{"id":9231,"date":"2017-04-14T15:00:37","date_gmt":"2017-04-14T15:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/clonlara.org\/de\/2017\/04\/14\/use-your-words\/"},"modified":"2017-04-14T15:00:37","modified_gmt":"2017-04-14T15:00:37","slug":"use-your-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clonlara.org\/de\/2017\/04\/14\/use-your-words\/","title":{"rendered":"Use Your Words"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>By Madison Siwak, Class of 2016<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Editor\u2019s Note:<\/strong>\u00a0<em>At graduation, we invite our students to share a performance, speech, or story\u00a0that reflects the uniqueness of their educational journeys. This speech by 15-year-old graduate Madison Siwak describes the power of words and offers\u00a0inspiration for anyone who feels they have something important to say.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Use Your Words - Graduation Speech - June 2016\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/sX7oDRiW3_g?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3>Excerpts<\/h3>\n<p>00:00:01 \u2014\u00a0Words are the most important thing in the world. Think about it. When parents talk to their babies, they don\u2019t say, \u201cUse your fists\u201d or \u201cUse your babbling noises.\u201d They say, \u201cUse your words.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>00:00:25 \u2014\u00a0Words have the ability\u00a0to start and finish wars. The power to shape cultures and define history. They even come in over 6500 languages.<\/p>\n<p>00:01:34 \u2014 People of all shapes and sizes have been writing for centuries, and they have shaped history with their words. Take Thomas Jefferson, for example, who penned the Declaration of Independence. What about people like William Shakespeare, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Upton Sinclair, Karl Marx, William Faulkner, just to name a few? By picking up their pen, their quill, or whatever they wrote with, they\u2019ve gotten words that were stuck inside their head down on paper, and we get to read it every day.<\/p>\n<p>00:02:26 \u2014 When words enter your head, they stick there, and they\u2019re going to be in there waiting for you to use them. They\u2019re going to be there for the rest of your life, so by reading, writing, or listening to someone speak or perform, that opens a whole new world to\u00a0you.<\/p>\n<p>00:03:37 \u2014 Remember that words can establish peace and create bonds between people. If all it takes is for me to learn a few more words [in another language] and I can make a friend half way across the world, that sounds pretty good to me.<\/p>\n<p>00:04:13 \u2014 If you speak and if your words are meaningful and powerful enough, people will actually listen to you. By choosing to speak and let people know what your thoughts are, that is powerful stuff.\u00a0Words will not get you anywhere if you keep them crammed inside your head. I\u2019m not saying be a loud mouth or be obnoxious or anything like that. I\u2019m just saying that you should speak up, express yourself, be passionate about your own words. It\u2019ll take you so far.<\/p>\n<p>00:04:37 \u2014\u00a0You might hate writing, reading might give you a headache, learning a language is hard, and public speaking might be terrifying to you. So, let me tell you something. I\u2019m only 15 years old, which means that I\u2019ve only understood words for about 13 of those years\u2014ever since I was a toddler or thereabouts\u2014but as I look around, and I see everyone here from around the world and people of all different ages, I understand that every one of us has the right and the ability to use our words and our minds to the fullest.<\/p>\n<p>00:05:08 \u2014 Just one word from you to you could spark friendship. Or perhaps something that you jot down could be the idea for the next great American novel, and something that you read could inspire you to go out and make a difference. So, let me end this speech with something that we\u2019ve been told since we were babies, something that we should continue to remember. Remember to use your words.<\/p>\n<h3>About Madison Siwak<\/h3>\n<p>Madison has made\u00a0a huge\u00a0difference in her hometown of Clawson, Michigan, investing countless hours in a variety of community-oriented activities. She is a\u00a0founder and director of the <a href=\"http:\/\/actingoutkidscommunitytheatre.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Acting Out Kids Community Theatre<\/a>;\u00a0creator and co-host, with her brother Max, of the Awesome Clawson and Awesome Clawson Kids cable television shows; and an active and indispensable volunteer for the Clawson Chamber of Commerce. In June 2016, she graduated from\u00a0Clonlara\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.clonlara.org\/off-campus\/\">Off-Campus Program<\/a>\u00a0at age 15 and\u00a0is currently taking classes at her local community college.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How do you use your words to make a difference? Please share your stories with us.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Madison Siwak, Class of 2016 Editor\u2019s Note:\u00a0At graduation, we invite our students to share a performance, speech, or story\u00a0that reflects the uniqueness of their educational journeys. This speech by 15-year-old graduate Madison Siwak describes the power of words and offers\u00a0inspiration for anyone who feels they have something important to say.\u00a0 Excerpts 00:00:01 \u2014\u00a0Words are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3182,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-graduation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clonlara.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clonlara.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clonlara.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clonlara.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clonlara.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/clonlara.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clonlara.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clonlara.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clonlara.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clonlara.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}