Valedictorian and Salutatorian Speeches

Sophie Legget, Valedictorian:

Hi class of 2020, and congratulations. I’ve only been at Woodstock for a short time, but I’ve met some of the kindest, most wonderful people I’ve ever known here. I was taken in like family when I moved here, and I felt more welcome than I ever did in the town I’d lived in for 12 years prior. For this I will be forever grateful, and this alone says so much about my classmates. I can’t stress enough how uniquely amazing each and every graduate of this class is, and how proud I am to be a part of this group.

I don’t need to convince you about the tragedies we are facing as a generation. Not only are we graduating in the midst of a global pandemic, but we have for years been struggling with the realities and the imminence of climate change, with systematic and cinematic injustices toward racial minorities, with setbacks to every aspect of civil rights. We face these tragedies at a global scale now, at a scale we are mentally unable to process; every instagram story and news headline reminding us of everything going on around us. And no matter how many times my grandmother says it’s a small world, the world is incredibly vast, incomprehensibly complex. It’s easy to look at this vastness and become overwhelmed. It’s easy to shut down, to be cynical or pessimistic, to give up when you realize your smallness in the midst of everything so large. I know how passionate and kind the hearts are of my classmates and I know the feeling of wanting to help, wanting to make change, but not knowing where to start. I ask myself, what can I do, as one individual? Will my efforts be worth it? And I am afraid.

But the very convenient truth hidden in the overwhelming largeness of things, is that everything big is made of smaller parts, every year made of the moments of our lives, and every big change made of the choices we make every single day.

Here is how I remember high school: I remember the first time I sat on the sidelines of a soccer field with my new Woodstock teammates as they jokingly introduced themselves and gave me advice on which classes to take. I think of the enthusiastic, purely blissful embrace of 10 girls after scoring a goal, and the singing and dancing that takes place on the bus ride home afterward. I remember the first time I played mario kart with my new best friends, and the spontaneous trips to farmers and white cottage where we made fun of Maggie’s driving and Blake’s bread addiction. I remember getting into deep talks in the SOS room, or the round tables at the library, or in my basement before everyone fell asleep in the same bed. I think about night hikes, and ice cream after AP tests, and busy nights serving Pad Thai and rice soup; of running up Rose Hill, searching for salamanders at Marsh-Billings, biking to school and regretting it. I think of my little neighbor handing me wildflowers from his backyard and of the cats that say hi to me as I walk into town. When I remember high school I won’t remember my grades and scores, my classes, who won each game or scholar’s bowl tournament. What I will remember are these little moments where I felt love from my friends and family and community, the times I got to express my love for them.

Life is made of these little moments, and if you don’t pay attention you might miss out on all the beauty that makes up the bigger picture. But if you do pay attention, you can make sure your moments are full of love, and so too will be your life. And so too will be the way you touch the lives of others.

What the importance of small things means for your future is that you don’t need to figure out exactly how to change the world and solve every problem. You don’t even need to know what career path to take or where you want to live. What you need to be sure of is your ability to affect everything around you with small choices, and your ability to tilt the scales in the direction of good and peace and justice. You don’t need to picture yourself winning prizes or running companies or fixing climate change. You need to picture yourself nailing one interview, and calling your friends across the country to ask for advice, and picking up one piece of litter. You need to sign one petition, donate one dollar. You need to feel the dirt as you plant your very own garden in your very own house, and your parents' or your childrens’ hands as you hold them to cross the street. You need to see yourself taking walks in the morning before the roads in your city get busy so you can see the way the birds rejoice in the cool air, or go even smaller and just see yourself putting on your shoes. You don’t need to save lives, as long as you make at least one life better. You need to spend your life awake, living with intention, conscious of the effect your choices have on the big, big world. Because when you look at absolutely everything at once it’s impossible to know where and how to begin. But if you look at today, the next hour or even minute, you know that the answer is here and now, and in any way you can. In the words of Maya Angelou, “good done anywhere is good done everywhere.”

As we look forward and around us, it’s so easy to feel overwhelmed and burdened by everything we are tasked with as a generation to fix, even in our own lives, even right now. But there is so much power in remembering the weight of what we do in our little days in our little lives. Suddenly nothing is impossible. And really, nothing ever was.

I have so much faith in my friends in the class of 2020, because I have seen first hand the way they welcome and love, the way they work hard and have fun, the way they can always make the best of any situation. Don’t ever forget the moments you’ve spent here, even as you live a thousand more. Whatever you do with your life I am positive it will be filled with love and passion and a desire to make the world a better place. I am proud and honored to congratulate you on this incredible achievement, and to remind you that each minute you spend in love and joy is worth it. Thank you, and congratulations.

Sam Powers, Salutatorian:

“Are you prepared for people to tell you, ‘No,’?”

This question was posed to me by a member of the School Board at the beginning of my senior year.

While presenting our idea--The Committee for Student Voice--Allison Leibly and I were asked if we were prepared for people to tell us, “No,”, because, I assume, our future propositions to include students in their school administration would be far too radical.

Admonishingly, he added: “ we’re still your parents,” and that, “sometimes you have to do things that you don’t like.”

This School Board member must’ve felt like he was giving us a Crash Course in Adulthood, because he said it with the confidence and condescension of a tenured professor.

Looking back, it’s funny. Our first presentation to the School Board about our idea to better involve students in the policy-making of our school and the second question we were asked was intended to let us know how our voices weren’t mature enough to be taken into full consideration. It’s hilarious, really--the School Board that put us on their agenda to speak about our ideas is the same School Board that wants us to be prepared for, “No.”

“We’re still your parents and sometimes you have to do things that you don’t like doing.”

It caught me off-guard. I was being scolded in front of the entire School Board. I realized something that has stuck with me this whole year: to adults I am not to be taken seriously.

But, what has puzzled me is, for as long as I can remember, adults have, from time to time, looked me directly in the eyes and told me, “Your generation is our future.” Young people can relate. Whether it’s your uncle or grandmother or a random friend of your mom’s, there has been a time in your life where a person older than you has passed on the wisdom, that our generation will be the one to save the world, that we are the ones who will need to be stronger than they, that the children are our future. And, they say it so seriously, as if they are not directly plagiarising Whitney Houston.

What I have gleaned from my interactions with adults is not only am I young, naive, idealistic, and not to be taken seriously, but I am also the future and smarter and kinder and wiser than the generations that have preceded me.

And, I have seen this dichotomy play out in front of me so clearly this year.

When I was asked to present to my School Board, I mentioned changing our schedule for e-learning to accommodate a teenager’s sleep patterns by having the school day start later. And instead of seriously considering the proposal I was invited to make, I was met with a School Board Member claiming that a change in schedule would not be proper, because, in her experience with teens, we are lazy regardless of the time we wake up.

And these are not isolated incidents. These are just a few examples of when I have felt diminished by the same people who hold my generation in high esteem for our capacity to change the world.

“Are you prepared for people to tell you, ‘No,’?”

Of course we are. How do you think we’ve been operating for 17 years? We’ve been working on the assumption that we won’t be heard and we’ve been conditioned to be grateful when even the slightest change has been made.

The major accomplishment of the Committee for Student Voice this year was getting urinal dividers to increase privacy in the men’s bathrooms. A student said he felt uncomfortable when peeing at the urinals, so we ordered dividers to increase privacy in the restroom.

For the longest time, I held this example up for myself and others as a reason why we should keep trying to include students in their administration. Because, I thought, even minor change was a step forward. But, I’ve come to realize that this is how my generation has been conditioned to operate. We’ve been taught to be grateful when we are heard even the slightest amount. We’ve learned that any progress is still progress.

We’ve been told to be appreciative when we get our way, because we’ve seen that a lot of things haven’t gone our way and might never go our way. That is unacceptable.

You’ve given us a frightening world filled with conflict, division, and disease and you want us to be grateful? You want us to appreciate increments when we so clearly see that, not only does climate change have a timer, but is itself a ticking time bomb?

And, you could just dismiss me as another angry teenager holding petty grudges or a scared child lashing out, but that means you would have to dismiss what you have created. You can’t ignore me, because ignoring what I’m saying means ignoring what you have done. “Take care of your Monster,” my teacher loves to say, because it is you, the grown ups, who hath wrought such destruction and division.

To the adults listening, you may be feeling attacked or angry, and, for that, I apologize. I do not mean to make you feel hurt. I mean to make you feel uncomfortable, just like me. Don’t say the future rests on our shoulders. Do something now. Do not rely on the young to clean up the mess that has been made. We are not the future, because we are living in the same present as you.

To all the young people listening, I am sorry. I am sorry that we have inherited such a messed up world. I know you feel angry and scared and you have every right to feel that way. But, just because we’ve been dealt a terrible hand does not mean we should not play. We are on this Earth at this time, whether we like it or not. We have been charged, not only by adults, but more importantly by our fellow peers to be better, to do better, because we have been left no choice. So be angry. Vote, protest, cry, dance, laugh, make friends, but remember our charge: to be better.

Thank You.