Jayline Paniagua gives her Last Lecture.
If you could say anything to your friends, what would you say? Or what would you say to your family? To your classmates?
These thoughts were running through the minds of Dalton High seniors as they got in front of their English classes to present their “Last Lecture.”
Years before she began teaching at DHS in 2005, Angela Massingill began assigning her students the Last Lecture project in the late 1990s.
“It’s my baby,” Massingill said of the project. “It’s about learning the importance of saying goodbye to your high school buddies.”
This year, James Wickes’s English class joined Massingill’s.
They also had their students read and watch The Last Lecture— a novel created after the last lecture given by Randy Pausch; a professor at Carnegie Mellon University who was dying from cancer.
The lectures could be up to 10 minutes, and the students could invite five people to hear their speech.
“It focuses not just on the importance of saying goodbye, but telling a story, “said Massingill. “I don’t think students have an avenue for that. They don’t have the chance to say who they are and where they come from.”
“It gives them a challenge,” said Wickes. “Some try to leave classmates with advice or say things they would never say otherwise.”
Both Massingill and Wickes said they have seen a little bit of everything with the lectures—students bring in their babies, they tell stories of abuse, they share stories of a single parent home, and some students reveal that they don’t have many friends.
“I had someone sharing a PowerPoint, and he didn’t have any friend photos,” said Massingill. “He said he had worked so hard on material things and not enough on relationships. He said, ‘I don’t have the photos you guys have.’”
The Last Lectures are also a time to thank friends and loved ones.
Students invited friends, family, teachers, and coaches— anyone who they thought needed to be acknowledged and told how much they meant to them.
“It’s a chance to thank those who stood by them,” Massingill said. “Some make amends or apologize to parents. It’s heavy healing, and sometimes it’s hard for them.”
Massingill said it was also an emotional time for those who had been invited—many times the visitors listening to the speech shed as many tears as those giving the speech.
“It’s so rare teachers get a ‘thank you,’” Massingill said.
Massingill said it’s completely up to the students as to the tone of their speech.
“It’s their own graduation speech,” she said. “They say what they need to say.”
For 18-year-old Isela Rios, she shared with her classmates how much she had changed and how far she had come during her high school career.
“I came from shy and withdrawn and dealing with depression to embracing life and being more social and letting the bitterness go,” said Rios.
Rios invited four friends, a cousin, and DHS Law and Justice teacher Ken Wiggins to listen to her Last Lecture.
“They all impacted me in different phases in my life,” said Rios. “They were always there for me.”
Rios said about the Last Lecture project: “It gave a chance to slow down and think and just reflect on how I’ve grown and life has changed.”
“I’m really, really happy with it,” Wickes said of the lectures from his students. “They’ve all really embraced it.”
“I’ve had many of my former students say it’s the hardest assignment, but it’s the best thing they did in high school,” Massingill said.
“It’s the one honest assignment all year,” said Wickes.
Brianna Mendez speaks to her friends who came to listen to her lecture.
By Lindsey Derrick, Dalton Public Schools Contributor
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