Farewell speech 2012

Dear IB graduates,

The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet. Quote Aristotle.

Sitting here today you may agree on this statement.

You may also know the following situation too well or a similar one:

Student 1: I hate IB. Its killing me! I swear to god, I am going to talk to our coordinator tomorrow and drop out!

Fellow IB student: No, you wont. Student 1: Youre right, I wont. I am pretty sure that to most of you the IB task has turned out

more difficult than you had anticipated. Many have given up on

your way, realising that they couldnt satisfy the requirements of the education. BUT you didnt give up. You pulled your socks up and pulled through some of you managed better than others, some met all the deadlines without grumbling, others didnt, some had low absence, others didnt, some had no reason to come to my office, others had their reasons. Or in other words: I got to know

some of you better than others.

You have all had your ups and downs and you have all suffered

under a heavy workload. Youve hardly had a week without a deadline and every day youve had a lot of homework. Going through IB is indeed a tough journey no doubt about that. And at the end of this demanding educational journey you have

passed through a three-week final security check. You have come

to your subject exams carrying nothing but see-through bottles with drinking water and clear plastic bags for your pens and

pencils. You have listened patiently to the instructions to candidates starting with Do not open the examination paper

until I instruct you to do so, and you have been sitting deeply concentrated while emptying your brains onto ruled IB paper.

These exams have been a tour de force for all of you, exacting and

exhausting.

Receiving your cap on this special occasion is the culmination of

your effort. You have gone into the mission completed-mode for a

while, and now you need a break from thick and heavy textbooks,

timetables, deadlines, absence registrations etc.

Whatever you do next, travel, work or start studying, there is no

doubt that IB makes a solid basis for your future lives. Although

you might have the feeling right now that you have forgotten

everything you learned, I am sure that much of what you have

read and learned has become established in corners of your mind,

and I know that you leave us with a toolkit of factual knowledge

and academic skills in each of your subjects.

Furthermore I would like to emphasize the three elements which

are mandatory at IB: Theory of knowledge, Extended Essay and

CAS

TOK has developed your critical thinking skills and you have

learned that very little is completely black or white, good or bad,

true or false.

Writing your EEs has acquainted you with the independent

research and writing skills expected at universities.

And finally CAS has forced you to deal with life outside school.

Besides that, I am pretty sure that IB has contributed to your

personal education you have developed a strong belief in your capabilities and talents, and some have discovered that they had

talents they didnt know of before.

Now you may think: yeah yeah, these are just empty words, but

they are not. Thats what I hear from former IB students. Ill give you a few examples:

Hester Callaghan graduated 2008 gave a speech at the schools anniversary last September and she concluded: My time at GG was

memorable and taught me a lot about myself and what I would

like to get out of life. It was an inspiring place to be and I can only

hope that more people in the future decide to take the IB in this

tiny, picturesque coastal town in Djursland and they will have just

as wonderful an experience as I had.

Basha Sykorova graduated 2011 wrote to all her teachers: Greetings from London. The city is niceIt is just the university that is not so good. At least it made me realize how awesome IB

was. Thank you for that.

As you sit here today, you are but 26 out of more than 50,000 IB

Diploma graduates this year. These 50,000 graduates sit in 142

countries, around the world, waiting for their results to be

published on the 6th of July.

Therefore, you wear your caps, not only with well-deserved pride,

but also with a certain anxiety, as you are still on your way to the

real graduation day.

Whatever your results turn out to be, you have earned the right to

spend the next couple of weeks celebrating your achievement of

completing the IB Diploma Programme - and you have deserved

the admiration of your parents, families and friends.

Enjoy it while you can, because reality will creep up on you, and

you will embark on new tasks which will again demand endless

exercise, training, patience and the ability to overcome obstacles

before you can deliver your next educational results.

Let me congratulate you all on graduating today and wish you

every success and happiness in your future lives.