50th Timeline: Summer 2007: A Year in the Life of Friends School Mullica Hill — Graduation and Beyond

The end of the year brought warmer weather and a host of end of the year traditions, including Field Day, some final field trips (pictured here), and, of course, 8^th grade graduation.  Building off the traditions of the High School graduations that had sadly ceased, the 8^th grade graduations became truly special events, highlighted by each student writing and giving their own speech in front of their parents, grandparents, friends, teachers, Trustees, and peers.  Given that public speaking typically rivals death among those things most feared by people, the simple giving of these speeches was impressive.  For most observers, however, it was the content of the speeches that truly dazzled.  They were filled with thanks to parents for the sacrifices of treasure and time they had made to send them to the School.  They brimmed with praise for teachers they had had all the way back to preschool, and they emphasized not only their academic growth but the school’s impact on their character and world view.  Parent Donna Gibson found herself at her son’s graduation comparing his education to her own. “I guess you compare the education your children have to your own,” she remembered.  “I was the kind of kid that would slither under my chair and didn’t really have a voice.  I was unheard and unnoticed, and I actually preferred it that way.”  She remembered that her son, Brad, “was pretty shy too” but at Friends School, “if they didn’t have a voice when they came here, they did when they left… When I look at the eighth-grade graduation and watch each student come to the podium and speak so eloquently, I know that that’s been going on for the years they’ve been here. And I think that that’s one of the greatest gifts that Friends School gives our students.”