Attended my kids’ HS graduation last Friday.
Now I have long thought that graduation ceremonies - even the ones I was in - are among the most boring exercises conceivable. There is just no way to make reading all those names anything less than tedium, the venues are often hot and crowded, and through the years countless speakers have tried - and failed - to come up with interesting and/or inspiring remarks.
Why don’t speakers at graduations realize that no one - NO ONE - wants to hear what they have to say? (At least unless the speaker is a celebrity, or a tremendous speaker that is.)
At my kids’ graduation they had 3 kids give speeches. Okay. I can see that. It is their day, after all. And the principal gave a speech. This is her last year, so I’ll give her that.
But why did anyone think we wanted to hear speeches from 2 members of the local school board? And why did those speakers think they really needed to go on for 10 minutes apiece?
The first one was to “accept the school gift.” So she could have just said, “This is a great day, and I accept the generous gift.” Especially as it was thundering and the clouds were gathering at the time.
Instead, she went on and on - speaking at an incredibly slow pace - some shit about “the gifts you give and the gifts you receive.” No shit, she seemed to be the only person amused when she joked about not being able to find page 6 of her remarks. 6 pages?!
The skies opened shortly after she finished, and everyone got drenched.
The second board member was supposed to “certify the class” or some such. So he could have said, “I officially acknowledge that these kids have completed the requirements for graduation.” Instead he chose to go on for ten minutes citing bon mots from that great thinker - Ronald Reagan. Man, if you are going to bore me and waste my time, don’t piss me off as well. Through an amazing act of will I avoided “booing” him.
But what is it about speakers at public events such as graduations. It isn’t about you. Brevity, is far better than the substance of anything you have to say. So just shut up already.
Amen to that, Brother/Sister. I just went to my friend’s last Wednesday. I was there for three hours in the hundred degree heat, and the first hour and a half was taken up by speakers. Out of the thirty speakers that were there, only three had something worthwhile to say, and they were the kids.
Still, my friend was very happy that I went and, hey, that’s cool.
Robin
It could be worse. For my ceremony in graduate school, the commencement address was done by an English professor in our department who’d won some poetry award or something. Inside the program was one of her poems. Not only was it NOT graduation-themed, but it was full of graphic violence and profanity (one of the lines had “fuck” in it). As she talked, I read the poem and hoped my mother had forgotten to bring her reading glasses.
Just as she started wrapping up her forgettable speech, I began to relax a little. Then all of a sudden she began to recite her long-ass poem aloud. My stomach clinched up when she came to the “fuck” line. The applause she got was weak.
How inappropriate. I have no problem with profanity in general–I use it all the time. But my nieces were in the audience, and my mother hates cuss words (she won’t even let me literally say “B.S”). It was all just very strange and wrong for a formal , family event.
You know, even when they are celebrities, we still don’t need to hear them go on interminably. I had to listen to Mike Farrell go way over his allotted ten minutes because he apparently hadn’t taken the time to check how long his speech was. Thing is, most of these celebrities are celebrities for something other than their speechwriting skills, where they’re noticeably average.
I agree. That is why I didn’t bother going to my College Graduation. I heard a lot about it too. Some said that I would regret it one day (it has been almost 20 years and I don’t.) Others told me that they “admired” me for making a statement. Pffft. The only statement I was making was that I have a low tolerance for boredom…
If for some unfathonable reason I am every invited to speak, I will start by promising to keep it short and end by doing so. That should garner some applause.
I don’t even remember what the speaker at my HS graduation looked like, much less what he said. If any future graduation speakers are reading this, just remember to keep your speech short and to the point.
I just did try-outs for our Senior Speaker this year. We limit the speeches to 3 minutes, and pick the best of the bunch. Even the faculty speaker is limited to 4 minutes. Add a 3 minute speen by the Validictorian, 3 minutes by the principal, mostly certifying that the class has met standards, 2 minutes accepting same by School Board fuck-wit (can you tell we are at an impass in negotiations?) and on with the reading of the names. 15 minutes tops, from start to finish. Why? Because as the OP noted…nobody cares!
I remember when I was a kid and my dad taught at a college. I got formally dragged to graduation a couple of times, when some favorite student of his was graduating, but mostly my friends and I would sneak in and hide in the bushes and laugh at the boring, boring people. Although I did like watching the graduates come up and get their degrees…in small doses.
What particularly stands out is one speaker who, I kid you not, went on for two hours. That’s right, 120 minutes. My friend and I listened for a couple of minutes, gave up, went away and played, and came back later and that idiot was still droning on. To this day I’m surprised that the entire audience didn’t just get up and walk out en masse.
There’s fewer blessings worth getting than a graduation speaker who manages to be humorous, poignant, witty and brief, throwing in at least pop culture song reference.
The speaker at my graduation had a 15 minute speech extolling the virtues of hard work and education, warned us not to get frustrated when we encountered people who succeeded by dumb luck and reminded us that “fortune favors the prepared mind.” He plugged support our alma mater and managed to work in a “Whoot – there it is,” reference. That was it.
The speaker was Rev. Calvin Butts of the Abbyssian Baptist Church in New York, and that 95 South reference was all the more startling given his famous anti-rap crusades in the mid-90s.
Go figure.
I don’t remember a single thing any speaker said at my high school graduation, mainly because one of the speakers had a stroke during his speech and had to be wheeled off the stage by a pair of EMTs. That kinda overshadowed anything else that went on that day.
You win the thread, yBeayf.
Ah, this has resurrected a hazy memory of my high school grad; me in a borrowed pink bridesmaid gown praying my tampon would outlast the ceremony.
A few years ago my nephew matriculated in a small town that makes South Park look like Paris in the 20's. The graduating class totalled about 35, and that total included a few kids bussed in from the next village over, whose main industry is pot cultivation. All in attendance were looking forward to a country potluck meal, a ceremony brief enough to diploma up a few dozen kids, and then onto a series of private balls to be held in basements(for the parents and visiting grownups) and cow pastures/Crown lands under unauthorized hemp cultivation for the youth. Yer basic Canadian social occasion.
I will gloss over the 20 minute candlelight entrance processional (slow tempo march,much in the style of bridesmaids at a Zilla wedding) the slide show highlighting each grad, the valedictorian speech, the jokes and skits from the hosting duo of The Only Teachers In Town Under The Age Of 35. The main speaker for the ceremony was the lifer kindergarten teacher of the burg. She'd known most of the kids since they wore size 6x short pants. She could tell stories of when they'd wet their pants in story hour.
*And proceeded to for the next 2.91 hours.*
She gave a 5 minute testimonial to each of the 35 kids present, which sounds sweet and all, but if you are one of the 35 sitting up on the stage in hour 3 and counting, wearing a scratchy suit borrowed from your uncle; or in a pastel gown, hoping your remembered to select the Extra Plus tampon, the thrill quickly lapsed. The audience could sneak out for a smoke or a pee, but the grads were trapped. By the time Teach made it to the C's, my table discreetly bugged off to someone's house for an hour and a half of rye and 7's. When we returned, she'd made it to the R's. The kids were about ready to repeat grade 12 if only they could get the hell off that stage before midnight.It’s trending down some places at least. I went to my sister’s highschool graduation a couple weeks ago. There were four speakers: The senior class president and three valedictorians. Each kept their speech under three minutes (the third valedictorian who used the majority of his speech to witness was under 2:30). No adults made speeches at all. To certify the class, the principal just said they were certified and that was that.
At my graduation, the class president spoke, and we had something like seven valedictorians. No other speakers though.
Our speaker was the principal at some other high school, if I remeber correctly. The only thing I remember about his speech was that he started talking about the importance of having Jesus in your life, and it pissed me off.
At my high school graduation, it seemed like 100 people got some kind of fucking award. Guess what? You can’t give everyone an award. If you do that, then it cheapens the value of the few awards given to those who deserve them. Enough with this “everyone is special” mentality. Not everyone is special. Most people are mediocre. Only a few stand out - give THEM the awards. If everyone is at a high level of achievement, then give awards to the best three people.
We had the Miss USA from 22 years earlier. She spoke for 45 minutes while 400 high school students sat and waited to graduate. I had to pee the entire time. I skipped my University graduation because of her.
The speaker at my JC graduation was the local ambulance-chaser. It was right after Reagan’s death, so I was treated to a speech easily an hour long about Reagan. Somehow he managed to work Mohammad Ali in there, too. All this in the noonday Mojave desert sun. He was under a shady pavilion at least, we were all out in the open. At some point in the middle of his speech he remarked, “It sure is hot up here!”. Yeah no shit dude, it’s really hot down here. Then he continued his speech another 20 minutes. I think that was the last year my JC did commencement outside during the day. Lucky me. :rolleyes: All this for my first time graduating ever. I just wanted the whole thing the hell over with.
We just had ours today. I missed having to do a speech by three thousandths of a point, but it would have been a good one. It was about dinosaurs and water and things like that. Instead, the one was about baseball and the other sounded like a graduation-themed mad lib. “Such and such said this, while Webster defines ‘suck’ as follows…”
All in all though, it was quick. We went through that puppy really fast, and everyone noticed it. We even got in several slow claps. I think we trimmed off atleast 30 minutes from the one last year, maybe even more.
I am reminded of the Simpsons episode ‘Homer at the Bat’. Mr Burns has to inspire his team to win. He says something like “I want you to think of something inspirational, someone else has told you, and get out there and win”. Wish I could remember the exact line.