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2007 Valedictory Speech

Given By Emily Ryan Tisdale at class day, june 2

Four years ago, half of us walked out to Pierson Road Fields, buzzing with excitement for freshman orientation. Of course, there were the few kids who acted like the world was ending because they wouldn’t be able to shower or straighten their hair for a day, but overall, our class carried an energy, of awe really, that can only be inspired by the world of the unknown. There were so many people to meet, so many places to discover, and we were a big deal because we had finally made it to high school.

Today we’re gathered, filled again with excitement, but in a very different way. We no longer view NMH as a mystery, but as a school whose faces and places have become more than familiar. We’re no longer hot shots because we’re in high school, but because as of tomorrow, we’re not. And as I think about orientation, as I remember carrying the duffle my dad had packed me that would’ve allowed me to survive in the outdoors not only for orientation, but for all of freshman year, as I remember seeing the Donalds for the first time and deciding I had to befriend them because after all they were twins, and as I remember looking at some of the kids in our class and deciding just from the way they dressed that I was too cool, which I wasn’t, to befriend them, I realize how very long ago freshman orientation was and how very much I’ve changed since the day I carried that massive duffle out to the soccer fields.

Now, when Albert Einstein was at Princeton, he had a sign hanging in his office that read: “Not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted.” As I think about my experience at NMH, I don’t think I could’ve found a more appropriate quote; because to me, it’s cool, but it doesn’t really matter that my GPA gave me the opportunity to speak to you today. What matters to me is not how many A’s I’ve gotten, how many races I’ve won, or how many times I’ve gone to the dining hall and discovered, despite the fact that I was starving, that there was nothing I actually wanted to eat. What matters to me instead are the friends I’ve made, the limits I’ve been challenged to push, and the way my view of the world has evolved since I arrived here four years ago.

While being valedictorian is, no doubt, a tremendous honor, the academic aspect of my experience seems so minute in comparison to my personal growth. I’ve been challenged more by you, my peers, than by my teachers. Each one of you has pushed me to expand my understanding of the world, taught me about different viewpoints and lifestyles, and made me loosen up, have a little fun, and realize that having that little minus sign next to the A is really the most superficial concern I could possibly have.

After all, it’s not about the letters or the numbers; it’s about the learning. We’ve all heard it more times than we care to remember from those teachers sick of the grade-grubbing students, but it’s hard to let it sink in when you have a competitive college application staring you in the face. Today, you know where you’re headed, so forget about those numbers and think about what really counts. Think about the fun you’ve had and the ways in which you’ve grown. For me, I think about the prank phone calls to friends’ friends, about learning to mask laughter with a feigned asthma attack and making someone I’ve never even met meet me in DC at some corner of some street when I’m sitting in the dark of room 207 of Cottage 5 with my roommate three hours past lights out. I think about the girl I saw when I came to revisit day in eighth grade. I remember her long skirt and flannel shirt and the judgments I initially made, and then I think about the friendship I now have with her and the respect I hold for her. I think about the student who pours his soul to the school, struggling to find his identity and the community that responds with support and respect.

For each of us, these thoughts are different, but I hope that in some sense, they’re the same. I hope that you, like me, met people with different values and energies from yourselves. I hope you engaged in discussions that stretched your worldviews and shrunk your judgments. I hope you sat with Will Perez’s family and listened to their story of homelessness and hardship while your mouth dried, your arms tingled, and your legs itched with privilege you had never before acknowledged. I hope that you discovered that learning at NMH doesn’t take place in two hour and forty-five minute periods, that it can’t be labeled with the department name a subsequent number. Learning at this school is a constant process. Conversations in the dorm or in the dining hall or on the playing fields teach me everyday. They teach me how different our backgrounds, our concerns, and our goals all are. I may not understand that a girl in my dorm turns down a prestigious university for the more accepting community of another school, I may never know what it’s like to feel out of place in my gender, but I know enough now to appreciate that these concerns are real. I know enough now not to be judgmental. And for me, learning this has made far more of an impact on who I am and how I see the world than learning how to take the second derivative or the meaning of the word lugubrious.

Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I feel I’ve wasted the past four years on very expensive classes or that our teachers are less than impressive. I can’t imagine that after I leave tomorrow I will ever again meet a teacher with as much enthusiasm for his subject as Donald Sze had in my honors geometry class freshman year. The man actually worked himself into a sweat on a daily basis, getting so involved in theorems that he had to open the window and wipe his forehead with a paper towel. I doubt if I’ll ever meet a teacher able to simultaneously be a friend and a mentor as much as David Perry was when I worked with him on the student newspaper. I will be hard pressed to find a teacher as dedicated as Jeanne Rees, who made calculus seem so easy and who brought a cake for every single student whose birthday fell within the trimester. The conversations I’ve had with Gary Partenheimer, Meg Donnelly, and Mark Yates have encouraged a love of learning within me and have stretched me to think about philosophy, politics, attitudes, and careers in ways that go far beyond the traditional prep school education. I may not have found the academic material to be that challenging, I may not have been stretched in the classroom to a point beyond my comfort zone, but I was stretched. I was challenged, and I want to thank all of you for that, because every way in which I’ve changed, you’ve changed me. Every erg score I’ve pushed out, a teammate has pushed me. Every voice I’ve learned for prank calling, be it valley girl or French man, you’ve taught me. Everything we do at NMH, NMH does for us.

Tomorrow, when we walk across that stage and toss the tassel across our caps, will you remember what NMH has done for you? Will you recognize the positive ways in which you’ve matured since you arrived here or will you hurry across that stage and never look back? I would be very surprised if any of us were able to do that, because, to borrow from Vitamin C, “as we go on, we remember all the times we’ve had together.” We can’t leave NMH without thinking of friends. We can’t leave NMH without noticing that we’ve come to accept different people and ideas. We can’t leave NMH. Period. Because a part of it will always be with us.

Don’t rush across that stage tomorrow; don’t flip that tassel and walk away. Take a minute and look at how far you’ve come since you arrived at NMH, look at how many people helped you along the way, look back and take it with you as you venture forward.