Be Kind, Get Uncomfortable, and Stop Checking the Scoreboard: What the South Shore’s Class of 2026 Heard on Its Way Out the Door
Across nine commencement stages over the final weekend of May, the South Shore’s Class of 2026 — the cohort that started high school in the shadow of a pandemic and is graduating into the age of artificial intelligence — heard a remarkably consistent set of marching orders from the people sending them off. Be kind. Get comfortable being uncomfortable. Stop measuring yourself against the person sitting beside you. And notice the small moments before they’re gone.
Listen to enough of these speeches in a single weekend and the themes stop sounding like coincidence. From Abington’s gym to Bridgewater-Raynham’s rain-soaked field, from East Bridgewater, Hanover and Pembroke to Rockland’s Veterans Memorial Stadium, from Scituate to the regional stages at Silver Lake and Whitman-Hanson, students, principals, and superintendents kept arriving at the same handful of ideas. What follows is not a recap of any one ceremony. It is what the whole class was told.
A Generation That Grew Up Sideways
Almost every speaker eventually circled back to the same fact: this class did not get a normal start. They attended school masked, distanced, or staring at Zoom tiles, and they are leaving it as the first graduates for whom AI is simply part of the furniture.
Pembroke School Committee Vice Chair Sue Bollinger put it most plainly, describing students who walked in “fresh off a year and a half of Zoom calls and canceled everything.”
Most classes get a normal freshman year to find their footing, but you got dropped into the deep end, and you swam. — Sue Bollinger, Pembroke School Committee
Rockland Principal Cheryl Schipper turned that disruption into the heart of her message, arguing that a world remade by pandemic, social media, and AI has quietly raised the value of the most human skills — listening, collaboration, empathy, judgment.
A computer can generate information, but it cannot replace genuine human connection. AI can summarize a book, but it cannot replace meaningful conversation or understanding other people’s perspective. Technology can produce answers instantly, but wisdom takes time. — Cheryl Schipper, Rockland High School Principal
Her superintendent, Dr. Alan Cron, pushed the point toward authenticity, warning graduates against becoming “a version of yourself you think others want to see.” At Silver Lake, English teacher and guest speaker Heather Bates — a 27-year veteran of the district — built her entire address around the difference between scrolling alone and living together, closing on the line from Albus Dumbledore that has outlived its source material: that it is not our abilities that show what we truly are, but our choices.
Choose to make the connection, because stories are better shared, laughter is better shared, growth is better shared, lessons are better shared, and life is better shared. — Heather Bates, Silver Lake Teacher
Be Kind — It’s the Part They’ll Remember
If there was a single word that recurred more than any other across the weekend, it was kindness — usually paired with a blunt argument that titles and trophies fade and decency does not.
Abington Superintendent Felicia Moschella (and separately East Bridgewater School Committee member Crystal Hudson) borrowed a line from Ted Lasso — “be curious, not judgmental” — before delivering the sharpest formulation of the night:
The world does not suffer from a shortage of intelligence. It suffers from a shortage of empathy. — Felicia Moschella, Abington Superintendent
Moschella revisited that theme to close her remarks: “Success is important. Achievement is important. But kindness, kindness is what people remember.”
The most striking version came from Whitman-Hanson class president Brooke Steele, who walked the crowd through an ordinary morning — an impatient driver, a stranger in line, a frazzled barista — and revealed the hidden weight each person was carrying.
Even if someone’s hands are empty, they could be carrying the heaviest weight in the room. — Brooke Steele, Whitman-Hanson Class of 2026 President
Steele’s classmate, salutatorian Gianna Ruggiero, devoted her speech, titled “A Lasting Impact,” to the same idea, insisting that influence is not measured in popularity or titles.
Sometimes the greatest impact comes from the smallest actions, the moment no one applauds but someone else never forgets. — Gianna Ruggiero, Whitman-Hanson Class of 2026 Salutatorian
Whitman-Hanson School Committee Chair Ryan Tressel made the case through a story about a third-grade rival named Nathan, and the afternoon he realized they owned the same spring jacket — both bought by someone at home who wanted a kid to walk home warm. The resentment, he said, didn’t survive the discovery. Hanover Superintendent Matthew Ferron reached for a more modern parable, the highway merge, to argue that cooperation beats competition.
Yielding is not weakness. And making space is not losing ground. Sometimes making room for someone else is exactly what allows everyone to keep moving. — Matthew Ferron, Hanover Superintendent
The night’s most pointed case for letting go came without a speaker at all. As the ceremony wound down, members of the East Bridgewater senior choir performed Wicked’s “For Good” — the duet about being changed by the people you’ve known and clearing the air before you part — a quiet argument that grudges aren’t worth carrying past the stage
Rockland’s Cron landed in the same place, telling graduates their lives would not be defined by outcomes. “Your life is not defined by trophies, titles, numbers, or outcomes,” he said. “It is defined by people.” Bridgewater-Raynham Superintendent Ryan Powers, who handed his own daughter her diploma, distilled it into a string of kindergarten-simple commands — ask people if they’re okay, apologize when you’re wrong, hold hands when you cross the street — and one he repeated twice for emphasis: “Don’t forget to have a dance party.”
East Bridgewater salutatorian Payton Chelmo landed in the same territory, asking classmates to look around the field at the teachers and families who had carried them there — and then reminding them the obligation runs both ways.
Do not be afraid to rely on others, and do not hesitate to be someone others can rely on. — Payton Chelmo, East Bridgewater Class of 2026 Salutatorian
Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable
The second great theme was discomfort — specifically, the case that growth lives on the far side of it. Abington class president Ava Williamson set the tone early.
Get comfortable being uncomfortable, and invite your fear in. Let it become curiosity, learning, and discovery, and adventure. — Ava Williamson, Abington Class of 2026 President
East Bridgewater valedictorian Gabby Pearson made the argument personal, describing a freshman so shy she chose silence over the risk of embarrassment, and a friend named Maggie who told her to “make being uncomfortable comfortable.” The phrase reshaped how she saw the next four years.
Staying in your comfort zone may protect you from failure, but can also keep you from truly living. — Gabby Pearson, East Bridgewater Class of 2026 Valedictorian
Hanover valedictorian Alana Cole reached for Sylvia Plath’s fig tree from The Bell Jar — the image of a future so crowded with possibility that indecision threatens to starve you — and rejected its despair.
Seek the discomfort that fills this moment. Leave here today understanding that life is uncomfortable. I’m uncomfortable right now. — Alana Cole, Hanover Class of 2026 Valedictorian
Pembroke class president Julia Baxter made the point through the comfort of a familiar coffee order, then dared her classmates to try a new one: “growth rarely comes from comfort.” Her valedictorian, Alexis Gresham, urged the class to “stop searching for places where we feel comfortable” and seek out the situations that stretch them. The most quotable framing came from Bridgewater-Raynham class president Caiden Blake, by way of a houseplant.
A plastic plant may never die, but it will never grow either. Real things grow, and growth always needs support. — Caiden Blake, Bridgewater-Raynham Class of 2026 President
You’re Not Behind — Nobody Is
For a class drowning in comparison — college acceptances, scholarship counts, the cords and stoles worn across these stages — speaker after speaker offered the same permission slip: you do not have to have it figured out.
Silver Lake salutatorian Sarah Curtin made it a toast.
So here’s to the undecided students. The future psychologists, business majors, marine biologists, possibly movie stars of America. Because maybe confidence doesn’t come from having all the answers in a ten-year plan. — Sarah Curtin, Silver Lake Class of 2026 Salutatorian
Whitman-Hanson valedictorian Sofia Metivier — whose speech was titled “The End Is Never The End” — offered the same reassurance with a knowing edge.
The people around you aren’t winging things any less than you are. They’re just better at hiding it. — Sofia Metivier, Whitman Hanson Class of 2026 Valedictorian
Bridgewater-Raynham valedictorian Ayman Abbassi told classmates that the future “is still taking shape,” and that the things hardest to leave behind are the ones they’ll carry longest — “but only if you’re willing to walk away from them first.” Abington class advisor Presley Mahanna, addressing students she’d shepherded for four years, gave the most direct version: plans change, most of them won’t go the way you expect, and that’s fine.
Failure Is the Curriculum
Closely tied to that permission was a near-universal rehabilitation of failure. Abington valedictorian Miranda Vacon built her entire speech around mistakes, calling them “how we grow.” Rockland’s Schipper was unequivocal.
Failure is not the opposite of success. It is part of the learning process. — Cheryl Schipper, Rockland High School Principal
She extended it into the line that drew the loudest agreement from parents in the stadium: “Your character will matter more than your resume. Your ability to connect with people will matter more than your follower count.”
No one carried that lesson further than Silver Lake valedictorian Hayden Mathias, who told the most personal story of the weekend. She described losing her father in the second grade when his cargo ship sank in a hurricane, and how grief eventually became the engine of her academic life rather than the end of it. She closed on Confucius.
We are made stronger by the struggles we overcome, and our resilience in the face of challenges is what unites us all. So even when the world seems like it is ending, when tomorrow seems impossible to live through, remember these words by Confucius. Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. — Hayden Mathias, Silver Lake Class of 2026 Valedictorian
The Empty Chairs
Several of these classes carried grief to the stage, and their speakers refused to look away from it. Pembroke read the name of Matthew McManus — a classmate lost in eighth grade — first, before any other graduate. A friend, Amelia, delivered a memorial that doubled as a charge to the class.
When you feel like giving up, borrow some of his determination. When you see someone standing alone, borrow some of his selflessness, and be the person who reaches out.
Abington’s class gift went to Hope Floats, a grief and wellness center, in memory of classmate Alexis Zaccardi. Hanover and Whitman-Hanson’s each mentioned classmates they’ve lost. Across these ceremonies, the message to the living was the same one the kindness speeches kept circling: pay attention to the people around you.
Savor It Before It’s Gone
If the speeches opened on discomfort and failure, most of them landed somewhere gentler — on the instruction to be present for a life that moves faster than anyone believes at seventeen. Hanover Principal Matthew Plummer, leading his first graduation, handed every senior a pair of sunglasses and asked them to look around the field one last time, distilling his philosophy into three words: “Enjoy the now.” Silver Lake’s class president, Makaia Rekord, citing Muhammad Ali, told classmates to “make your days count” and to live so fully “that when you look back decades from now, you don’t have to miss the good old days because you’ll know that you were really present for them.”
Hanover class president Ava Cory, quoting Winnie the Pooh, may have captured the whole weekend in a single line: “How lucky am I to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.” And in Scituate, Superintendent Dr. Tom Raab left graduates with a reframing of the diploma itself — that commencement is not the day their education ends, but the day it becomes their responsibility.
Why It Matters
Graduation speeches are easy to dismiss as background noise. But heard together, nine of them in one weekend become something closer to a regional document — a snapshot of what advice the adults and students of the South Shore most want to convey to the graduating class. This year, that message was strikingly unified, and strikingly un-careerist. Almost no one told these graduates to win. They told them to be kind, to keep going after they fail, to look up from their phones, and to take care of the person beside them. For a class shaped by isolation and handed a world it cannot yet predict, it may be the most useful curriculum they were ever given.
Thank you Justin