Welcome parents, families, and friends to the graduation ceremony of the Class of 2014. As I was brainstorming ideas to write this speech, I remembered running into the very same struggle four years ago, when I had to write a “graduation speech” for freshman honors English. The main objective of the assignment was to create an analogy about education. At the time, I wrote about how education was like a quilt. If I was to do that assignment again, I would actually say how our learning experience at Prairie Ridge is like a pizza. Today, I will describe to you exactly how this connection works.

The most important part of the pizza is the base. The sauce, the cheese, and the toppings are all baked onto the base. Without it, there’d be no support or structure to the pizza. Likewise, the teachers at Prairie Ridge High School are our “base,” for they provide the support and structure to our education. Whether it be through the countless hours spent editing essays in the Lit Center, tutoring students in the Numeracy Center, or answering questions, our teachers not only teach the subject material, but also, they provide feedback on our work to help us improve, they encourage us, and they serve as guides to help us succeed. They enabled us to mature as learners and thinkers.

While the base is important to the structure of the pizza, we would have no pizza without the sauce and the cheese. The sauce and the cheese are two components on every pizza, making one indistinguishable from another. Similarly, each senior here has, for the most part, been exposed to the same textbook knowledge. We have all learned about the Revolutionary War, the proper structure of a TEA paragraph, the trigonometric identities, and the method to balance a chemical reaction. Each of these bits of knowledge exposes us to the skills needed in various professions and deepens our awareness about the world in which we live. However, there are several ways to prepare the sauce and cheese on the pizza. Some prefer extra cheese with pizza sauce, while others prefer light cheese with marinara sauce. Likewise, while we have all learned the same textbook knowledge, we each have gained unique insight about ourselves through this knowledge. For instance, some of us discovered that we are extremely gifted at solving math problems without even completing the study guide, while others of us have to practice the same types of math problems consistently. Some of us discovered that we thoroughly enjoy analyzing the color blue throughout a literary work, while others of us… not so much. Ultimately, we learned more about our own strengths and weaknesses, our own interests and lack thereof, setting each one of our learning experience’s apart from one another.

Last, but certainly not least, comes the toppings. Whether we choose to put peppers, pineapples, or pepperoni on our pizza, the toppings always add their own unique flavor, making one pizza different from another. Similarly, we have each personalized our experiences at PR, and we have each tasted different lessons. Some of us learned to juggle our extracurricular activities, like musical practice and track practice, with our schoolwork while performing exceptionally well in both. Some of us learned the importance of teamwork through team sports, school projects, and gym class volleyball. Some of us learned to set and accomplish our goals, whether it included going to state for football, getting an A in our chemistry class, or following a daily exercise routine. Whatever the case may be, we all learned something beyond the scope of the textbook at PR; we learned lessons essential for life, lessons that will carry us through in our futures and help us succeed.

While your high school learning experience has finished, your educational experience is not over. Use what you have learned from PR, and construct a new pizza. Whether your base is your teachers at your respective universities, your colleagues in the workforce, or your fellow soldiers in the military, keep learning and growing from your experiences, and make your pizza your own.

I hope that I haven’t made you all too hungry, now! Congratulations once again, Class of 2014, and I wish you the very best for the future.