David's Graduation Speech

My fellow classmates: Today, I have been invited here to give an account of my wonderful time at GMS.

First of all I’d like to thank all my teachers, Mr. K, Coco, Meg, Lois, Mrs. L, and Mrs. Mehta, Madame Denise, I have learned.

The first day of school: Meg and Lois were great at making me feel welcome. They introduced me to everyone. Meg gave amazing science and geometry lessons. Lois would always be ready to help me with my writing projects. They both helped me excel in math during first, second, and third grade. In first grade I made friends with Nicole Surman, Ella Cohen, and Emily Red. In second grade I would visit Upper El regularly and worked with Sean Savett, Seth Engel, and Gardener Butterworth. I made friends with Alex Hunter and Ken Panis who were first graders and they would also visit the Upper El to work.

In third grade, early in the year, I found I had completed almost all the materials in Meg’s classroom. I was also the only boy in the third grade, so I started doing specials with the Upper El. Then I transferred completely to the Upper El and Mrs. L became my classroom teacher. She could give the greatest history lessons. Instead of her just telling us about the subject we are allowed to ask questions and make it an interactive lesson. During that year I discovered the joy of Credits and Debits. Credits were a sort of classroom currency. If you did something good you got a certain amount of Credits. If you did something bad you got Debits, which would take away Credits. With enough Credits you could buy a night off homework or a jolly rancher.

That year we did LINX. LINX is a project where you build an assignment out of wood and paper pieces. I was teamed with Seth Engel and my sister Amy. We were “commissioned” to build a vehicle that could go down a ramp and travel three meters while holding a brick. We made many test runs that failed, but eventually it worked, only just making three meters.

The next year I went to Friends School Haverford. I made some friends but I was way ahead of the class. During that time I was in my first professional play: “All My Sons.” At first I wasn’t learning much so I begged and pleaded and finally was allowed to return to GMS. I started learning at my own pace again and met Nia Hall and Meredith Noll. In the winter of that year I was in my second production: “Macbeth.” It was difficult having school and the play but Mrs. L helped me configure my homework schedule so I could get it done. In fifth grade the classroom changed: We were now in the room under the Lower El classrooms and we had twelve kids instead of six. Into the classroom came Ken Panis, Alex Hunter, Luke Williams, Alek Pickard, Kevin Kelly, and Linnea Jones. It was different, but it worked out. In the fall of fifth grade I was in my third play: “La Vie en Bleu.” Again, it was difficult, but, again, it worked. That year was the greatest because I was with other boys in the classroom.

All good things must end, however. I was expected to be Great in my next play: “The Forgiving Harvest.” Yeah, Great. That was the name of the character. The show would take up too much class time at school so I had to be home schooled for the last three months of the year. My class did get to see one of my shows and that was fun and thankfully I got to go to graduation. Then this year. Well Miss Mehta came and got us doing things I hadn’t thought possible like making solar cars! This year we studied American history so I made a model of the CSS Virginia also known as the Merrimack and Alex Hunter made one of the USS Monitor. That was great. (And it came out exactly how I pictured it!)

About then I started writing this speech. Now here I am speaking to you and we can move on to the new frontier and middle school, thank you and good afternoon.