<p>I prefer the youtube… there is something about inflection that is key to a listening to a good speech. Then again, if he wasn’t actually talking, sometimes through his words alone, George Bush actually made sense. This, of course, is credit to his speech writers. </p>
<p>In my children’s school, every senior must give a senior speech to the entire school community. Every tuesday and thursday starting about a month into school, each senior takes a 5 minute span of time and fills it with anything he would like to speak about. Surely parents attend their own child’s speech and perhaps one or two of their friends. But to hear my kids come home from assembly days and tell me who spoke and about what was sometimes as good as being there.</p>
<p>Some speeches are personal, some are insightful. Some take the time to come out of the closet, or admit to their transgressions, to thank a teacher or administrator or parent for helping them overcome addiction, eating disorders and the more common bumps in the road. Some are hysterically funny, others extremely emotional, some are boring and some seem startling when they end. They are all over the map and every single one, in their way, wonderful.</p>
<p>At the last assembly every senior is given a book containing the transcripts of their classmate’s speeches. It is a lasting memory of who their classmates were. Where, in reading their words, take you back to the place you were when you heard them. A wonderful tradition and a wonderful gift to the graduating class.</p>