Whether you have given a speech, your child has/will, or you have just listened to speeches in the past please share your thoughts.
What are the basic rules? I assume no self aggrandizing as the intent is to represent the class as a whole. Should you steer clear of talking about yourself entirely?
Keynote speakers offer wisdom, advice, and inspiration. What is an 18 year old supposed to be offering? Seems it would be kind of ridiculous to try to offer any of the aforementioned.
What if the student doesn’t feel that their high school is the “best” and they didn’t have an “incredible 4 years?” What if it feels completely insincere to thank “the school board, the superintendent, the principal…the custodians for setting up today?”
These seem to be classic elements.
How do you write a light-hearted, positive speech without being hypocritical, boastful, irritating, or just plain boring?
At my old school we had a topic for each speaker and try outs to speak. We gave generic onward and upward speeches that were edited by the admin for content and we were coached on our performances beforehand. The event was more choreographed.
At kids’ school val and sal each give a speech. Little editing and no coaching. The unwritten guidelines seem to be 1) be inspiring (esp val), 2) review the four years of common experiences, and 3) be entertaining (esp sal). Val has tended to talk about self, most successfully in an aw shucks way. Sal has tended to get the funny speech.
Son who gave the speech thought of common experience type things over the four years: teachers, movies, pop culture, school sports and events. He referenced those in a humorous way. He gave some thanks, but wasn’t heavily into that. His high school is a large, diverse one. He wanted to speak to his group, but also to the kids who weren’t in his group. he was self deprecating when he spoke about himself.
Sorry, I cannot contribute any useful suggestions to this. A long, long time ago, I gave the valedictory address at my high school. Fast forward a few years from that, and my brother was going to give the valedictory address for his class. At home, several days ahead of the event, he ran through the opening of his speech, which caused me to say, “That’s awful! You can’t give that speech!” It was truly awful. I mean Awful!
It was my earlier speech–and I genuinely did not recognize it.
So, if even the speaker may forget the speech after a few years, that thought may take the pressure off. Of course, my speech was better forgotten than most are!
Lizardly has good advice, to speak about common experiences. I suppose the one good thing about my speech was that I did not talk about myself at all–it was just a distillation of the “wisdom” of an 18-year-old.
I was a valedictorian, too. My speech was terrible. I mean, just awful. Horrible. Embarrassing even at the time.
In retrospect, I think I should have asked my English teacher for advice and asked the principal’s office for copies of past speeches if they were available. But the thought didn’t occur to me at the time.
At our high school, the two grad speeches are given by members of the senior class. The entire class writes a speech in their English class, teachers select their idea of the best speeches, the speeches are prepared and presented to a committee of some type who decides on two speakers. It has nothing to do with class rank and the school names a very small group of class scholars, but not val and sal. The topics are usually related to the senior class, with some catchy metaphor or other, and include both humor and optimism that they are strong, capable, caring bunch, sure to go on to great things. They may make references to music, movies, events of the last 4 years. If a member of the class has died, they are often remembered.
Looking at college graduation speakers, many of whom have significant accomplishments, they seem to weave their experiences into the broader picture of grads making their way in the world. It is not just about their accomplishments, but the context of the event. I think it is possible to consider the audience, acknowledge the presence of relevant people and speak about how shared challenges can move the group forward. Humor, as long as it doesn’t consist of super-insider jokes, may have a place. So does humility.
At my kids school neither the val or sal give a speech based on their position. Instead any student can try out for class speaker. Often chosen is a student who had challenges in school which were overcome or well dealt with ( low SES student in wealthy district going to an Ivy, student who " came out on Facebook" and started gay straight alliance, student on the autism spectrum who is award winning photog) though the chosen speech is almost always based mostly on shared experiences.
It’s shared experiences that students love to hear about. Last years included discussion of loss of long time beloved principal, discussion of schools fight with neighbors about parking/ transportation which discussed NIMBY issues. It was great!
One don’t: don’t reference any inside jokes with friends unless it’s a school-wide thing! Our val did that at my high school graduation, and it was very uncomfortable for all of the rest of us sitting there.
Best college grad speech I ever heard (college) was the guy who got stuck rock climbing alone and had to cut off his arm to get out. He talked about the lessons he’d learned from the experience. (Like tell someone where you are going for starters.)
In the absence of some fascinating personal story shared experiences is probably the way to go. FWIW I can’t remember a thing about any high school grad speech I’ve heard. The best speeches are short, humorous and not too preachy. Not an easy task!
If you want a laugh try to find the Modern Family episode with Alex’s valedictorian speech from middle school.
Other than that, I’d go for the more generic – shared experiences as a class, pop culture you all lived through, thanking teachers etc. Short and sweet always works.
Nobody will remember anything about your speech unless it is either embarrassing or funny. I’d suggest going for funny, but run it by a number of people (including adults) to make sure it actually is funny and not offensive. Mentioning the shared history of the class, and thanking beloved teachers/administrators is good.
The biggest issue is that the val speech follows the sal speech, which is a lot easier as it addresses the class. Many in the audience will recognize themselves as various parts of their life together is reminisced. The poor val has to avoid speaking too much about his or her journey, cannot repeat the “inside jokes” and has to be profound or funny.
Add that by the time the speech comes, most everybody is bored to death, and you have a recipe for disaster. I would think that keeping it as short as possible and mix just a couple of personal anecdotes (the val earned that right) and a simple engaging farewell message (what the val is all about) that finishes with the usual Latin phrase.
My personal last line would be: Fellow classmates, as your next journey to college begins, I’d like to share what I learned from those sleepovers when visiting colleges. To all of you, Carpe … Noctem!
Funny, a HS classmate and I were just talking about this yesterday. Our class was large…over 1000. There were at least six or seven student speakers. It took a long time to just award 1000 diplomas. Neither my friend nor I could remember any of the content to the speeches…or who was even the Val. But we both agreed…there were too many speakers.
Our Val (we think) was a physics geek at a time when this was not particularly “in”. To be honest, he didn’t connect on a day to day basis with the classmates.
I still remember the speeches at S’ high school graduation 9 years ago. The val at son’s graduation tried to be philosophical and it was dreadful even to those of us who enjoy that sort of thing. The vast majority of the kids hated it. He talked about striving to get “there,” but when you actually get “there,” it’s no longer “there” but “here.” You are right, 18 year olds don’t have much wisdom to impart and what they do have, their audience likely does also. The sal, on the other hand, gave a great, humorous speech about shoes, saying that with their robes on the only thing different about them in appearance was their shoes and gave a generally inspiring speech about taking what you’ve learned in high school (included common experiences here) and building on it–a kind of be your own person but don’t forget your roots speech. I am not doing it justice, but it was funny without being goofy, and appropriate for everyone.
I think there were 4 student speakers at S’s graduation, but I only remember two. I really liked one of the speeches a lot, but S hated it. Go figure. I think it was because he didn’t like the speaker. I had no such baggage. It was 2008, and the kid in question focused on going forth and being politically involved instead of apathetic.
Wow. I think its fascinating that so many of these schools have so many speakers. We have ONE (who tries out for the part and can be ANY student ). Unless they have tried out for Speaker and won, the Val and Sal at my kids schools just sit on stage and are acknowledged at the end 'Now we present her diploma to our VAL Sallly X" etc… They never say a word.
We have VERY brief remarks from the Principal and Superintendent. That’s it.
I was val and one of my best friends was sal, so we decided to give our speech together. She was going to Texas A&M and I was headed for UT. The schools are big rivals, so we had fun with that.
I found the speech in my parents’ house a few years ago. It actually wasn’t too bad, probably because my dad helped us with it. He’s a good speaker.
My D was Sal last year. I just went back and watched her speech. The general theme/outline was that now is the time to become adults and do what we have practiced and learned about. She spoke of her hopes for her class rather than giving advice, and was positive and lighthearted. She did have a quote from a famous person, some pop culture references (current and from their generation’s upbringing), mentioned some things most students would have learned about in class, discussed some common experiences, such as fundraising projects undertaken by the class, and a neutral reference to a hot local political issue while encouraging her classmates to vote. There were also a couple of brief inside jokes/nods to mentors that only certain people would have fully understood, but made sense without that context as well. She tried to keep her large audience in mind with her topics, and did keep it blessedly short. Writing and giving that speech was the last big challenge of high school for her to conquer. She’s an excellent conversational writer, and her younger sister the theatre kid made sure she could handle the delivery! The speech was well-recieved and a happy memory.
(IIRC, the val gave a mention to a couple kids from the class who passed away during their high school years, in his version of discussing common experiences.)
It was 2008, and the kid in question focused on going forth and being politically involved instead of apathetic.