that no doubt confirms a lot of suspicions you all might harbour about my old school.

Today, it’s been your turn to dress up for a last day at school, and I’m sure there will be some aspect of it that stays with you always. Just as everyone should have a memory of their first day of school (mine is that my red-haired prep teacher who was called Mrs Wolf introduced herself via a game of ‘What’s the Time Mrs Wolf’) well we should similarly have a memory of the day it all comes to an end. As for everything that has been learned in the days in between, it’s helpful to have some retention there too. Particularly when it comes to the small matter of the exams that are now just nine days and fourteen hours away.

I’m tempted to just start counting the minutes and seconds down as well to see if those of you who are a bit edgy make a panicked bolt for the library. The fact is that of all the countdowns you’ve no doubt been conducting over the last weeks and months, the exam one is the most important of all. When you go home tonight, you’ll be in the nightmare they call swot-vac, and I’m sure you all can’t wait to grab your alarm clocks, set them to 6.58, and bang out that first practice exam before breakfast tomorrow.

The trick with swot-vac is to have a realistic study timetable that you stick to, no matter what other temptations beckon. Actually one of the first temptations you’ll discover is to spend so much time on the timetable that you waste half of swot-vac drawing it up. Colour coding each subject. Drawing and re-drawing the lines to make sure that they’re straight. My timetable was a work of art, but it was also very important in keeping me to my targets of 10-hour study days.

As a freelance writer, I also face the procrastination demons on a daily basis. A basic guide is that if you find yourself watching any two of Totally Wild, Fresh Prince of Bel Air or Mrs Mangle era Neighbours, you’ve got yourself a problem. You don’t want to be sitting there in an Australian history exam, laboring over the names of our wartime prime ministers but knowing the Fresh Prince’s pick up lines word for word.

In year twelve and at uni, another great procrastination device for me was taking showers. Sometimes I’d have 5-6 showers a day and when I wasn’t taking showers I’d be brushing my teeth. After all, can’t be too clean. Wouldn’t want my practice exam paper to think that I’ve got body odour or bad breath.

It is worth a bit of pain now though. Just think, a few weeks of hard work, and then you get to do bugger all for months. And every time a parent tells you to go out and do something, you can just say, ‘But Muuuum, Daaaaad, for months I didn’t go out. I didn’t watch the Fresh Prince -- can’t I have a rest noooow?’

Those of you with soft parents can probably get away with this for several months. Those of you with tough parents, you’ve probably still got a couple of weeks, and then you can start crashing at the houses of your friends who have soft parents. The trick is to get the hard work part out of the way now, so you’ve got a few bargaining chips up your sleeve when heaven descends, sometime in November.

There is a temptation to look at the upcoming exams and regard them as either life making or life breaking in their outcome. Of course they’re important. If you get a TER high enough to gain entry to the course you want, it’s a terrific advantage. But for those who are worriedthey’ll become instant and permanent failures on results day in December, it’s just not the case.

The fact is that you can’t be a failure at eighteen, because there’s just so much time and opportunity left to find something at which you can be a success. Ten years after leaving Camberwell, I look around my group of friends from school and see one who dropped out in year eleven who is now doing well in golf course management on the Gold Coast. Another wanted to be a lawyer, but now runs a successful billboard business in India.  Another tried for years to be accepted into vet science, only to last year find a position in Cameroon as the head of a wildlife park.

As for myself, at school, I had only two goals in life. One was to represent Australia in basically any sport that would have me, and the other was to play league football for Hawthorn in the AFL. It quickly emerged that football was probably my best chance, and I became fanatically obsessed with it.  At the age of fifteen, when some classmates were embarking upon romantic relationships, I was still sleeping with a Sherrin. When they were out on their dates, I’d stay home listening to the radio, writing down the kicks, marks and handballs for every player in the Hawthorn side.

Actually the last time I was at PEGS was in 1990 -- one of the memorable days of my football career, when I captained the Camberwell First XVIII to a five point win over your team. I’m pretty sure we haven’t beaten you since that day and we may never beat you again, so what I thought I’d do from here is give you a twenty minute, kick by kick summary of the game as it unfolded. I might even insert the odd detail that didn’t actually happen, like that moment late in the last quarter when I took a big hanger on Dustin Fletcher’s head. Or was it Scott West’s, I can’t remember. Although I did have 26 marks that day. I'm worried you think I'm joking. Stop laughing please. Damn that boastful hyperbole from earlier on! I need my credibility back! If you take nothing else away from this -- 26 marks.

Eventually, I made it through to the under 19s, then I captained the under 19s, and then finally in 1992, I was drafted onto the Hawthorn senior list.

The first inkling I had as to the fact that I was pursuing the wrong career came after the players’ skit night. I’d played five pretty uninspiring reserves games to that time, and when fan mail was being handed out, it rarely made it to ‘hack corner’ which is what the good players called the lockers numbered higher than 40 (John Platten was our union rep). But the week after the skit night, to the amazement of the entire club, I received some fan mail. I’ve still got it, and I’ll read it to you now.

Dear Tony Wilson

I’ve never seen you play or heard of you, but I thought that Colliwobbles song you sung with Austin McCrabb on Saturday was excellent. Not your singing so much, but the words -  which reminded how much I hate Collingwood. Keep up the good work.

Best wishes

Marcus

P.S. Can you send me a signed copy

It was my fifth ever autograph, the first four coming one night when I was talking in the car park next to Dermott Brereton, and he made some kids get my autograph as well. As for the song, I wrote it in 1990 during Year 12 swot-vac and it’s a lament for the fact that Collingwood finally won a Grand Final. Given tonight is the tenth anniversary of its existence, and it’s proof of the wonderful achievements you can pull off when you’re avoiding doing old maths exams, I thought I’d sing a verse to you guys. Actually the real reason I’m singing it is that one day, you guys might be running entertainment venues, and if you’re ever looking for a guy who can’t sing, and can’t play guitar … well here it goes:

A long long time ago I can still remember;

How the Magpies used to make me smile

And Dad and I would sing and dance

As the Pies stuffed up each finals chance

And lost each shot at glory with such style

But 1990 made me shiver, with every victory they delivered

Bad news on the doorstep, the woodsman had much more pep

I can’t remember if I cried, when I heard that they had made the five

But something kicked me deep inside, the day the Wobbles died.

... It goes for another 11 and a half minutes ...

Can you believe that when Madonna covered ‘American Pie’ this year, she went with Don McLean’s version and not mine?

But although I’d made history at the skit night by being the first footballer who didn’t dress up as a woman, things weren’t going quite so well on the field. In fact a few weeks later, reserves coach Des Meagher pulled me up in front of my teammates, pointed a finger into my chest and gave me the following piece of encouragement,

‘Willo, you can’t kick, you can’t handball, you can’t run … you can mark but you’re not even doing that at the moment.’

So it wasn’t that surprising when I was sacked, me vowing to Allan Joyce as I walked out the door that I would make him regret the decision for the rest of his life.

He hasn’t.

Fortunately, I had university to fall back on, a time of my life that was absolutely brilliant.  My parents had always told me really boring, long-winded anecdotes about uni being 'the best days of your life’ -- but until I got there, I didn’t really listen. Unlike school, it was relaxed -- no uniforms or disciplinarian teachers or kids in the tuckshop line who make a living out of asking everyone for 20 cents. At uni, I had just nudged into what should be known as my post-sleeping-with-a-Sherrin era, and I had my first real girlfriends.  I even got to go to Montreal in Canada for six months as an exchange student. In fact, so good were my five years as a student that I’m currently preparing a set of long-winded, boring anecdotes of my own to ram down the throats of any children I might have in the future.

It is however, possible to love being a uni student, but hate just about everything you’re studying. Unfortunately, that’s how it was with my course, which was law. If I had any guts, I would have quit to do a course that I actually liked. I didn’t though, and when I graduated in 1996, I blindly followed the other graduates into working at a law firm.

My time as a lawyer was just miserable. I joined Minter Ellison in 1996, and from my first day on the job, discovered that the glamorous life they painted in LA Law and A Few Good Men did not match the reality of leafing through 310 boxes of documents in a warehouse in Sunshine. Don’t be fooled by the way young lawyers are portrayed on television and in the movies. If they made a film about young lawyers at my firm they would have called it A Few Good Shit-kickers.

But despite my inexperience some big jobs did start coming my way. Like the day that a partner in my department arrived at my corral carrying a belt and a pair of gumboots. Yes, I was to be Santa Claus at the firm picnic, and you can imagine the pride I felt when he came back the following Monday and said I was ‘the best goddamn Father Christmas in the history of the firm.’

Then there was the articled clerks’ revue, performed for the firm at the mid-year ball. I was co-writer and director of the production, and even made my debut with a video camera, filming a piece we titled Twelve Angry Articled Clerks. This was a work of enormous emotional depth culminating in us all painting our faces blue, making a Braveheart style charge on photocopier, and smashing it with a sledgehammer. In another scene we stormed a rival law firm in chicken suits. In another, we pranced around the firm’s library naked, save for a strategically placed ‘Hot Stocks’ edition of the BRW.

By the middle of my second year at Minters, I was struggling with the fact that I’d never really found a goal to replace the league footy one. I toyed with the idea of doing some writing or amateur film-making, but didn’t really get off my backside. In fact I turned into one of those very annoying ‘guuna’ people. I was gunna write a screenplay, gunna write a book, gunna travel, gunna go to the bar, gunna leave to provide opportunities for younger, fresher Santas coming up through the ranks. I talked to people about my plans, until those people banned me from talking to them, at which point I found new people. Eventually, my father took me out for breakfast one morning at the Nudl Bar, and quietly suggested that if I was to consider myself a good writer, at some stage I should consider actually writing something. In fact we made a deal that morning -- he said he would help me with financing a travel writing trip, if I gave him a 25,000 word sample within 4 weeks of what he could expect. I took annual leave the next week, and started on my 25,000 words. They weren’t brilliant, but finally I was going for something that I actually enjoyed.

And then came the RMIT information evening that changed my life. In October 1997, a friend who knew about the travel book idea told me that the executive producer of RATW was holding a seminar.  For those who don’t know the show, it was a program on ABC that sent 8 people to 10 countries around the world over 100 days, with each person travelling alone and having to produce a four minute documentary for broadcast on the ABC. John Safran had made the show famous the year before by taking his clothes off and running through Jerusalem to the tune of Up There Cazaly. I loved the show and loved the seminar, and when he said, ‘Imagine you’re one of the thirteen selected finalists in Sydney’, I decided that I owed it to myself to apply. After all I’d paid $22 bucks to attend the lecture, and I wanted to get my money’s worth.

The greatest miracle of my life is that my application actually came off. The application video I sent in was about an Italian soccer coach called Paolo who coached the Essendon under sevens just down the road here with the zeal of a man who has his sights set on the World Cup. He gave them diets, he gave them tactics sessions, he abused them for not going to bed early enough. And all this was done through a translator, because Paulo himself couldn’t speak a word of English. Not only that but that translator was a mother of one of the boys, so Paulo would say something like ‘you’re all hopeless, it’s pointless coaching you’ and the translator would soften it to something like, ‘keep going, you’re doing really well.’ Basically, the topic was so good that I couldn’t really muck up the film, and after two months of interviews, and a 4 week documentary course at AFTRS in Sydney, I was selected for the show.

When I was attending my Year 12 dinner at the Malvern town hall in 1990, I could never have known that I’d be travelling to 10 countries in 100 days and making stories that would be shown on national television. A story on children in prison with their father in Bolivia, a cowboy poet in Idaho, the Italian version of Wheel of Fortune in Italy, the soccer World Cup in Paris, a laughing club in India.  Perhaps my favorite story was about a wheat farmer in Lebanon called Faeez, who couldn’t shoot pigs that were eating his crop because he was only 800 metres from the Israeli border, and the border guards would blow his head off if he went out in the fields with a gun. Indeed, as bombs thundered in the hills around us, Faeez told me to hide my camera tripod under my jumper, 'because Hazballah use tripods to launch rockets'. That was one of the truly exhilarating nights of my life. A sunset, a full moon, a tripod under my jumper, and a five kilometre walk down to the village, thinking all the while that I’d finally found the perfect career.

Not only that, but Race Around the World allowed me to achieve a childhood dream that I thought had passed me by. As I said before, I always fantasized about representing my country in international sport, and then, during my fourth story in Italy, it finally happened. I had the opportunity to lift this beautiful bronzed arm wrestling trophy above my head at the 1998 European Arm Wrestling championships. The tournament took place in Brescia, and as I understand it, I remain the only Australian to have ever competed. This is not good news for people trying to enhance Australia’s international reputation as an arm-wrestling power. My scorecard at the end of the tournament was four bouts in the 95 kilogram division for four, complete, motherless jelly-armed shellackings. One of my opponents from the Ukraine told me that I was the weakest opponent he had encountered in five years on the world tour. Still I had a professional arm-warming sock, and for a few brilliant seconds before each bout, I experienced the mad stare and scream that was so central to the Sylvester Stallone arm wrestling film, ‘Over the Top’. Not only that, despite my beatings the organisers handed out participation trophies to competitors from each of the countries represented at the championships. And so today, I am now the proud owner of one of these.

If I could give a single piece of advice on pursuing happiness, it would be to make sure you actually do pursue it. The unhappiest times I’ve had over the last ten years have been when I’ve let things drift, and not taken any positive steps. My success in getting to make stories around the world only came because I put four months into doing the best application I could at the end of 1997. Other friends of mine said they were going to do one, but in the end, the amount of work involved in finding and editing a story meant none of them did. I later found out that 18,000 people downloaded application forms for Race but didn’t send in applications. Again, the only reason I got to write articles at the Olympics was that I went into the Age offices and asked the Olympics editor if I could. Apply, apply, apply. You might think you don’t stand a chance, I certainly thought that with Race, but you definitely don’t stand a chance if you don’t apply.

That was my advice on happiness, so here’s my advice on misery. Endure swot-vac and work as hard as you can. Hard work does bring its rewards. As fun as my Race Around the World trip sounds, it was unbelievably stressful. In each place you had to find a story (which would take 2-3 days, film a story another 3 or so) and then write down all your shots and every word of every interview, so you could do an edit script, which was then sent back to Australia with the tapes. I reckon on average I worked about 14 hours a day, travelling alone and spending about as much on international phone calls as Paul Reith and his housemates. But throughout the hard times, there was always the knowledge that there was an end point, and I didn’t want to look back when I finished and think I didn’t do my best.

Despite what your parents or grandparents might say along the lines of ‘if you don’t know it now, you’ll never know it’, there are thousands of degrees hanging on walls around Australia that have been earned entirely in the month of October. The three magic words to remember now are these – ‘short term memory’. It’s amazing what you can stuff into the human brain for a few weeks, even if most of it will inevitably seep onto the beaches of Byron Bay or the Gold Coast in the months to come.

But while scientific formulae and English quotes and Keynesian economics all fight for their places in your short term memories, I’m sure there will be elements of this place, Penleigh and Essendon Grammar School that will be deeply embedded in your long term memories. Maybe you’ll remember a certain teacher. Maybe a sporting occasion (26 marks I tell ya). Or maybe some lines you had to write out at a Friday detention, and I say that because fourteen years after I stood up to leave an English class early in year nine, I can still remember having to write out fifty times.

‘The period does not end when the ophacleide hoots. It ends when the master in charge, or mistress, says as of how, it has.’

I don’t even think that ‘as of how, it has’ makes sense, but I’ve remember it all the same.

Most of your long term memories will no doubt relate to the people who are celebrating with you here tonight. And amid the celebration of finishing, there’s also the sadness that in almost every case, you will not see as much of each other from now on. Of course you can always catch up at that English exam that’s on in, what is it, now, nine days, thirteen hours and fifty minutes, but you might have other things on your mind then. So enjoy the night, enjoy each other’s company, which will be a lot easier to do if I sit down and shut up.

Thank you for having me; best of luck for the next few weeks, and for the rest of your lives. 

Tony Wilson's most recent book is Emo the Emu (Scholastic, 2015), a rhyming ballad about a grumpy bird cheering himself up by visiting every state of Australia. Good tourist book. You can buy it here.

Clare Wright: 'In Search of the Divine Mother of the Macrob Sisterhood', The Mac. Robertson Girls High School - 2007

27 November, 2007, Melbourne Town Hall, Melbourne, Australia

Principal Garvey, teachers, students, parents, friends, distinguished guests – thank you for inviting me to speak to you tonight.  It is a great honour, and not a little daunting too.  I well remember my own Macrob Speech Night in 1986 – good lord, 21 years ago, can that really be true? – and what an immense privilege it felt to be seated in this great hall, let alone gracing its stage.

The last time I addressed an audience of Macrob students was at a Monday morning General Assembly when I was in Year 11.  I was the elected studentrepresentative on School Council and due to give my monthly report on Council business to the student body.  I remember being seated on stage in the more modest school hall, waiting my turn while the Guest Speaker gave her talk.  On this occasion the illustrious speaker was the novelist Helen Garner, the mother of one of my classmates.  Her daughter, Alice, had recently conducted a survey of her friends on behalf of Helen, canvassing for ideas for the talk.  What would we like to hear about?  What could she possibly have to say that would stimulate and entertain a polyglot group of smarty-pants’s like us?  ‘She can talk about anything she likes’, I said to Alice, ‘EXCEPT WOMEN.  Anything but women!  We know we’re wonderful.  We know we can do anything’.  With a dramatic roll of my eyes, I thus dismissed the logic of all those other notable women who had fronted up to our General Assemblies to inspire our dreams and ambitions with tales of their own achievements, and exhort us to make the most of our prodigiousskills and talents.

So after my indignant display of self-belief, I was deflated like a balloon when Helen began her speech like this: ‘With apologies to the girl who said she didn’t want to hear about women, that’s exactly what I’m going to talk about because I can’t think of anything more important’.  Perched up on stage, trapped between Miss Blood and Mrs McNair with nowhere to run and nowhere to hide, I felt a hot wave of humiliation wash over me.  I hope that tonight I don’t come away feeling quite so vulnerable and exposed.  If I look like a rabbit caught in the headlights of your scrutiny, at least you’ll know why.

Helen Garner later sent me a note – I have it still, folded tenderly in a little box of keepsakes – that explained why she had framed me like that.  She was amazed and exhilarated, she said, to hear the almost wearied self-confidence and optimism of girls of her daughter’s generation.  It made her feel, she said, like all the hard work of the women’s movement in which she’d so stridently struggled had been worth it after all if what had been created was a cohort of such headstrong, resilient girls.

I must admit that some two decades later,  I look back on that self-assured teenager I was and marvel myself at her certainty in the inherent power and ability vested in her womanhood.  I fear that some of the other intrinsic ‘features’ of womanhood that I have experienced, including infertility, traumatic child birth and postnatal depression, have knocked some of the stuffing out of that bright-eyed girl.  It would, in certain respects, be easy for me to regale you with tales of my own professional successes: my academic qualifications, my accolades, my teaching experience, my writing career, my work in federal politics, my media appearances.  Each of these areas has provided me with a great deal of personal satisfaction and a reasonable degree of public influence.  I am proud of my efforts and believe that my contribution to scholarship and public culture – particularly in the arena of feminist history – has begun to repay the debt I feel I owe to society for the opportunities afforded by my first-rate publicly funded education, my dedicated teachers and my ever-supportive parents.

But I am also mindful of what happened at my twenty-year Macrob reunion last year, at which a few dozen of my fellow alumni buzzed around in the new school wing and filled in the gaps since we had thrown off our grey blazers and long socks for good.  (Good riddance, we all said to long socks!)  Now it was my turn to be amazed by the fact that none of us was particularly interested in what others were doing for a living.  We all assumed that our talented former class mates had found fascinating, challenging vocations for themselves.  ‘I’m a doctor’ or ‘I’m a lawyer’ rolled off the tongue, but did not make a lasting impact.   Much to my surprise, what we lingered over were the pictures of each other’s children, secreted away in our wallets and handbags.  ‘This is my Lucy, and here is my Sam.  That was a few years ago now.  Here they are at Luna Park.  Lucy just lost her first tooth.  Sam was in a dreadful mood that day’.  The childless among us hung back, looking slightly chastened by the intimate sharing of birth stories and complicit laughter at our toddlers’ wild antics.

Was this 2006, or 1966? Hadn’t Germaine Greer claimed in her earth-shattering 1974 critique of patriarchy, The Female Eunuch, that biology is not destiny?  Could she have been wrong?  Greer, Garner and their international compatriots battled to change the attitudes and institutions that confined women to their roles as wives and mothers, limiting their participation in public life and confining their social purpose to one of reproduction.  But judging by the enthusiasm that my former classmates showed for each other’s happy snaps, was it possible that the communal gratification in our experience as mothers outstripped pride in our professional achievements?

These are provocative and potentially dangerous questions to be posing.  Women have, for over two hundred years, fought tooth and nail to overcome the prejudice and discrimination against their sex based on the notion that women are by nature best suited to the private sphere of home and family while men, by predetermined nature, are more appropriately stationed in the public sphere of commerce and industry.  On the eve of the centenary of women’s suffrage in Victoria, we should not forget that only one hundred years ago, women could not vote in this state.  Opposition to women’s citizenship rights was based on the idea that homes and families would be systematically destroyed if women were encouraged to take an interest in civic life.  We can now laugh smugly at such a crazy notion – and yet there is still much work to be done before we finally break down all the barriers to women’s advancement within and enjoyment of the public sphere.  Equal pay, paid maternity leaveand affordable, high quality child care will be campaigns my and your generation must win before we can claim that feminism’s work has been done.  (And that is only in a wealthy country like ours, not even dreaming of raising the quality of life for women in developing nations where contaminated water kills five million people every year.)

So why would I want to raise the issue of women’s intense pleasure and satisfaction with their destiny as mothers when Helen Garner’s generation of feminists fought so hard, and so effectively, to break women free of the socially constructed prison of conventional femininity?

Well, I suppose it because I believe my time at Macrob equipped me very well for many aspects of my life.  It buoyed my confidence in my intellectual capacities.  It inspired my belief that I could go out into the world and do whatever the hell I wanted to do.  It fostered a desire to make a difference.  It nurtured a democratic temperament that valued other people for their humanity, not their background or their status.  It developed qualities of independence and discipline and self-control.  It taught me to respect myself and to respect the authority of women.

But what it did not do – and perhaps this is not the role of public education, even girls’ education in this day and age, and believe me I am not pointing the finger or laying blame – what my very fine, much beloved school did not do was prepare me for the parts of a woman’s life that have nothing to do with achievement or success or advancement or independence or mastery or control.   What my non-professional experience of the world (thus far) has taught me is that life is not a performance sport.  We can strive to be the best student, or the best doctor, or the best lawyer or the best historian, and there will be tests we can take – or paces we can put ourselves through – that will mark and measure our pre-eminence.  We will be applauded and rewarded for our efforts.  But if we try to measure the accomplishments of our womanhood, and particularly our motherhood, by the same paradigms of success and failure, we are bound, like Sisyphus, to fail.  (Or, if it’s more apposite to evoke a Greek goddess, like Medusa, we are forever destined to have a bad hair day.) If we carry the principles and strategies of competition into our relationships, we inevitably come out the losers.

We have just witnessed an historic federal election that was very much, I believe, a contest fought over values. In the end, the electorate voted overwhelmingly to throw out a government that had sought to ingratiate into our culture the idea that ruthless disregard for the rights and principles of fairness and decency is justified by economic growth, material accumulation and unlimited consumption.  We now have a female deputy prime minister who has vowed to restore some of the autonomy and social consideration that all families need to hold tight.  Let us hope that the corporatist worship of private wealth and scorn for vulnerability will no longer set our public standards and drive our public processes.  How does this aspiration relate to my message tonight?  Well, I think the election results mirrors my strong sense that the prize at the top of the professional ladder can not be measured by economic value alone.  As women, we cannot expect to buy our way out of the deficits in our physiology, or the chaos of our emotional lives, or the unexpected pitfalls that might appear before us.  We can neither outsmart nor outspend the hard-wired contingencies of a woman’s life.

Let me make it quite clear that I am in no way advocating a return to the days when the shape and destiny of a woman’s life was predetermined by her sex.  Women are wonderful and we can do anything.  (Although possibly not all of us are wonderful enough to do everything all at once!)  But, in the end, what will secure our wellbeing, I believe, are the social connections – the friends, the family, the partners and the children – with whom we can share our weaknesses as well as our strengths, our doubts as well as our knowledge, and our fears as well as our convictions.

Motherhood may seem a very long way off to most of you.  The average age for first time mothers in Australia today is about 30, up by 3 and a half years since 1985.  You can do the maths to work out how many more years it will be, if these demographic patterns continue, before most of you start your own families.  And, if current trends persist, up to 25% of you will never become mothers at all. (So you’ll have to bring photos of your cat to your high school reunion.) Perhaps my reflections seem as irrelevant to you as Helen Garner’s talk about the 1970s women’s movement appeared to me twenty years ago.

Schools, like grandmothers, provide an important anchor point in the life of a young woman.  I recently lost my 92 year-old grandmother.  I had the honour of writing a eulogy for her funeral.  If I may, I’d like to conclude with some of those words, spoken with love.  ‘When I was feeling lost and alone as an 18 year-old travelling abroad, my grandmother consoled me with the words, “Always be true to yourself”.  She didn’t mean that it was okay to be self-centred or individualistic; indeed throughout her long life my grandma showed through her deeds that she was committed to public service.  What she meant was to trust in your heart and have faith in your judgment, staying true to your principles and beliefs’.

As you leave the familiar harbour of this venerable school, to chart new waters and navigate your own bold course, I hope that what you might stow away from my reflections tonight is a sense that to enjoy the full quality of life and experience that our affluent nation, our exemplary education and our hard-working feminist foremothers have provided us with, it is vital to nurture and develop the whole woman in you.  It’s vital to care for your body and your spirit and your heart as well as your mind.  And it’s vital to nourish and enrich the family, community and society in which you daily live through the practice of compassion and understanding.

Thank you again for inviting me here tonight.  I wish you all well for your future success and happiness.  And if you want to see the photos of my kids, I’ll show you later.

Buy Clare's fantastic book, for which she was awarded The Stella Prize.

Trevor Henley: 'Live and love life to the full, you don’t know how long or how short it might be', Year 12 Valedictory Dinner, Camberwell Grammar - 2015

21 October, 2015, Members Dining Room, MCG, Melbourne, Australia

Headmaster, Chairman and Members of Council, Special Guests, my Wife Kay, Members of Staff, Parents and Year Twelve Leavers.

Thank you for the invitation to speak tonight and to propose the toast to the Class of 2015.

In 1995, the first of the two year build of the PAC and Music School, I was asked to propose the same toast as the then Headmaster Colin Black wished to break the tradition of someone retiring to speak. So here we are 20 years later!

In actual fact I sang most of my speech that night, to a little “ditty” from the operetta “The Mikado”, something I will not attempt this evening. The then VCE co-ordinator, Mr. Geoff Shaw, asked me to delay moving to the lecturn so some introductory music could be played….so I duly waited and yes! The strippers music was played!

Anniversaries, Milestones, Graduations, Leaver’s or Valedictory Dinners and the like.

Are they that important?

Why do we celebrate them?

Yes they are important and we celebrate them as a mark of how far we have come on the journey of life.

Your birthday for instance, I think most of us would be pretty upset if our day of arrival into this world was not remembered. The day, as little boys, you moved from the Junior School or your Primary School into the Middle or Secondary School.

Your first pair of long trousers, your first school white shirt, the day you turned 18, obtained your license, your first “legal” drink in a pub.

Today we celebrate that you have completed your secondary school. This is a milestone in your life and you are about to take that somewhat forbidding leap away from the sheltered walls of Mont Albert Rd into the unknown. For some of you it will be total relief, “at last” you say, “ I am out”! and we, your teachers, completely understand your sentiments.

For others of you this will be a time of contemplation, reflection, exploration, to take those first unsure steps, gently feeling your way. For everyone of you it is the next phase of your lives, for you to make of it what you will.

As we celebrate this milestone with you today we also take time to look back, reflecting on what we have done and how far we have travelled from whence we came. It doesn’t matter if we are the youngest or the oldest here tonight, we all need to do this and be thankful for where we are at this time before we move on into the future.

The Class of 2015 has travelled quite a distance. Some have stayed close to home, never changing schools, others may have had one change of school, or a number of schools. Some will have travelled thousands of miles to change schools.

Having arrived at CGS how far have you travelled during your time here?

Perhaps these “vignettes” may bring back some memories.

At the house aths, a “hurdler”; having knocked over every single hurdle; gave up on the last one…. he simply walked around it.

One of the house captains was caught on a lunch date, during school hours, with CGGS girls.

Another senior office holding boy attempted to jump a wire fence whilst carrying a radio back pack…a broken leg was the result. Someone else knows the figures .345 quite well!

One of you mistook the cafeteria doors as opened and discovered them closed…. shattering them.

 “Nibbles” I hear has no hand to eye co-ordination, knows all the symbols in Naruto and was put on the “time out bench” by Mrs Beck.

One of you decided that it was more fun spending the evening playing “warcraft” than being at the formal.

Another of you “messed up” one of your peers new $200 shoes!

A certain English teacher ensures that every boy in his English class has “another name” besides the one on the school roll.

Soapsuds, Milk Bar, A—Hem, Hawkeye.

A certain musician, whilst struggling to be at school on time, finds it difficult to kick a ball straight, photographs all his food,  conducts date interviews for “the school formal” and owns a onsie!

The Clifford Head of House has outdone me in the colourful suit stakes.

One of you set off a Junior School fire extinguisher “on purpose”. Another ate bush berries on year 8 camp where the reaction was a swollen face to the point that he couldn’t talk.

There is always “one show pony” and from his early drama days in Junior School, nothing has changed…. at all!!

And one of the top sportsman here has always been too “cool” for school and preferred to be mates with the male teachers.

There will be many of you who will go onto  careers of great variety, and changes of career. Perhaps you will make a name for yourself in the nation or in the world. But not at a Frap Party on tour, then be despatched home!

Others of you will quietly go about your careers and life contributing in your own way to the communities in which you live. But hopefully not with a street name of “snake”.

How far will you travel?

What milestones will you reach?

In Sept 1971, I returned to CGS to teach the flute and in 1974 I was appointed Ass D of Music. The then Headmaster David Dyer and the Director of Music, John Mallinson were prepared to take a risk with me. And it was a risk.

A more inexperienced 23yr old, very young, a bit green, “wet behind the years” you could not imagine. Perhaps a little bit like you, about to embark on the next stage of your life without the security of school.

However I grew into the role, learnt on the job, watched and observed others…..discovered how to operate and perhaps more importantly how not to operate.  

I have been engrossed and fulfilled in my work here at CGS doing what I do best, nurturing, encouraging, persuading, cajoling, moving both furniture and boys around the stage and the school, letting people know exactly what I think! and having the occasional “hissy fit.”

Making sure I never wear the same clothing ensemble in any one week and to prevent members of the choir giving me a hard time, ensuring that my socks match my trousers!

But more importantly making music with the boys of this school.

I share this with you tonight because with determination, direction, listening, watching and learning, caring for others and to some extent the right timing, you can make your way and be a success at what ever you do. Try not to  allow failure to get in the way or prevent you from finding another way around the problem. If failure visits you make it a learning tool.

Some might say I haven’t travelled very far at all.

I feel I have travelled a very long way.

To quote Tony Little in his book ‘An Intelligent Guide to Education’, “Teaching is a noble profession. Teachers devote their energy and skill to helping the young develop into purposeful adults who, in their turn, may lead and change society for the better”.

Where else is there the opportunity to play a major part in helping to shape and lay the foundation for young people’s futures.

Joel Egerton, actor and film director, said in an interview, “School is something you will always remember. It is unclouded. Later events in life tend to become clouded in our memories, school doesn’t”.

I wonder what you leave behind?

What have you achieved?

One career at one school, a very special school, where it has embraced me and I have embracedit.

A place where I have been accepted for all that I am, and all that I do both musically, and in other areas.

It has been an honour to be a member of staff of this wonderful school.

Will you be able to look back in forty or fifty years and have the same feeling about your careers?

To have achieved more than I could ever have hoped or dreamed.  Many people aspire to this, but few attain it. I feel so fortunate to be one of those people who have had that experience.

Will you have this same feeling at the end of your careers? I hope so.

Remember the old saying “ that in giving you receive.”

I have received far more than I could ever have asked or hoped, from my colleagues, from parents and friends and especially from you young men.

Hopefully, we your teachers and your parents have given you the right set up for the future. You in return have given us joy, fun, times of frustration and worry, laughter and happiness in working and living with us.

If you receive, during your working life, what I have experienced and received during mine, then you will be very lucky men indeed.

If I was to leave you, the Class of 2015, with a message tonight, it would be that you have a happy and fulfilling life and career.

Live and love life to the full, you don’t know how long or how short it might be.

Stay safe, but be prepared to take a risk, you never know where it might lead.

Be kind, considerate and generous to your fellow human beings.

Remember that in giving you receive…

“Spectemur Agendo”…..By Your Deeds You will be Known.

“I slept and dreamt that

Life was joy.

I awoke and found that

Life was duty

I Performed, and behold

Duty was Joy

The past is History

The future a Mystery

And the Present

Is a Gift of God”                

(by: Rabindrath Taqore)

Ladies and Gentlemen, while the boys remain seated, would you please rise and join me in a toast to the Class of 2015.

21 October 2015, Members Dining Room, MCG, Melbourne, Australia

Lance Jabr & Jeffrey Herman: 'Suck it Yale: A Musical Journey Through the High School - Experience' - 2008

June 2008, Mountain View High School, Los Altos region, California, USA

Faculty and distinguished guests

You know, the only thing better than completing high school, is the chance to convey the entire experience, to a captive audience, through a lengthy speech comprised of highly personal anecdotes.

A chance which I now plan to take full advantage of.

Now I realise that some of you may be less than excited for what is about to pass, so in an attempt to fix this problem, I’ve invited my friend Jeff up here to accompany me, with some mood setting music, that I hope will enhance the speech greatly.

[music wafts in]

Relaxing isn’t it?

Now the speech is designed to exactly what YOU want to hear.

And if you just relax, and let this experience move you, you’ll find that as soon as you’re not interested in what I’m saying, your subconscious will automatically fade my voice, gently out of your senses.

Time will fly by for you, and you may even slip in and out of consciousness, as you are left to relax with the soothing sounds of the keyboard.

So now, if everyone’s ready ... I would like to begin our mystical journey through the high school experience.

[jaunty music change]

Our adventure begins with freshman year, easily our best year of high school although you may not appreciate it, [speaks deliberately inaudibly with large gesticulations, music carries on]  ... that finding a date to homecoming is easy, if you sweat as much as I do, let me tell you ... [lapses into inaudible monologue again] ... that’s when I realised that everyone else’s bodies were changing too and I didn’t have to be embarrassed about what was happening to me. [lapses back into inaudible] ... by that time it was already four in the morning, and it would have taken me another three hours to have got all the maple syrup off a the walls [lapses into silent gesticulating] ... and that brings us to senior year.

Now don’t worry, your senior year of high school will be much simpler than the previous three, because, you’ve pretty much been checked out most of the time, but there is one little thing you should get out of the way, before you start caring, and I think I can best describe how that feels, with this metaphorical story.

Let’s say you’re a single guy, and you decide it’s time to start thinking about getting married. But you’re still young, you don’t want to rush into anything, so you spend years searching for the perfect girl. Every chance you get, you travel all over the country just to meet new people. Some you like more than others, some are too nerdy, some party too much, but finally, after all your searching, you think you’ve found the perfect one.

[dramatic music]

Oh she’s incredible, she’s fun, she’s smart, she’s sexy, everything you wanted in a woman.

You decide to propose.

But - you only get one shot, and you can’t screw it up, so you spend months agionising over how you’re going to do it. What you’re going to say to her. You set a deadline for yourself, so you cna’t put it off forever.

[Music faster]

And as the deadline approaches you begin to get more nervous, are you good enough, yes you perform well and get good marks, but is that all she wants? Does she need a man who can lead, or maybe you should have volunteered to coordinate that project last week. Does she want a man who can show compassion, or maybe you should have done more community service?

And maybe when that old woman asked you to help her across the street, you should have tricked her and laughed, it feels like everything you’ve been doing in your entire life has been leading up to this moment.

Finally the deadline is here

[Big dramatic piano]

Oh you’re so nervous. You’re sweating all over her. It’s like there’s ivy around your neck. She’s way out of your league. Is the ring big enough? Is it too late to go back? How many mistakes have you made so far? Can a public institution funded by a state government that’s millions of dollars in debt really provide the same level of education as an overpriced private school?

And then it’s over. You’ve submitted your proposal and there’s nothing more you can do.

And she looks at you ... and she says ...

[piano staccato]

Mmmmmm let me get back to you in like four months.

[jaunty music]

That’s pretty much what applying to college is like. You know what sucks the most about it? She’ll probably say no. But guess what you didn’t tell her. You proposed to like, hella backup chicks just in case she rejected you, and they’re all begging you to come and marry them instead.

So suck it Yale, I could never have married a smoker anyway.

Alright, now that we’ve completed high school, it’s time to start thinking about the future.

You know, a lot of people tell me that in like, twenty years, I’m going to go to a high school reunion, and I’m going to laugh at how stupid I was as a teenager.

I’d say, that sounds like a pretty good plan, because as teenagers, we’ve had to put up with a lot of ridiculous stuff to get to where we are today.

And as adults, we’re going to have to put up with a lot more ridiculous stuff to where we will be in twenty years.

And that’s been true for every generation. And I think the most important thing we can learn from that is, things just don’t always make sense. Life for example, if a couple of random guys give this really weird speech at your high school graduation, that you didn’t get at all, maybe it was just a dumb speech that wasn’t meant to be taken seriously 

Or maybe, maybe they were trying to say that life is ridiculous, and that being able to make a fool of yourself in front of a lot of people and then laugh about it, is a great skill that’s vital for success in all fields of life.

But they were probably just being dumb. Anyway, it’s not important because I doubt that’s happened to anyone here.

Although ... if it did happen to you, make you sure you never forget the guys who gave that speech, because I bet they were awesome. And, attractive, though you may never have noticed it for the entire duration of high school.

Just a thought.

[music restarts]

Alright, I guess that pretty much sums up everything I have to say.

The only thing left is, congratulations to the Mountain View High School class of 2008, and to everyone who helped us get here.

I look forward to laughing with you all about this, in twenty years.

Thank you.

Evan Bilberdorf: 'I put the fun in fundamentally incapable', Rundle College - 2013

June 2013, Rundle College, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

My name’s Evan, and I’m here today to reflect upon the past years of our high school, predict our outstanding, bright futures, and hopefully reduce you all to tears.

I would like to start by saying this is a huge huge honour ... for you to all be here listening to me, what a treat for you!

This speech is lovingly titled, life beyond the Rundle vest... and I’m going to begin by saying, I’m not going to feed you all the Hallmark versions of a valedictory address, you know what I’m referring to [mimics] ‘as I look out here, I see future pioneers of technology, lawyers and surgeons' ... Don’t get your hopes up!

No no it’s cruel to give you such high hopes. We’re all going to be broke students for the next sixteen years, so get used to it.

Having high school come to an end is a bit surreal.

If anything for the reason that now I’ll have to buy my own loose grey slacks so that construction workers have something to whistle at.

More importantly, it accurately and concisely ends what has been for most of us three six, and for some twelve years of education at Rundle.

Throughout those years we’ve created special bonds with the physical campus, the teaching staff, and undoubtedly each other. Admittedly, when I began writing this, it was difficult to encapsulate what Rundle had been to me.

Apart from a place to go and worship Mr Howk every day.

And a place that says ‘there’s no excuse for speeding in the parking lot’. It sounds like a challenge!

I liken it to a big community, our diversity being our strength. And I would like to say that it has been a privilege to be part of this community for so long.

We all know the warm, safe, familiar feel of our Rundle sweaters. You know, forty percent nylon, sixty percent cotton. And pre-washed with the tears of school children.

For a long time now, this has been our identity. Something that identified us merely by appearance.

I grew fond of the uniform, because, personally I’m sick and tired of being outdressed by the overly stylish Keenan McVeigh.

The only one who could pull it off would be Lucas with his longshawn suit.

Although the scratch wool uniform made it seem as though we were all the same, it enabled us to have a certain unity, a togetherness. Similar itchy, red patches of eczema could only draw us closer together.

It was in those clothes that I learned math, English, most of chemistry, Mr. Franklin has a very soft voice, it’s not my fault, however this stylish ensemble has served a larger purpose than just covering my tattoos all these years.

It has become a constant in all of our lives. Something that nobody will physically miss, but the familiarity and the security we will all wish to have back.

So when I was looking back at the time spent at Rundle, between the embarrassing haircuts and everyone having braces at some point, it was the only thing that was consistent.

So when we finish our last diploma and we take our sweaters off for the very last time, we aren’;t just saying goodbye to highly fashionable outer wear, we say goodbye to years of memories and experiences that we’ve had.

In this regard, I’m not surprisingly not ashamed to admit that I’m going to miss the uniform.

But most importantly all the people I’ve met in it.

I would be remiss had I not take time to actually thanks some people.

Without # and her help, this speech would not exist, and I would certainly not be literate enough to read it. And with out Miss # something Ukrainian I would not actually be graduating, so her wonderful introduction would never have existed.

I thank both of those teachers from the bottom of my heart, that is already filled with love for myself.

When I look out at this auditorium today, I’m surprised that the # of Tim # isn’t actually here. Manages will surely be sad to see one of his best customers go.

What I do see are the smiles of good friends that have grown up with me, through the truly greasy years of junior high. It is with this sight that I speak directly to you, my fellow graduates.

There are seventy seven of us graduating today.

I feel as though I barely know some of you, something that I regret.

I also regret knowing far far too much about some of you.

For example, nobody should ever be comfortable enough with somebody to ask, ‘Brooke, yogurt doesn’t’ have an expiry date, right?’

To hear the answer is ‘you’re fine, the good folks at Yoplait would not do that to you.’

Your all lucky to see Josh here today, and not in his natural habitat of the West Side Gym. I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t try to bicep curl his diploma.

To have the future Yankees hall of famer, Ryan Cozoli graduate with us today, it’s a true honour.

There’s one guy who doesn’t need a high school diploma to know how to spell win.

And Angus, I won’t make any jokes about you. Please don’t hurt me!

This is the first time I’ve seen some of you girls without Starbucks cups in your hands. I’m al little weirded out that you were able to sit still for so long. Yeah, resting heart rate, it’s weird isn’t it?

I would like to have something insightful to say about the future. But the simple truth is, I’m absolutely terrified of it. I have not marketable skills, reading gives me a headache, I’m not a particularly hard worker.

I put the fun, in fundamentally incapable. And the can in ‘cannot do most simple tasks’.

Most of you will never see me again, depending how often you check the FBI’s most wanted list.

Although I’ve established that many of you are much more talented than I, and thus more qualified to give this advice, my final and only partition of wisdom is this:

Regardless of your experience here over the past years, we have shaped each other, for better or for worse. We all wore that uniform together, becoming strong, capable individuals. And that is due to the people you are sitting with, right now.

Try to remember them as they are now, and not at that tall awkward stage of grade 8 that some of us may still be in.

I would like to truly thank all of you for giving me the honour of speaking on your behalf. 

But most importantly, for being the best community that I could ask for for the last six years of my life.

We’ve now all gotten through high school, which is no easy feat. Most importantly, we got through it together.

Congratulations, class of 2013.

Unknown: 'Sorry I forgot to tell you. Sometimes I dream in musicals', East Jessamine High School - 2008

May 2008, East Jessamine High School, Nicholasville, Kentucky, USA

I want to say how honoured I am to stand before you all.

My friends, my classmates, my family, my academic adjudicators, and the people who thought their connecting flight to Chicago was leaving out of this terminal.

Go outside. Take the moving sidewalk. But before we begin, Southland has kindly asked me to point out your emergency exits on the left, and the right of the building, and in case my speech crashes, your seats do double as a floatation device.

Now I’m not trying to start off by making fun of Southland. I don’t think you realise what a rush it is to speak in a building of this size and magnitude. I google earthed this place on the way in to give to some of my family as directions, and it took up two pages. It’s very impressive.

Yet before I stood before this crowd, I thought I wouldn’t see any friends.  I thought there’d be too many people for me to pick you out one by one. But that’s what I found to amaze me standing before you. When I look around, I see people who over the last twelve years, I have grown very close to. So close to, today, instead of giving the speech I had in theory planned, I’m going to tell you about a dream I’ve had.

No not that dream, don’t worry.

But over the past twelve years, I’ve had a some sort of reoccurring dream about this day. I dreamed that I would stand before you all, and I would get to say those words that you’ve been waiting to hear over those twelve long years ... twelve long hard painful years. Congratulations East Jessamine High School Class of 2008, [singing] ‘looks like we made it after all’.  Sorry I forgot to tell you.  Sometimes I dream in musicals.

And then after I sang that song, some [ ??] would come up here, and ask us to take these funny looking cat toys off our geometrically shaped hats. And moving to the other side. And then in my dream, they play that awful, 'As We Go On' song, and I would shed a tear. Now today is the day I get to live out that dream, standing before you all today. Someone’s going to come up here - tell us to move our tassles, and god forbid they play a different song at graduation one year!

I suggest Freebird if you’re looking for something for next year’s ceremonies.

But one thing that’s different about today and my dream. Okay a couple of things are different. You’re all fully clothed. You don’t have animal heads and angel wings. And I’m not going to have to change my sheets when I leave here hopefully. But one thing solely is different. Standing before you today, the most emotionally charged day of my life to this point, the first major milestone on the path to my inevitable successes, I thought I would need to cry, but for some reason, I have no urge to tear -- happy or sad.  

Partially because I know if I did, WK would never let me live it down. For how many times I’ve told the story over the years, how in fifth grade every time Wes would steal my chocolate milk, and I’d poke him in the stomach, and once he cried. But a more legitimate reason for my lack of tears would be this ... and I can’t express it better than Dr Seuss said before me:

'Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.'

But when I read this quotation, when preparing for this speech, I felt kind of selfish thinking that I would cry today standing before you all. Would I look back at the memories we’ve shared together as a class over the past twelve years? I should be smiling for the rest of the summer, maybe even longer if I didn’t have to go to college at the end of it.

And for the record, I am going to college, I’m sorry if you lost that bet.

Standing in the cafeteria, tenth grade, watching AH teach our grade the very practical definition of collateral damage in a food fight as he hit everybody around us. Hitting JB in the face by accident in French class. Winning ‘Air Band’. Losing Air Band, even though, we kinda shoulda won, whatever.

The West Jessamine student section holding up a picture of Justin and I in a very compromising position. I have somebody else, I don’t want to talk about it in front of everyone.

These memories are more important than anything else I had over the last twelve years. More important that this cap and gown. Or this ... [class of 2008 scarf] ok whatever that is. But here’s what I want to make sure that you know this. These should not be the best twelve years of your life. That is a pain I don’t wish on any of my enemies. If CATS testing and portfolios are the best years of your life then you have done something wrong.

So this is what I want to stress to you today. As my last, and honestly I never expected very much from any of you, first demand as Commander-in-Chief, I want all of you to leave here today, and make memories so happy, so great, that if these memories that we’re talking about today’s sole job was to make a shelf for your new ones, they would fail the weight. Because that’s what life’s about.

So as I sit down today and have somebody come up here and tell us to turn our tassles, because I doubt they’d let me do it for fear that I’d sing again,  I start to put this day to memory. Because that’s what I realised I want all of my memories to come from. Dreams I got to live out, I can now reflect upon down the road. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has dreamed about walking across the stage in this ridiculous attire. It means a lot to all of you, it’s why you’re still here. So that’s what I want to tell you. Live out your dreams, quickly, because you don’t know how much longer we all have left. Live them out, but once you have, lay them out, fast enough to make new ones, live them out too. So one day, when I meet you all again down the road, we’ll have some awesome stories to talk about.

Congratulations, I honour you all, and good luck. Not that any one of you should need it.