Below is my graduation speech for the Union Middle School class of 2024.
This year, just like in recent years, I waited until a few weeks before the ceremony to write my speech. I do take notes throughout the year as I try to find a unique theme to fit the promoting 8th grade class. I was sitting on my couch, trying to drown out the noise from whatever television show my sons were watching (I think it was Boss Baby), and just started typing out my thoughts on my iPhone. About 20 minutes and 1000 words later, I was done.This was a great class. Memorable in every way. Positive ways, challenging ways, silly ways, and academic ways. We are truly going to miss them.
As always, thank you to our UMS families for your support over the past three years, thank you to the UMS staff for your continued dedication to our students, and thank you to our promoting students for just being you.
Here is the graduation speech. Enjoy.
-Todd
Good Morning Everyone,
For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Todd Feinberg, and I have been privileged to have been the principal of Union Middle School for the past twelve years. It is an honor to stand in front of you all today and means a great deal to me. I truly care about each and every one of my Union Tigers. I hope you all will keep in touch.
And now to speak directly to our promoting 8th graders… oh my… my 8th graders…
I want to share a little bit of information that I myself did not have at age 14 and truly wish I did. It is a simple question that is very hard for a 14 year old to answer… and that’s okay.
But if you were to ask anyone who has lived a long time this question… and yes, I understand to our promoting 8th graders, “anyone who has lived a long time” might mean anyone over the age of 35…But if you ask them the question of what they have treasured most about their life thus far, what they have truly treasured, I suspect that most of them will respond with stories of the people they’ve met and the experiences they’ve had.
They will smile as they reminisce about the post college graduation trip they took to Europe, bouncing around from hostel to hostel, meeting so many different people.
They may share with you details about a special friendship… someone who helped them once get through the darkest days of their life and has remained a treasured friend every moment since.
I believe that a few may mention that monthly ice cream trip they took with a certain grandparent and how they now miss them so.
This one might be hard to believe for some of our 8th grade students but a few will talk about their-now unbreakable friendship with their younger sibling, someone who they most likely couldn’t stand back in middle school when they would endure days and days of non-stop teasing, wrestling, and complaining.
And I suspect many will simply appreciate how blessed they were to meet that one person who made them whole, amazed at just how fortunate they are to be loved.
If you ask all of these individuals what they treasured most about their life thus far, there’s something you won’t hear mentioned that often.
Things. They won’t mention things.
Like an iPhone.
Their social media.
A new car.
What college they got into.
How much money they made.
How big their house was.
What they own.
But that’s the benefit of age… because right now, at your age, as you head off to high school, a huge focus of your life seems to be about “things”. And that's okay.
Just know, in the long run, all of those things you’re so focused on now likely won’t matter.
What will matter to you is your friends, your family, and all of your experiences along your journey, to high school and wherever the winds take you thereafter.
It’s the time you spend. The memories you make. None of this is found on a cell phone or a social media account. I promise you that not one adult looked back at their “streak” on Snapchat, proud that it lasted for an entire year. Don’t take this the wrong way, but these things… they just do not matter.
What I myself treasure thus far are the most unique and special moments of my life.
It’s meeting my wife, then my co-worker, for the first time. (I’m starting with this one, just in case she reads my speech at some point.)
It’s being halfway around the world in an orphanage and having the attendant walk into the room holding our soon-to-be adopted daughters, seeing them for the first time.
It’s how my incredibly busy father would move around his entire work schedule to watch his son on a random Friday afternoon kick for the high school football team.
It’s the unlikelihood of seeing a random high school classmate on my college campus a week before my freshman year began and having that small interaction lead to a thirty year friendship and an intense fantasy football rivalry.
I hope all of you get to experience such treasured moments in your futures. I hope when you’re asked the question 50 years from now of what you treasured most from your lifetime, you have a varied list of experiences, moments, and friendships to recall.
And that’s what’s exciting about today. All of these experiences. All of these future best friends you haven’t met yet but will. You have so much to look forward to.
Your tomorrows are going to be amazing, and that’s starting today. You have the proverbial blank canvas to start painting your future upon. It’s an amazing moment for you.
So thank you for sharing these past three years with us at Union Middle School. You’ve provided so many amazing moments yourselves that our staff will never forget…
To an amazing 8th grade basketball season and incredibly impressive spirit game performances…
To our mathletes for their unprecedented success this year in their various competitions…
Or when that one student somehow got stuck between the wall and the gym bleachers, needing Mr. Barbara and myself to lift them out… I still don’t understand how they got there in the first place… Anyway, I think that was the first time I met you, Ori.
Arriving each and every morning at school and visiting Mrs. Lueck’s office to see what cheerful message a certain student named Chelsea left for me on the white board…
And to all of our silly conversations… including my daily interactions with that one student who would always say how the principal was their favorite 50 year old despite said principal not being 50 yet, PARSA.
Students… It has been an amazing three year ride.
I know that so many middle school promotions say how wonderful their 8th grade class is… and while this is true of the 2024 Union Middle School promoting class… What I’d rather share instead is how this class will not and cannot be forgotten.
When I look back in 10-20 years and ask what I remember about all of the UMS students from my time as the principal at Union, it’s going to be this class I’ll remember.
The shared experiences we’ve had.
The amazing students I’ve met.
It’s going to be this class, the class of 2024, that I treasure.
Congratulations to each and every one of you.
And now, the presentation of the diplomas for the Union Middle School class of 2024.
