Graduation Speeches

In the immortal words of the 90s band Semisonic, "every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end". As we prepare for a brand new chapter of our lives, we have to remember what we are leaving behind, and what we are taking with us as we move on. 

At first, it might seem like this is the end of so much. We won’t have laps at lunch, spend time with our teammates or have to remember the six day schedule. We won’t be at Brown. But that isn’t what really matters. The important parts of Brown are what we can carry with us, the lessons we have learned and the memories we have made. The past three years have changed us in many ways and prepared us for what comes next.

Our middle school experience has been uniquely turbulent, affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, gun violence, and the war in Ukraine. But our time at Brown hasn’t been defined only by those issues.

In sixth grade, there was the first, terrifying day in a huge new school. Everyone was trying to figure themselves out. I was anxious at first, intimidated by all of the change around me. 

Just when I was starting to find my footing, the pandemic hit, and school went online. Each of us experienced it a little differently, but it was a big change for everyone. Still, we adapted. We learned to be flexible when things went wrong, how to stay close with friends when we couldn’t see them in person, and that teachers could not make us keep our cameras on no matter how hard they tried. 

Seventh grade was full of challenges too. Just as we adjusted to zoom, school switched to hybrid and eventually back to in-person learning. As a remote student throughout seventh grade, I may have been in the minority, but it wasn’t a typical school year for any of us. Still, we - both students and teachers - worked hard to make the best of the year despite the obstacles we faced.

Eighth grade has been a relief. With everyone back in school, sometimes life felt almost normal. Then, just as we were getting comfortable in our first full year at Brown, high school appeared on the horizon. What will it be like, and how will we adapt to these new challenges? We’ll have to figure out the answers for ourselves.

Brown has done so much for all of us. It’s amazing to think of how far we’ve come from those first days of sixth grade. In the past three years we have learned and grown in unexpected ways as we explored our passions and overcame difficulties. High school will pose challenges too, but we will adapt as we have before.

This is our middle school. It will always belong to us. Everyone here, the teachers, the students, the staff, have helped us become who we are today. So are we ready for high school? Who knows? We just have to go for it. Thank you.

      Good morning everyone. On behalf of the Brown Middle School class of 2022 I would like to welcome teachers, alumni, administrators, staff, parents, grandparents, great grandparents, siblings, guardians, friends, imaginary friends, and of course the indubitably very special class of 2022. Graduates, Congratulations we have made it. After 3 years through some of the craziest times in the history of our country we have finally made it through middle school. For some it has been a joy and others a challenge, but I can confidently say that everyone here has learned something vital in these last years. Think of our first day of middle school as sixth graders. We timidly walked through the front doors of what seemed to us a gigantic school. Then came the firsts: The first day of school, the first class, the first advisory, the first lunch. We would forget where our classes were and when we arrived, they were awkward and silent with most of the empty space filled with the talking of a teacher. We were confused by the 6 day schedule, forgot the combination of our lockers, and were afraid of the 8th graders. To this day, though, I still am afraid of 8th graders. As 6th grade continued we got into a groove as we followed the trends that our school had created like the Oak Hill Challenge, the South Challenge, and the Bigelow Challenge for the truly daring. We realized that maybe middle school wasn’t the worst thing in the world. Then the pandemic hit. 

At first we were happy to get a couple weeks off school, but after listening to the news the reality began to sink in that we wouldn’t go back for the rest of the year. 7th grade then came which was defined by everyone’s least favorite platform, zoom. Then eighth grade came and mostly everything has gone back to normal. 

Looking back, the pandemic has been terrible for the world and for us but we can still take a couple important lessons away from it. The first is that it reminds us how important family is. During the pandemic the problem for some people was they couldn’t see their family and for others it was they only saw their family. But face it you have spent a whole lot of time with your family over the pandemic and they are so very important. When we got down during the lockdown, family was the only thing that picked us up and made us feel better. They talked with us about the state of the world, found activities for us when we were bored, and made our dinners a little bit less lonely when our world was so dark. Family has been important to us forever but because we relied on them so much during the pandemic it allowed us to fully appreciate them. I also count dogs as part of the family. I know that many people have gotten a pandemic puppy which is an excellent choice. 

The second thing that the pandemic has taught us is how to find small pleasures in life. Because at first we weren’t allowed to leave our houses we were thrown off our daily routines not being able to go into work or school. With all these things taken away from us, we had to learn to find small pleasures in life with things in our houses like old board games or by rereading our favorite books. Some of us resorted to spending time in nature or doing arts and crafts and others resorted to using TikTok and Instagram or by just spending 7 ½ hours a day on Fortnite. You have to set limits, 8 hours is simply too much. I know choppers were back in the game but you still have to limit yourself.  

The third and final thing that we’ve learned is how to bounce back from difficulties. This whole pandemic has been a gigantic challenge. For some people it’s been a challenge because they’ve lost parts of their community. For some it’s because they couldn’t stand wearing masks. And for others it’s because they have so many unanswered questions. For example: How many more mutations of coronavirus will there be? When will the pandemic end? How do I remove the government tracking microchip from my body after I get the vaccine? Graduates, the point is that the pandemic has been a three year struggle. So much has happened since the first day of middle school. We’ve gotten a new president, climate change has gotten worse, and Boston sports teams haven’t won a single championship. Because we have persisted and pushed through this pandemic it means that we have learned to be resilient. Nothing that we will face in life will compare to what we’ve faced through the pandemic. In our future we will all be prepared for whatever the world throws at us. Our class will not be defined by the fact that we’ve been through a pandemic but by what we do as a result of being through it. As philosopher Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson once stated in his modern day poetry masterpiece “Face Off” “Put in the work, put in the hours.” Graduates each and everyone of you are special and have the power to make an impact in our world if you put in the work and the hours. Whether you go to south, north, or private school you will succeed in High School and life. Yessir Baby. Matteo scoots out.

During my three years at Brown Middle School, I have been able to grow and see the world from a different perspective.

I have grown about six inches from the first day of sixth grade to the last day of eighth grade. Gaining those six inches has had a profound impact on how I saw the world. 

Being taller finally allowed me to grab things that I wanted at the top of the shelf. It allowed me to sit in the front seat of a car. It has allowed me to shoot a basketball with more ease. And seeing things from this level… and this level… is quite different.

But seeing things from a different height is not the only way my perspective on the world changed.

These three years were plagued with many hardships, namely COVID. Living through these times has forced us to quickly adapt to this new world that COVID has created… and that made me realize something. Our success doesn’t just come from our natural talents and abilities; it comes from how well we can adapt to an ever-changing world. 

I would like to share a famous quote about flexibility from Bruce Lee. He said, 

“If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup.

If you put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle.

If you put water into a teapot, it becomes the teapot.

Now water can flow or it can crash.

Be water, my friend.”

We have all been like water these three years. We found ways to make life work in our own homes when the outside world shut down. In school, we were dropped into a new learning environment without much of a warning. We had to trade our textbooks and worksheets for computers while learning how to learn over Zoom. We all struggled with this new lifestyle for a while. But the ones that were able to quickly accept this new reality that COVID created, and fit seamlessly into it, were often the ones that started to thrive.

I want to finish by reminding all of you to be like water. Because flexibility, my friends, is the key to survival in a world that waits for no one.

Thank you.