8th Grade Graduation Speech

I was asked to give a brief talk at the eighth grade graduation. Although I’m a Waldorf high school English teacher, it’s a great pleasure for me to substitute at the lower school on occasion. Here’s what I said:

Good morning – I’m delighted to be here on this significant day.  I learned recently that in Australia they don’t call us substitute teachers, they call us relief teachers. I like that, because no one could be a substitute for a teacher like Mrs. Giles, or any of the teachers at this school, but it has been an enormous pleasure to relieve them on occasion. We’ve had some intriguing writing workshops over the past three years. One workshop in particular I wanted to remind you of today – it took place last winter, during a dark, snowy, bitterly cold late afternoon. We had the idea of using gardens as metaphors to describe your classmates and yourselves. And if you remember our discussion, using gardens as portraits is complex: it’s not like using a house or a tree as a metaphor. Gardens are different – we go into them and dig and plant, then we leave them. We go back into the house. Or we invite friends into our garden. Or we go through a garden to get to a car. So the concept of this writing practice was challenging, and when I read through what you wrote, I was astonished at what you revealed: the richness and depth of your feelings, your intelligence, your talent as writers, and your insight into and compassion for your friends and yourselves.

Here are some examples:

The garden is entered through a large open golden gate. A yellow butterfly flies by. Everything is stately, serene. But then a child races through the white flowers, holding a branch of cherry blossoms. She hangs a lantern on a branch and then runs off, laughing. The grove is still again. But the red and yellow lantern glows in the sun, and pink blossoms are scattered over the sparkling fountain.

Looking through the lifting fog of the morning, the sun peers through the branches of the maple and strikes an ancient sundial that shows the whisper of a shadow. To get into this garden, you need to go through an iron gate. Inside are white roses, red tulips, and fragrant lilies, swaying in the quiet breeze. The grass around is thigh-high and dark green. The serenity stays true, yet a cloud peeks over the mountain in the distance, deciding whether to drift away or come closer.

On a rocky coast, a house stands – a hidden paradise in a busy world. The sun-shadows fall across the mossy ground, illuminating all kinds of flowers: bright green flowers, representing the young boy she once played who didn’t want to grow up. Other flowers represent her future, the characters she is going to play. There is one flower, a little off the beaten path. It is pale yellow and represents who she is deep down, and all the secrets she will reveal one day.

The garden is perched atop the highest building, like a guardian of the city. For generations, it has given hope and inspiration to countless people, a bright spot in the gray that surrounds it. Christmas lights strung years ago shine and twinkle among the morning glories and petunias on the trellis. Sweet peas run wild, unleashed from their rusted pots. Buttercups peep up from the cracks in the asphalt. The night sky, still velvet blue, has flashes of red, yellow, pale pink, holding back laughter and color until the fiery globe of the sun peers over the skyline.

I hope that for the rest of your lives you continue to look at the people you meet as changing gardens, with all the lush color that surrounds them.

You’ve lived a long time – you’ve been together a long time. You’ve dug, and planted, and watched things grow, and up till now much of your garden has been arranged and managed for you. Now it’s up to you. During the next four years, you’re going to do much more of your own creating. Those of you who are going to the Waldorf High School,  I look forward to many more writing workshops, and those of you who are going somewhere else, remember I’m always available as a resource.

I want to leave you with this thought: the whole world is your garden.

Make the most of it. Enjoy it.