Graduation Speech

As a homeschooler, my speech is going to be different from every other grad speech you've heard. You're welcome.

To achieve an Alberta diploma, every grade 12 student must graduate with a minimum of 100 credits that they earn throughout high school.

Social 30, English 30, Math 20, CALM, PE 10 and your choice of a 20 level science are mandatory. You make up the remanding credits with optional courses such as foods, languages, apprenticeships, physical education and the other sciences and math you need to pursue your college or university career.

Every graduate has those achievements in common. Whether you glided through every -1 course with a 98% average, or scraped by with 51% in -2, you have achieved Alberta Education's stamp of approval as a young adult ready to face the world with a well rounded education.

That thought terrifies me.

Not because I feel completely unequipped to not only handle, but change the world... but because I don't believe that the work put toward my certificate, is what equipped me.

You see, I believe that Alberta Education has made a mistake in their curriculum.

They go on and on about head knowledge when, in reality, the answer to any math problem, social studies question or biology definition is just a few clicks away.

Can you imagine how the provincial average would skyrocket is we were allowed to take all of our everyday resources into the exam room?

Alberta Ed forgets that the world changers don't have to be the people who can answer the most math facts with the greatest accuracy and, off the top of their heads, they might not know where Iodine is on the periodic table.

The world changers though, I believe, could find Iodine on the periodic table. Because they've been taught to try hard and would look until they found it.

Funny how the ability to find the answer isn't enough for the diploma markers, isn't it?

Now, I'm sure I learned things in school that will be valuable to me in the future, and you're all here to celebrate my graduation, but I can't say that the diploma is my biggest achievement from the past three years.

Because it's not.

Like Alberta Ed, I believe in head knowledge. I believe in knowing things and being able to say things from memory off the top of your head.

But I don't believe that the formulas I had to memorize for my exam yesterday should be our measure of success.

In the words of my great grandma Vance, "There's always Google for that." (You have to admit - that's pretty cool coming from an 86 year old)

But where do I go when my world crashes and my faith is shaken or I need to make a split-second life-altering decision?

Surely math 30 won't come to mind, and surely Google will be of little help. 

Shouldn't that be what I need to know to be deemed "ready to take on the world"? 

If I was to tell you the one thing I learned in my entire high school career?

My best piece of wisdom that I gained and can pass on?

I am loved.

1 Corinthians says that Love never fails, but where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 

I am loved with by a Love that is greater than life itself.

And if this is the case - then what of the question that high schoolers are so often faced with, "So what do YOU want to do with your life?"

Here's the deal: I want to go to college. I want to gain practical skills that I can use to support myself.

But I wouldn't go so far as to say that nursing is "what I want to do with my life."

Because - I have found a Love GREATER than life.

And anything I could "do with my life" pales in comparison.

So, what will I do, now that I have a certificate that could grant me acceptance into colleges and universities and into the "real world"?

Maybe I will go to college.

Maybe I'll start a career.

Maybe I'll speak and people will listen.

Maybe I'll teach.

But without love?

I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

So, yes. I'll do those things.

But what I'm planning on doing with my life is simple:

To be the salt and light Matthew 5 talks about and to be humble, patient, gentle and bearing with others in love.

And to anyone who's worried about me not being a homeschooler any more next year,

I just want to assure you – you can graduate the girl out of homeschool, but you can’t take the homeschooler out of the girl. 

Un-dumb

I shared this with my pastor the other week...
Maybe I'm brave enough to post it here now. haha
Also - I wasn't at YC this year... This is a session from last year. Yes, this post has been sitting waiting to be shared for a really long time. hahaha

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When I looked through the session schedule for YC and saw, "Leading un-dumbed down worship for un-dumb teens", I felt like it was a session for me. So I went.

I believe in people - all people. And I don't think I went to this session to justify myself as a teen wanting more. I went to see if there was anything to apply to the next group down. Grades K-4 ish kinda people.

I hate the concept of kids being the "church of tomorrow". Does not the kingdom of God belong to them? Are they not the church of TODAY?

When I was in grade 6, a pastor looked me in the eye and said, "Youth are not just the church of tomorrow. You're the church of today." I've never forgotten that.

So, if this is the case. And kids (even young teens) are the church of today... Shouldn't we treat them as such?

Can you imagine if your pastor got up next Sunday and said, "Today, instead of me preaching and the band playing... Lets watch a movie with a good moral that kinda-sorta lines up with one of the ten commandments!"

Really?
That would be ridiculous.
Yet, how often is Sunday school simply that?

A couple months ago, I taught a lesson for Sunday school. I followed the script I was given fairly closely, adding a few little comments here and there...

I talked for almost 25 minutes and the script barely mentioned Jesus.

I wanted to scrap the lesson and sit down and talk from my heart. I could have even used the same theme! I could have found many scripture verses and practical stories to tell. I could have, and I'm sure many of the other Sunday school volunteers could have, too. So... Why the story about the marshmallow factory?

Are we really dumbing it down so much that the Sunday school lesson is barely a scratch on the surface of a Bible story? Because I think that's a pretty big problem. They're not bad stories, of course. There's always a good moral behind it... But shouldn't church challenge depth?

I know kids want more. Deserve so much more. I know because eight years ago, I was the kid who hated Sunday school. Well, I hated Sunday school until I got to Miss Rita's class. Miss Rita taught straight from the Bible and I learned in her class.

But to the Sunday school volunteer who tried to bribe me into class with the promise that, "We're watching a movie today! Won't that be fun?" Don't you understand that the movie is the very reason I didn't want to attend?

I was hungry. Kids are hungry.

One quote from that YC session stands out to me is,  "short attention span isn't always because of immaturity. Sometimes its because we're lacking in giving them anything to focus on."

True, a six year old might not benefit a whole bunch from an hour long sermon including long passages read from the pastor's KJV...

But I'm pretty sure we could do better than marshmallow factories.