Middle School Graduation speech excerpts

It was seventh grade, and I sat on the rock in the sunny clearing on my quarter acre Upland plot and listened. I felt the warmth of the September sun, I heard the leaves rustling, and I watched a chipmunk scurry across the ground; I was surrounded by life in a moment of perfect calm.

It was spring, and we slipped and climbed over large rocks covered in moss as we followed the path of the river. We stopped to measure the slant of the river, touch the different types of sediment, collect and measure rocks of all sizes, and pick up the trash floating downstream. And as we felt the water running through our toes, we began to understand what a watershed was.

On our River of Spirit odyssey, as we sang in churches and synagogues of Boston, we let our voices blend together and rise up to the ceiling. In that moment, it didn't matter what we were singing about, or even what language we were singing, it just mattered that we were singing together.

~Izzy Snyder

Hilltop Middle School is one of the best things that has ever happened to me. I have been transformed. It started the first week of school when we went to Upland. My mind was flooded, thoughts that I couldn't comprehend were everywhere. I realized that I am a part of something so much bigger than what I could fully understand. I felt that I was exploding with self expression: poetry, journaling and painting. There was something inside of me that felt so right. It was there, in the woods, I felt a deeper connection to myself and to others. I know not everyone feels the same way about being in nature, but for the first time this did not bother me. I discovered that my friends, teachers, and classmates respect my differences and opinions. 

~Bella Bonneau

Each piece of my experience taught me a lesson I will hold dear forever: the quadratic formula, five paragraph essay structure, standing where Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth led many in the Civil Rights struggle. Each piece of knowledge or experience I have gained has been woven into a chrysalis. Memories, feelings, encounters, inexplicable discoveries: steam rising in the crisp air of the morning from my hot cocoa at Upland, discovering how the removal of cat tumors fits into the greater Brattleboro community, the constant joking banter I share with my teachers, young Alabama children's arms wrapped around my neck. It is not just facts or lessons I have gained here, it is experiences, relationships, fascinating connections of how we live, all stitched into creating the whole of what I have become. Every color painted onto my wings, from minuscule realizations to obvious encounters, has changed me as a human in this world.

       ~Greta Wolfe

I think for most of my life, I've always been a wanderer. I was able to realize that about myself and keep wandering because of the feeling of acceptance I had during my time at Hilltop. That's what reminded me of one of the earliest memories of when I arrived here. It took place in fifth grade during recess on the playground. I had decided for the first time to get in line to play four square. I waited a really long time and didn't know any of the rules. When it was finally my turn I stumbled up, and the ball came at me, and I whacked at it, and someone said, "Archer you're out," and that's when I walked away toward the back of the line, and soon I started crying. I was crying because all the memories from fourth grade of people saying things like, "Hey Archer, you are such an idiot, it's hilarious," and another time saying, "Do you think in one hundred years Archer will ever be smart?" or, "He needs to go to the pound so somebody can pound some sense into him," came flooding back. But instead of laughing at me for crying, someone asked me if I was ok. They told me how they got hit in the face with the ball the first time they played that game. Everyone was so kind me and tried to cheer me up, make me feel better, and gave me the signal that it was the right community for me...

I think it was in third or fourth grade [at another school] when I was given a small writing assignment. The prompt was that I was supposed to write what I wished I could have more of in school. And what I wrote was that I wanted more opportunities to be creative. I said that because I just felt really tired of walking in single file lines and sitting at a desk and filling out little story problem sheets. But later, in my 7th grade year [at Hilltop], I was really frustrated with how vague the assignments I was getting were. I felt really angry at the fact that I had so many choices. I thought it was too hard. I felt like I just wanted to do normal school work. And then I remembered that same writing assignment from so long ago, and it reminded me of how I had wanted so badly to do something in school that could go in many directions, and how I have always wandered away whenever I could because in school I felt so deprived of a chance to do that, and now I was frustrated that I had gotten what I wanted. It's basically like driving down the highway and being so tired of following directions that you take the road map you had in the passenger seat and tear it up and crumple it into a ball and roll down the car window and throw it out onto the street, then later when you're lost, being mad that your GPS broke.

To the people who helped tell my story, Dan, Tom, Nora, Paul, and Finn, I would like to say thank you and goodbye.

~Archer Parks