Graduation Speech It has been a long four years, but here we are, ready to graduate. We worked hard to get to this point, but we did not do it by ourselves. We owe a huge debt of appreciation to our teachers for sharing your talent, knowledge, and time with us. We know it was your job to do it, but you made sure we stayed focused, and reached our goals. You took time to explain assignments, and allowed us to come to your classroom after school for extra help when you could have gone home to spend time with your family.
You put in effort to make lessons more interesting so we would not tune out. You demanded excellence from us whether or not we wanted to give it. To our parents, thank you for supporting us in more ways than it is possible to count. You dragged us out of bed each morning, made sure we were fed and clothed for school. You made sure we was out the door on the bus stop on time, or drove us to school yourselves. You helped us with homework, paid our class fees, and listened to our complaints. You commiserated over our daily dramas, but you tried to give us enough space to learn how to work things out for ourselves. To our custodial staff and lunchroom attendants, thank you for keeping our school clean and safe. To our principal, vice principal and all the office staff, thank you for keeping things running smoothly so our teachers could concentrate on us. To our guidance counselors, thank you for listening and trying to keep us on the right track for graduation. Without your help, some of us might not be graduating today.
As you can see, behind each graduate there must have been at least a dozen people providing support in at least a dozen ways. The best way our graduates can show our gratitude is to make the most of the opportunity we have been given, and go forward into the world with the intention of making it a better place for the generations that follow us.