The Curmudgeon's Guide to Commencement Speeches

Over the last two weeks, I have heard commencement speeches given by students. All of them were delivered well, even if the content of them was unremarkable. That is, each student had fun with friends, had a few great teachers, and gained some great memories. And in all cases, those memories weren’t detailed for the parents in attendance.

After hearing the fifth speech in this genre over a roughly two week period, however, I also learned something I’m likely to remember a year from now: the template these speakers followed. It’s a common one, and it reminds me of the templates for writing essays most of them have been subjected to. 

1) After salutations and general comments about the state of life, give a dictionary definition.

One of the speakers did this by defining the word "graduation."

2) Remind the audience of what they know already but might have forgotten. But stay positive and aim for the broadest appeal.

After her illuminating definition of graduation, the speaker went on to remind her classmates—and, overhearing them, the parents—of the most general highlights of the previous two years and their favorite teachers. I heard this several times: favorite teachers and larger class or school events like dances and trips to places, but little detail that would even suggest that the speaker was present in some way at them.

As I listened, I wasn’t reminded of Cicero. But I did reflect that at one time, speech writers would have been coached to quote from greater minds than their own, mainly encountered through reading, and then to elaborate on these choice nuggets. This is advice that can be abused, of course, when the speaker doesn’t read much and gets his or her nuggets from a Book of Quotes for Speakers of All Occasions.

Memorably, not one of the speakers I heard, either at an eighth grade commencement or at a college graduation, quoted a favorite author or drew on anything other than clichés about time and memories.

I try not to be a curmudgeon at these events. The problem for me is that I have little to do at them other than hold my wife’s camera and fold the program into new figures. So, against better advice, I find myself listening to what is being said. And that is probably not being done, judging from the parental catcalls, whistles, and cries from various corners for the graduates walking across the stage to shake the hands of principals and board members.