My High School Graduation Speech

As I prepare to make the transition from living—and learning—at home to studying at Providence College, I have been reminiscing on all of the incredible opportunities I have been granted over the course of these past ten years. Before I embark on this next step in my personal journey, I would like to share with you all the speech that I wrote and presented at my high school graduation. I was so honored to speak side-by-side with my friends and classmates on that day, basking in the love and support of my family, former teachers, and fellow homeschoolers, and I hope that perhaps my story can inspire others who are struggling to take the reigns of their own (or their children's) educations.

Thank you to everyone who has walked with me every step of the way. Without further ado, here is the speech!

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My dad once told me that the most important skill to learn is how to think critically.

I don’t remember how I responded when he said that, but, being a fourteen-year-old, I can imagine that I sighed, didn’t look up from my phone, and rolled my eyes when he turned away. That was all just for show, though, of course, because those words stuck with me and have maintained their position at the forefront of my mind for years now.

Every day, I try to live by that sentiment. Every time I read something, I’ll read it again when I remember what he said. How can I look at this from a different angle? Is anything missing? Does it all add up?

We live in a fast-paced world that unfortunately doesn’t allow for a whole lot of this. For example, if you take out your phone, open Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook, and scroll for a minute, you’re going to see a hundred little tidbits of information. How much of it’s useful? How much of it’s true? How much of it are you even going to remember for longer than a few minutes?

School, in my opinion, is similar to Twitter in a lot of ways. Kids sit in classrooms for six hours a day, and they’re fed all this information in big dumps, then asked to recite it back a couple weeks later, and after that they’ll probably never think about it again. They listen to the same couple of voices over and over again, every day, just like how we choose a small circle of accounts to follow on social media. Sometimes, if they speak out of line, or say something a teacher doesn’t like, they’ll get sent to the principals office—muted, blocked, banned from the platform.

Questioning authority, critical thinking—it’s almost entirely unheard of in our education system. You can’t freeze time in a classroom and spend extra time looking at something from different perspectives when the goal is to cram as much information into your head as possible.

This is, obviously, why I’m so glad my parents pulled me out of school in third grade. Over these past ten years, homeschooling has allowed me to thrive as a critical thinker. I get to spend time taking the classes I’m interested in taking, reading books I’m interested in reading, and writing papers I’m interested in writing. I’ve been given the time and opportunity to explore and research topics that I might not have ever been able to if I had stayed in public or private school. Most importantly, I have been able to be exposed to so many different people with a vast array of worldviews and perspectives—people I never would have met if I were stuck in school all day. 

People from whom I’ve been able to learn include college professors, homeschool parents and teachers who come from all over the area and carry all sorts of different experiences, and both older and younger homeschool students who have served as role models, mentors, friends, and people to whom I can serve as a role model and mentor. Being able to listen to and converse with these different types of people on a daily basis has provided me with knowledge of so many different backgrounds, careers, and points of view. My favorite part of it all is that we don’t always have to agree on everything or share the same ideas—and we can still get along, and we can learn and grow as a result of our interactions with each other.

This, to me, is what critical thinking is all about—looking at a topic or an issue from as many perspectives as you can, listening to others, and starting dialogue. I am so incredibly grateful to my teachers, my peers, and my family for allowing me to experience such a unique, extraordinary, and unforgettable education.

Thank you!