Lenox High Graduates Told Flow Free, And Take TimeBy Tammy Daniels, iBerkshires Staff
09:24PM / Sunday, June 12, 2016 | |
 Forty diplomas were presented on Sunday afternoon at graduation ceremonies at Tanglewood. |
Valedictorian Grace Ellrodt urged her classmates to move along an 'unrestricted course.' See more photos here.
LENOX, Mass. — The "opinionated" Lenox Memorial High School class of 2016 did not disappoint at Sunday's graduation, with speakers addressing contemporary topics rather than future what-ifs.
Valedictorian Grace Ellrodt called on the school and community gathered under The Shed at Tanglewood to reverse the trend of increasingly protective, and restrictive, security policies at the middle and high school.
"Our school has been suspended between the opposing polls of regulation and risk," said Ellrodt, with each successive year seeing increased motivation on keeping students safe. "This class has seen the implementation of more protective measures in our school lives than any before us."
Acknowledging that "according to our teachers, our parents and each other, we are exceptionally opinionated, passionate and eager to question," she urged the community and students to follow the classof 2016 not to accept a risk-averse school culture and large-school strictures that can dam up independence and creativity.
She compared the high school dynamic to the shifting flows of a natural river, that bends to create ephemeral and essential vernal pools for a healthy ecology.
"If you attempt to restrict rivers to run a straight path, vernal pools never develop," Ellrodt said. "But if we understand that there won't always be order in the river's course and chose to give it a wide berth, its movement won't appear disastrous."
The community can and should fight for its own version of flood barriers, and consider how the move toward safety and secure affects the educational component.
"Do not let the pressures of this age squander the social capital of an exceptional school," she asked the parents and administrators, telling the graduates, "As you charge out into the real world, let's continue our efforts and move in a winding, unrestricted course and allow the formation of our very own vernal pools."
Salutatorian Sydney King told the graduates it was perfectly fine, and sometimes essential, to just say no.
She realized that this year, as she rediscovered a sense of community with her classmates.
"I think we lost it at some point, we stopped hanging out together, we stopped identifying as a class," King said, because they were so caught up school, clubs, jobs, and competing against each other.
"We sacrifice our community for our resume, constantly looking to the future," King said. Something always has to give and, this year, it was the band being able to play at Memorial Day services.
King said she loved playing in the band but she was on the side of the band director, who said the band hadn't enough time to practice because of testing. Because sometimes it's necessary to say no when you're overwhelmed and need time breathe.
(The announcement sparked local outrage and the middle school band ended up playing.)
"They wanted us to forsake our own familial and communal activities so theirs could be preserved," she said. "You can't do everything, don't try to. ... go hang out with your friends, go get some ice cream, go to the beach. ...
"We need to prioritize the communal, non-competitive, human experiences ... we need to talk sacrifice of what we love or what we feel we need to do."
The 40 graduates were handed diplomas by School Committee Chairman Robert Vaugh, Superintendent Timothy Lee and Assistant Principal Brian Cogswell on a dark and blustery day. They were presented as a class by Principal Michael Knybel, who told them to "live in the sweetspot, live in the ever present."
Lee thanked the faculty, staff and community for their efforts in supporting the educational needs of the students, and especially noted the parents.
"Even though your work as a parent may change somewhat after graduation, your love, encouragement, patience and guidance will continue to be a foundation on which your graduates will build their futures," he said.
The school band played the processional and accompanied Emily Czelusniak in the singing of "The Star-Spangled Banner." Emily Tibbetts led the Pledge of Allegiance and Joseph C. McNinch and Lucy Schwartz performed "Rivers and Roads."
Four members of the class offered their personal reflections, with Cameron Alberhalden and Henrik Palmer both joking about the memories they had made at Lenox.
Alberhalden said he'd begun his speech in the middle of the night after last year's graduation, thinking of the friends who had just left and his friends who would be leaving this year.
"Our grade, in being so diverse in what we do, is still able make us bond with one another despite our differences," he said, noting that stereotypical cliques were undermined in the small school because everyone did everything. "I cannot wait to see what success has in store for every member of our graduating class.:
Palmer picked up on Ellrodt's topic of "security," wondering what was going on on the other side of the cameras "eyeing our every move." He had the class and audience roaring about his speculations of the doings of teachers and staff and ended with a quote sure to go down in Lenox graduation history: "I took a dump in the faculty bathroom and those cameras didn't stop me."
Matthew Gilbert and Gabrielle Straight's reflections were more heartfelt.
Gilbert spoke of how worried he had been in attending Lenox High because of his vision problems and autism. But he found a welcoming and strongly supportive school and now looks on to college.
"I was able to express myself and participate in an enviroment that was comfortable in a school that was friendly," he said, adding that he "will dearly cherish" his friends and classmates.
Straight was the "new girl," coming to Lenox only last year from a school of more than 800. A school where she had been bullied so unmercifully that she felt desparate and alone.
"I got to the place where I wanted to hurt myself and I wanted to end my life at times because that's how awful it had gotten," she said tearfully.
But on her very first day at Lenox, someone said, "Hi," and people not only introduced themselves but asked about her, as well. That simple "hi" turned her life around, Straight said.
"I did the right thing by giving myself another chance," she said. "Lenox literally saved my life."
And so she asked her classmates and the attendees to simply "be kind to people even if it's a person you may never know ... You may be the only person who is kind to them that day."
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