Welcome friends, parents, teachers, support staff, administration, honoured guests, regular guests and of course class of 2018.
Congratulations! We have now done that thing required of us by the government. So, that’s good!
Over the course of ten years here at Cobden, we have all changed. Some more so than others.
It’s been a long road, 10 years now from JK to Grade 8.
A whole decade ago we were these little kids, thinking this school was massive. It seems much smaller now. The teachers would ask us, what do you want to be when you grow up? Our answers were things like millionaire, cowboy, police officer. Then, a couple years later they asked us again. Our answers were Olympian, baseball player, lawyer. Now they are asking us again and they want a serious answer. How’s this? Who honestly really knows?
In a couple years we are going to be graduating again and picking our college or university. Right now is not the time to decide for sure what we want to do. Now is the chance to make a mistaken. Choose the left or right path and try it. If it doesn’t work then try something else. Change your mind, then change it again. Make as many changes as you want, because nothing is permanent. Then, someday, when they ask us what we want to be, we won’t have to guess. We’ll know.
The world is regularly changing, so are our thoughts, desires and interests. We are constantly having to adapt to how our society is developing. So, that implies reconstructions in the way we learn and teach.
Remember in Grade 3 when teachers would always say, ‘Don’t use calculators, you’re never going to have a calculator in your pocket in the real world.”
They also would teach us never to talk to a stranger or get in a car with them.
Well now we have special pocket calculators with a special button that summons a stranger specifically so we can get into their car.
Our point is change happens. Over 10 years we’ve seen lots of changes. Within our school, town, country and world. Just in our school alone we’ve seen teachers, as well as students, come and go. Those people have changed our school as well as everyone around them.
Some changes have definitely been scary, but change has brought us closer together. And as American author and journalist Gail Sheely quotes, “If we don’t’ change, we don’t grow. If we don’t grow, we aren’t really living.”
Most people don’t like change, but the one thing this world needs is to change.
Our generation has been called the “igeneration” with the “I” representing the “I” in iPhone, iPod, Wii and iTunes. Most of these technologies are individualized and some believe that the individuality part of it is defining us.
Others think that the “I” is also describing the way we think, as in me, me, me, I, I, I. We’d like to challenge that perspective and have people think of:
Intelligence, intellectual, innovative.
Impactful, influential, inspiring
Intrepid, integrity, imaginative
Involved, initiative, interdependent
And Inflexible when they think of our iGeneration.
These words describe our class very well, except for the last one. The first few really displays the true character of our class. The last one shows exactly what we are not. We are able to adapt to the situations we are thrown in and we are able to make it through together.
We are able to lean on each other for comfort, and can confide in one another. We were really tested on the Grade 8 trip. We were put into situations to prove who we really are. We proved that we have intelligence, initiative, integrity and an impactful influence on each other. We have taken our experiences and let them change us to grow into people.
We have also seen this displayed on stage, the Come From Away Musical, which we viewed on our Grade 8 Toronto trip. It’s a story of a group of people taking a tragedy and turning it into an opportunity.
When their plans went awry they decided to go with the flow. They made friends along the way even though it felt like the world was crushing around them and they did not let themselves get down.
Our teachers played a big part in teaching us all these things. All teaching in their own ways.
Mr. Grady taught us that struggle is just a part of the road to success and also that everything in math has a basketball analogy.
Ms. Lavoy taught us that we are drinking dinosaur drool in our water and you can have fun while learning.
Mme. Sara taught us eating chalk isn’t as bad as it seems.
Mrs. Bell taught us cows can play music and shut up! And dance and music has a big impact.
Mr. Covell, well, he was…ok.
He, he can fix everything through a trip to shoppers. Or 2.
It wasn’t only the teachers that taught us. They taught us a lot, but every single person in this graduating class has also taught us a lot.
Thomas taught us well. Thomas taught us **T poses on stage**.
Bailey taught us she can fit a closet full of clothes in her locker and a fridge of food in her multiple bags.
Oscar taught us that flies are full of protein.
Marika taught us about Russians and heir goals.
Ambrose taught us that there’s never a wrong time to pick a card, any card.
Paityn taught us report cards make us feel way too graded.
Emma Prange taught us how to sew buttons.
We have learned so much at Cobden and will take our knowledge with us to high school and to the real world.
Things like identifying parts of a plant cell, life expectancy in Haiti, and finding the surface area of a cylinder, because every time we get a can of soup before we open it, we wonder, what’s the surface area of this can? You know, things everyone does all the time in their daily life.
Now in all seriousness, we have all had our own role models and influences to shape us and change us all the way to Grade 8.
We thank our parents, teachers, fellow students and friends that never stop supporting us through all of the changes, we definitely have a lot of love for you guys. Not one student graduating tonight can honestly say they got where they are right now without help and guidance and now moving on to high school and even farther, facing more challenges and bigger achievements we will still need our friends and family.
I know I can trust them to be there for me and the rest of us.
All of us will be changing more and over the next few months we will all experience overwhelming changes that will each affect us differently. Different teachers, new classes, new people, new school, new schedule. We’re finally at the place where all the teachers have been preparing us to go.
We’re all going to try new things. Sometimes we’ll succeed. Sometimes we’ll make a mistake.
We’ll have to change our path. Over time we’ll figure out where we fail and where we succeed.
We can’t wait to see what kind of changes you’ll make and what you’ll accomplish.
We have had a great 10 years together, through all the ups ad downs and changes we are proud to say that we have all graduated from Cobden.
We wish all of you success! Now run out into the world just like Mr. Grady running through a sprinkler. Go have fun!
Thank you.
Cobden District Public School Grade 8 Awards
Good Citizenship: Wes Gordon and Carolyn Bolle
Harold B. Bennett Award: Abby Rooney
Travis Bromley Award: Megan Covell
Joni Mitchell Arts Award: Khloe Bertrand
Athletic Awards: Austin Prins, Emma Misener
Rick Hansen Effort Award: Marika Banks
Principal’s OPC Award for Leadership: Emma Prange
Renfrew County Medallions: Carolyn Bolle, Emma Misener, Emma Prange, Megan Covell, Austin Prins, Wes Gordon
Valedictorians: Megan Covell, Austin Prins
