Recently I got an email that I might have dismissed as Not My Job. But the email was from a teacher. And this teacher clearly needed my help.
Hi David,
My name is Ariel Margolis. I am an 8th Grade Teacher at Kehillah Schechter Academy, located south of Boston, MA (USA). One of my school's special traditions is to have every 8th grader compose and deliver a graduation speech. As the teacher in charge of the ceremony, I want to give the very best I can to my students so that they not only feel empowered to deliver their words but also give them important skills that they will need for their futures.
I was wondering if you would be willing to speak with me to share your thoughts, ideas, and suggestions along with best practices about speech writing and delivery that would help make my students' speeches pop and as a result, have my students shine.
Please let me know if you are willing to speak with me.
Thank you in advance.
Best,
Ariel
I didn’t answer Ariel right away. In fact, I slept on it. In fact, before sleeping on it, I drank on it. The next day, I wrote Ariel back through a clarifying hangover.
Ariel—
I understand why you're looking for help. Your task is impossible! How many speeches are we talking about here? How long are the speeches supposed to be? How many days and nights will the ceremony last?!
More importantly: How in the world are all these kids going to find something candid, fresh and worthwhile to say to fellow students who know full well that all they're thinking about is summer break, and making it last as long as possible because on the other side is the terror of high school? And how are the other students and parents going to bring themselves to listen to one another grind through these platitudes? This “special tradition” that you speak of sounds more like a hoary habit, and a guaranteed snoozefest for everyone involved.
The idea of which personally offends me, a thousand miles away in Chicago. That's because I'm editor of Vital Speeches of the Day, which means it's my job to search the world for vital speeches. Most days, this feels like scouring the Indian Ocean for Malaysian Airlines Flight 370. Why? Because most speeches delivered in the world are mind-numbing. Why? Because children learn very early on that a speech is a compulsory ceremonial thing, rather than a voluntary communication thing. So CEOs, nonprofit directors, government officials and church elders use speeches to do exactly what they learned as children that speeches are for: saying nothing, at length. This is not a proper use of precious human time.
Besides, these are eight graders. Even theoretically speaking, how many of them could have developed a genuine idea that hasn't occurred to their classmates a thousand times?
This ceremony is going to be torture, Ariel, for everyone involved. And you're the only person who can stop it!
And the good news is, you don't have to stop it. Just alter it. Instead of asking them to “compose and deliver a graduation speech,” simply have them write and tell a story that illustrates the significance of their time at Kehillah Schechter Academy. Tell them the only requirement for the story is that it be true (even if that means it's preposterously exaggerated and full of outright fabrications). “No ideas but in things,” said the poet William Carlos Williams. No speeches but in stories, says Vital Speeches editor David Murray.
If you can teach your students to stand in front of their fellow travelers and give meaning to life's long slog by organizing it into mythology that welds individuals into a community—well now, that's something worth doing. And something that will make them valuable citizens for the rest of their lives. It's a special tradition indeed.
That's the extent of my thoughts, ideas, suggestions and best practices.
Even if you follow my advice—and I understand if you don't; special traditions don't change easy—I can't guarantee you a scintillating graduation ceremony. Lots of kids, like lots of grown-ups, are pretty dreadful storytellers. But if your school is truly an interesting and distinctive place, there's a chance that the graduates' stories will harmonize, and something truly magical and memorable could take place. Whereas, with the Forced March of the Graduation Speeches, there is no chance of that at all.
Whether or not you take my advice, please do let me know how it goes.
Best regards,
David Murray, Editor
Vital Speeches of the Day
How did Ariel respond? He took a couple of days, during which I assumed he had written me off as an asshole. I always forget that teachers have actual work to do.
Finally he wrote back to say:
"Your response was… TOTALLY HILARIOUS AND WITH MUCH TRUTH TO IT. Being part of this school and its traditions, I can fairly say that unless members of the audience have a close connection with the speakers, they would probably rather (a) melt ice (b) swallow a pitchfork or (c) both."
He shared my advice with the heads of the school, who also received it well, one writing back:
"I love that you wrote [DAVID] and even more so loved his answer. I HATE graduation speeches and I HATE the quotes from Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers). None of this is genuine and it is written to please the adults."
The ambitious Ariel is looking for professional speechwriters to help the students craft their stories. Anyone interested may reach out to him at amargolis at ksa-ne dot org.
The rest of us wish him luck in his attempt to change the stubbornest tradition in one school—and then the world!
Hi David,
I agree with Ariel that public speaking is a valuable skill, and I really like your approach to it.
If they do what you suggest, they’re not writing a (yawn) speech, they’re telling a terrific, personal story. This lesson might stick with them when or if any of them ever become speech writers or speech deliverers (or both).
Meanwhile, they’re also getting valuable experience telling these stories in public, to a large but presumably sympathetic audience. What an amazing introduction to a potentially terrifying activity.
My friend Bill Sweetland is scarred from two graduations he has attended: one, at an elite Chicago public high school and the other at an esteemed private liberal arts college. Bill writes:
***
Your letter is full of light-hearted good advice. In fact, you pull your sword out of its scabbard just far enough to show Ariel the gleaming steel of your forged and hammered speechwriting wisdom. Dropping this too-involved metaphor, may I say that your letter took me back instantly to O—’s high school graduation at Walter Payton High School in Chicago six or seven years ago.
The commencement speakers, graduating seniors, lied like troopers to please Walter Payton H. S. administrators, who were the real inspirers, editors, and authors of the hypocritical garbage and nonsense about world peace, hands across borders, life’s ultimate goals, experiences that changed my life, and other topics that these amateur flatterers, these children, had neither the experience nor the common sense nor the skill to make interesting or valuable. IT WAS DISHONEST, MEDIOCRE, SELF-SERVING, AND DISGUSTING FROM START TO FINISH. Sickening. Revolting. Enraging. Stupid. Worthless. Contemptible. The epitome of a completely anti-intellectual “education,” and a discredit to everyone who attended and listened uncomplainingly to these falsetto raptures about life and love and ultimate meanings—pure shit.
Four years later, I went to O—’s graduation from Carleton College in Minnesota. Same thing. Amateurish lying by people who by now should have been old enough to know better, simply to please the dullards on the faculty and in administration who had made 50-75% of them “honors” graduates, thereby de-valuing the Carleton honors degree to ZERO. Again, I was sickened and depressed by every single speech given by these priggish, smug, complacent, pseudo-worldly, would-be Tartuffes, who imagined they were (a) imparting new truths and wisdom to their frantically bored auditors, and (2) successfully pulling the wool over the eyes of their dim-witted idealist (idealist in the worst possible sense of that word) professors who had taught them NOTHING about writing, public speaking, being honest with oneself and others, being intellectually aware, and avoiding platitudes and clichés, especially that most nauseating kind of cliché, the Graduation Speech Thought-Cliché. God!
Excellent words from David and Bill. I do think anybody who wants to inflict the task of speechmaking on students should, at the very least, make sure the kids understand that the point of a speech is to entertain the audience, whether through humour or storytelling. People in grade eight don’t have profound ideas, so this isn’t going to be a TEDDY talk. Just as any writer should think about who’s going to be reading his or her words and why that person should give a damn about what he’s writing, speechwriters need to think about who’s listening. Our culture is so solipsistic with its stupid gadgets, social media, selfies and constant broadcasting of our news and views that people have forgotten the importance of “the other.” The other is crucial. If you don’t have an engaged audience, buddy, you’re just doing a sad little monologue.
What’s amazing, Kate, is that people are still polite enough to sit through bad speeches, which still occur at least as frequently as they ever did. Is it politeness, or is it just human empathy?