Earlier this year, the Class of 2023 elected their peer Daniel Benjamin as their valedictorian. As a Lifer, Daniel has spent his entire academic life at SMUS, and reflects on how the school and teachers have shaped the class, from strangers to now a very tight-knit family. Their time at the place that many of them have called home since they were just learning to read and write, has finally come to an end. Despite this, no matter what difficult choices they face in life, they will always be able to lean on the values they learned at SMUS, and most importantly, each other.
Here is Daniel's speech which you can also watch in the video below.
Valedictory Speech
by Daniel Benjamin '23
Good evening parents, staff, faculty, esteemed guests and my fellow graduates. My name is Daniel Benjamin, and I am a Lifer at SMUS.
I’d like to start by professing some gratitude. First off, thank you to my classmates for electing me as valedictorian. I may not have won the coveted head prefect position, but I knew that eventually, my incredibly handsome face would win you guys over. Thank you also to all the teachers who went above and beyond to make class engaging and inspiring. Without your individualized guidance and support throughout these years, we could never have succeeded in our studies. Thank you especially to my academic advisor, Ms. Graham, for her hours and hours of thoughtful help throughout the university application process and for putting up with my constant indecision in choosing a university. And though it isn’t often considered, thank you to the faculty and support staff who work behind the scenes to make sure everything runs smoothly, from the groundskeepers to the bus drivers.
Next, thank you to my parents, for all you have done and sacrificed for me. To my dad, thank you for pushing me up towards success, and to my mom, thank you for always being ready to catch and comfort me whenever I fell. I can’t express all my gratitude to my family in such a short speech, and I’m sure my peers share the same sentiment. None of us could have walked across the stage today without the family, and friends, in our lives supporting us. A special thank you to my friend Bhavi, for his endless enthusiasm throughout the years. Thank you to the rest of my friends, along with every other student in my class for making these years memorable. Each year here has truly been the Best School Year Ever.
When I first joined the SMUS community in Kindergarten with the rest of SMUS’s most loyal customers, *ahem*, sorry, lifers, we were a bit smaller than we are now. I was nervous to meet new people, but Ms. Lincoln, who I will always remember as one of the kindest teachers I’ve had the pleasure to meet, led us all to become a close-knit family. As we moved through the Junior School, we transitioned from playing with a raccoon stuffed animal to studying cursive and doing dreaded multiplication tables under the watchful eyes of our taskmaster Ms. Duffus, to later being worthy of a Werther while playing rugby with Mr. Robinson. As the years progressed, we grew both in numbers and size.
Moving on to Middle School, we were joined by many new faces, and had the opportunity to make new friends. We went from being the leaders of the Junior School to being led around an unfamiliar environment by the Grade 8 WEB leaders. Middle School passed in a flash, and some of us became the WEB leaders we once looked up to.
Then we finally transitioned to the Senior School. Once again, we were at the bottom of the food chain, and were prey to new confusions, such as how we would be dismissed without the familiar bell of the Middle School; this particular confusion, however, was soon remedied, as I came to understand that to some teachers, class end times weren’t a rule, but rather a suggestion. Don’t worry Mr. Young... I’m still a keener. We’ve made a lot of memories in Senior School, trying to encapsulate what the ideal high school experience should be, and I know these shared memories will last long into the future.
I’m going to miss a lot of things from my time here. I’m going to miss my AP Calculus class, but I know a part of it will forever be... in my nightmares. I’m going to miss singing chemistry carols, and the joy of the Christmas assemblies. I’m going to miss the corner of the library where my friends occasionally got kicked out for being perhaps a bit too loud. And I know a lot of us are going to miss the Howard Café, with Jon’s remarkable ability to remember both our orders and our student numbers. I’m also going to miss the Sun Centre’s food staff.
Now, moving on to what we have achieved as a grade, there’s a long list of accomplishments I could name. The athletes among us led the school to top performances in field hockey, basketball, soccer, rowing, and rugby, to name a few, with our senior girls winning two provincial banners this year. In terms of arts, our strings, band, and choir concerts were always captivating and many in our grade participated in a stunning production of this year’s musical, Fiddler on the Roof. We also can’t forget that we made it through the hurdles of the pandemic, including remote learning and the difficulties of socializing while being relegated to different cohorts. Through those challenges, we were able to demonstrate the portrait of a learner qualities I’m sure we all loved reflecting on. We also pulled off an amazing grad prank, which coincidentally happened the day before Schaffter Hall flooded. Don’t worry, we’ve confirmed it definitely didn’t cause it.
But graduation is not only a time to reflect back on the fun and wonderful memories we have made and what we have achieved, but also a time to look to what the future holds. With the risk of sounding cliché, I’d like to offer some advice: You may have realized that the theme of this speech is transition. We stand here today on the brink of a significant transition, far larger than simply from Junior School to Middle School or Middle School to Senior School. After sharing up to 13 years together, we are finally going our separate ways. It’s evidently a bittersweet moment, which I’m sure will cause some tearful goodbyes, but this moment holds the possibility to be a key turning point in our lives.
As we go out into the world, with the goal of making a difference in our own unique way, we can look at this transition as an opportunity to accept and address the mistakes and regrets we may have had throughout our lives up to this point, whether it be in terms of school, personal relationships with family and friends, or in our own morals and qualities. Let go of these past regrets, but do not let go of the lessons you learned from them.
Between the already established social setting and comfortable familiarity of our actions, it can be difficult to take the time and courage to reflect on what we want for ourselves and actually commit to achieving it. The weight of expectations from others can also make it hard for us to identify who we truly want to be. Moving on from high school gives us all a chance to take that difficult step forward without worrying about the familiarity of ingrained routines and what other people think of us. While it may seem that we already have firmly ingrained identities, we are actually still in the process of forming them.
I want to recognize that while it is important to stay true to our values, don’t be afraid to inspect your ideals and search for ways in which you can aspire to be better. This is not an invitation to compromise your morals and beliefs simply for the sake of conformity with others’ ideas or in response to peer pressure, but an entreaty to look inward and think about who you are, and what you want. The American poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emmerson said that “to be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to change you is the greatest accomplishment.”
Staying true to your values while constantly striving for improvement will not always be easy, and it will almost certainly be more difficult than just following the paths forged by others, even though they may not actually align with what you want. Look at these forks in the road, where you have the choice between a path oft travelled which may not perfectly align with your ideals, or the option to forge one of your own, as tests of your character, and do not give in.
In our years together at SMUS, we have acquired a solid foundation, and we must build upon it. I hope that when we come back together for our class reunion, each and every one of us can talk with pride of what we have accomplished.
I’d like to end with a final congratulation to our class of 2023. We did it!
