As graduation season approaches, I am thinking about this experience more and specifically, what I would tell high school graduates to prepare themselves as they enter college, trade school, the military or the workforce. Graduation speeches rarely mention the skills students actually need for success. They’re messier, more complex, and harder to fit into inspiring soundbites. But they’re also more valuable than any single piece of content knowledge we teach.
If I could give the graduation speech no one gives, here’s what I’d want every student to know:
1. Your Ability to Adapt Quickly to Change Can Be Your Superpower
The world will change faster than your education can keep up with. This isn’t a criticism of your school or teachers—it’s simply reality. Your first job probably doesn’t exist yet in its current form, and your last job definitely doesn’t exist yet.
When I started teaching in 1997, social media didn’t exist. Smartphones didn’t exist. The idea that students would learn coding and robotics in elementary school seemed far-fetched. By the time I left the classroom, these had become central to education. The teachers who thrived were those who got comfortable with uncertainty and embraced learning alongside their students.
The skill isn’t predicting what changes are coming—it’s developing the mental agility to adapt when they arrive. This means staying curious, maintaining a learning mindset, and resisting the urge to cling to “the way things have always been done.”
Many authors have written books about companies that rise and fall based entirely on their ability to adapt. Successful organizations employ people who view change as an opportunity, not a threat.
2. Learn to Give and Receive Feedback—Your Growth Depends on It
Most people are terrible at both sides of the feedback equation, and it costs them throughout their careers. Again, this is not a criticism. Rarely are we told that communication is difficult, and it is something that needs to be cultivated, just like any other skill. Your ability to hear hard truths about your performance, process them constructively, and improve will determine how far you advance in any field.
Equally important is learning to give feedback well. The people who advance into leadership positions are those who can help others improve without crushing their confidence. They understand the difference between feedback and criticism.
The feedback skill isn’t just about performance reviews. It’s about creating relationships where honest communication can flourish, building trust, and creating a learning environment.
3. Embrace Nuance—The Real World Doesn’t Offer Multiple Choice Answers
Throughout my education, I learned to find the right answer. In the real world, you’ll discover that most important problems don’t have a single correct solution. They have trade-offs, competing priorities, and unintended consequences.
The ability to hold multiple perspectives simultaneously, to understand that smart people can disagree, and to decide with incomplete information—these are the skills that matter when the stakes are real.
In business, the most valuable employees are those who can see the nuance in customer feedback, who understand that a solution that works for one team might create problems for another, who can balance short-term needs with long-term strategy.
Why These Skills Matter More Than Ever
These three skills connect to one another. Adapting to change requires feedback from your environment. Giving good feedback requires understanding of the nuanced context of each situation. Embracing nuance helps you adapt because you’re not locked into rigid thinking.
More importantly, these are skills that artificial intelligence cannot replicate. AI can provide information, but it cannot navigate the human dynamics of feedback. It can process data, but it cannot provide wisdom. It can follow patterns, but it cannot adapt with the creativity and emotional intelligence that humans bring to complex challenges.
Prepare Students for Reality
The graduation speeches students will hear this spring will inspire them to dream big and work hard. That’s important. But the speech they need to hear is different: the one that prepares them for a world where change is constant, where growth requires vulnerability, and where the most important problems resist simple solutions.
As school leaders, we can give them that speech every day through the experiences we create, the culture we build, and the skills we prioritize. The question isn’t whether they’ll face change, feedback, and complexity after graduation. The question is whether we’ve prepared them to thrive in that reality.
Jason McKenna is V.P. of Global Educational Strategy for VEX Robotics and author of “What STEM Can Do for Your Classroom: Improving Student Problem Solving, Collaboration, and Engagement, Grade K-6.” His work specializes in curriculum development, global educational strategy, and engaging with educators and policymakers worldwide. For more of his insights, subscribe to his newsletter.
