Valedictorian Address - Class of 2021
Greetings guests, friends, teachers, and family of our class of 2021. Thank you for attending, and honoring us with your time.
Today my classmates and I graduate; this achievement marks the culmination of 13 years of education, fulfilled at a school renowned for its challenging curriculum. Having embraced this education, rarely matched in difficulty, this is a day our class of 2021 has truly earned; in this achievement, my classmates deserve the utmost congratulations and praise.
When I came to Ridgeview six years ago, I arrived uncertain and disinterested in interacting with those around me; my lessons of the past had taught me that my classmates would scorn education, disrupting the process at every opportunity. By the end of that first year, however, Ridgeview and my fellow students had revolutionized my perspective. Rather than an environment hostile to learning, I found one in which every student came willing to speak and eager to add their perspective to the conversation. In every environment there was a shocking, delightful level of student engagement. It was an environment I had never seen before, had never hoped to see. Whereas I entered resigned to being one of only a few engaged students in any class, Ridgeview and my class showed me something else entirely.
Engagement might seem a simple thing in a student, but, at a challenging institution, it is profound, remarkable. So many students at so many schools, even those considered elite, skim through their education without ever truly immersing themselves in the learning. Even when a student selects a challenging curriculum it is too easy in our world to seek only the grade, the diploma, the recognition, rather than the learning and comprehension itself. The excellence of the class of 2021 lies not in any ease it has enjoyed in the curriculum; on the contrary, I have seen my friends bear tremendous burdens from the curriculum. However, even as they struggled, my classmates engaged, they inquired, they learned, and they found fulfillment in the education itself. I find it truly incredible that, despite the difficulty of the curriculum, my classmates have developed no resentment against our arduous education, but instead have embraced it, both in its difficulty and its value. In a world where so many settle for mere sufficiency, this attitude and engagement is worthy of the highest praise. Even now, at the end of our senior year, our students remain engaged and interested in learning for its own sake. My class has never ceased to impress me, and I find their enduring pursuit of a transformative education truly exemplary and exceptional, even at a school suffuse with excellent students. Our class of 2021 is undeniably exceptional.
While faces have appeared and vanished since that first year, I am glad to say the character of our class, that of a striving class, an engaged class, has not. Ridgeview excels at molding such students, but so too does our class of 2021 excel in this respect. I say again, it is remarkable, and worthy of tremendous praise. As we look to our students’ futures, they stand diverse, but I trust in each of our graduating seniors to retain this engagement with their world, with themselves, as they go forward. I trust them to increase their knowledge, increase their awareness, and ever look towards their best selves. I trust them to remain aspirational despite the challenges that await. Therein lies the foundation of our lives well lived, for, while our senior theses may have differed, this universal core of character will provide our students with the patience, wisdom, and fortitude to create paths that will not only direct them towards the good life, but will further encourage others towards good living also.
To our guests I extend again our greatest thanks that you are here today to celebrate this moment with us. Thank you.
It is thus with the utmost pleasure, respect, and congratulations that I welcome our graduated class of 2021.
Kellen Hansen
