Graduation Speech Benediction
By Maddie Kriger, Class of 2011
June 19, 2011

"Be wise not only in words but in deeds. Knowledge is important if it leads to action." These words from Pirkei Avot and Kiddushin appear on page 113 of my camp siddur in a reading entitled Not Words but Deeds. At camp, I read Not Words but Deeds every Shabbat morning. At Gann, I live it all the time.

Here at Gann, we have learned for the sake of learning, but more importantly, for the sake of doing. Gann is the place where freshmen take a day from classroom learning to do community service around Boston, where all students take a week from classroom learning to build a house in Schenectady, New York or to attend congressional hearings in D.C., where the senior class has spent the last two months away from classroom learning, applying our passions to the active pursuit of new knowledge, and change. As we, the Class of 2011, leave behind the place that has taught us how to do, we will let the values of leadership, advocacy, and compassion instilled by our education guide us in our actions.

"Honor people for what they are, but honor them more for what they do. Honor people not for their possessions alone; but honor them most for the use they make of them." As we are instructed in Not Words but Deeds, our time at Gann has taught us to be forever striving for something better than what we are and what we have right now. And we will continue to strive, refusing to settle for the world as we find it. We will put the huge number of opportunities available to us to good use, in order to succeed and to help others do the same. In my freshman year math class, we were always allowed to look at our class notes during math tests because, our teacher argued, in real life you would never do important calculations without using all the resources available to you. It's a little disconcerting to say out loud, but my classmates and I are about to jump face first into real life. But thanks to our education at Gann, we are prepared to use our knowledge as a tool for solving problems and for making a difference in the world.

As it is written in Pirkei Avot, "When people depart from this world, they take with them neither silver nor gold nor precious stones. They are remembered only for their love of learning and their good deeds." Classes have finished, Ma'avar is over, and here we stand at our own commencement ceremony, diplomas in hand, poised to depart from the world of Gann Academy. Class of 2011, may we take with us our talent for reshaping the world which we have cultivated here. May we continue to speak up when we have a problem with what we see, to invent creative and radical solutions to the obstacles we encounter, and to use that ingenuity to affect change with confidence and passion. Let us never forget this passion — for learning and pushing each other to excel, for meeting challenges head on, and for enriching the inimitable Gann community which has, in return, shaped who we have become today. Mazel Tov to the Class of 2011, we did it! And we still have so much more to do. Thank you.