What Dock's Senior Speeches Reveal About Today's Teens—and the Community That Shaped Them

“Kids these days,” we often hear. Dock's graduating seniors tell a different story.

By Zach Bower ('02), Social Studies Teacher and Communications Associate

We just wrapped up another round of Senior Speeches, one of the most meaningful traditions at Dock Mennonite Academy. Known simply as the Senior Presentation or Senior Speech, this capstone experience invites graduating seniors to reflect on the journey that has shaped them over the past four years.

As part of their senior Communications course, students prepare and deliver a 16–20 minute presentation before family members, friends, teachers, classmates, and members of the broader community. Students are asked to demonstrate, articulate, and reflect on their growth in the three areas of Dock's Graduate Profile: academics, spiritual life, and lifestyle choices.

Senior Ryder Landis captured the purpose of the experience well when he reflected, "I used to wonder why Dock required this speech to graduate, but now I realize it was probably the best thing to wrap up my many years at this school." Classmate Micah Salvatori echoed a similar appreciation for the tradition, saying, "I really appreciate this tradition a lot. Not a lot of schools have something like this."

As a Dock alumnus myself, I still remember the pressure of standing in front of a room full of people to give my own senior speech. Looking back now, and after nearly 20 years of teaching at Dock and listening to hundreds of speeches as a teacher, I have developed a deep appreciation for the lasting value of the experience.

What makes the tradition especially meaningful is its emphasis on intentional reflection, but also the opportunity to say important things to your people, to your tribe. The practice of pausing to reflect on a significant life milestone becomes a sacred act that often reveals growth, gratitude, and perspective that might otherwise go unnoticed.

Senior speeches invite a unique kind of accountability. Students stand before family, friends, teachers, and community members to own what they have done with the last four years. Along the way, they often share meaningful expressions of love, faith, gratitude, reconciliation, and sometimes even forgiveness.

After the first evening of speeches this year, Dr. Anabella Silvermoon, Dock's Spanish Department Chair, shared a reflection with faculty that started with a phrase many of us have heard before: "Kids these days." What followed was a powerful reminder that the stories our seniors share often reveal something far different than the stereotypes we hear about young people. 

Again and again, students returned to common themes: meaningful relationships with teachers and coaches, friendships that became lifelong support systems, moments of struggle that led to growth, and a deep appreciation for a community that helped them discover who they are becoming. Students spoke openly about academic setbacks, anxiety, injuries, loss, friendship struggles, and uncertainty about the future, describing how faith, family, and community helped them persevere. Perhaps most striking was how often students described Dock as a place where they felt known not simply for what they achieved, but for who they are.

Dr. Silvermoon’s reflection captured beautifully something many of us were feeling. Her words below were addressed to Dock faculty, and reminds us that while the speeches are intended to celebrate student growth, they often end up revealing something equally powerful about the community that helped shape it.

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On Senior Speeches

By Dr. Anabella Silvermoon, Spanish Department Chair

I often hear people saying, "Kids these days." And I have to say, we work with them, and I don't see that.

Yesterday afternoon and last night, I sat listening to the speeches of our seniors, our graduating seniors. One after another, they opened up their hearts, showing reflection, generosity of spirit, and sharing their struggles with profound honesty, tears, and humor. They let us see how they are made of all these soft pieces that we have had the honor, the opportunity, to affect, oftentimes without even realizing it.

I heard so many stories about things that teachers did, things that I did, that to us were maybe just small things, ways of living our faith and caring for them, which had profound impacts on them when we might not even have realized it. I heard about suffering and struggle that sometimes no one knew anything about. I watched a young person speak pain for the first time in front of peers, parents, and teachers.

I was moved by the miracles we sometimes lose sight of, by the maturity they have gained, by the faith that has walked their path. But I kept coming back to all those soft spaces that they were brave enough to share with us and to show us, spaces that make us love them all the more, be impressed by them all the more, and dream for them all the more.

I am so proud of our students and the young men and women they have become.

I was also so proud, no, blessed watching so many younger students, freshmen, sophomores, and juniors come and spend many hours listening to speeches and supporting the seniors. And I was proud to see students who graduated last year, and sometimes many years ago, coming back to support them as well.

It reminded me again of the community that has been built at our school and how it extends through time and space, oftentimes through generations, as we saw younger siblings, parents, and grandparents all coming to support not only their own children but all these other children for whom they have built extended homes.

I am proud of our school. I am proud of our kids. But I am mostly and profoundly moved by them.

Personally, I tend to think I have the superpower of invisibility. However, some of these kids, in their speeches, made me, made us, feel seen in a way I never expected. I was surprised, and I was moved, and I was grateful. And I felt God seated in the audience, speech after speech after speech.

What a beautiful tradition our school has with the senior speeches. What beautiful work our English department does in supporting them as they compose their speeches and reflect at the end of their senior year.

And what a beautiful place this is.

I am grateful. So grateful to be a part of it.

God bless you all and the work you do. It is profoundly God's labor.

 

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