5th Grader Dalton Sherman Gives Speech To 20K Teachers

This video brought tears to my eyes! 5th Grader Dalton Sherman from Dallas gave an amazing speech to 20,000 teachers last week that left everyone in aww. He’s only 10 years old and he handled the stage like a seasoned vet! Hopefully some kids will see this and get motivated to be the best that they can be and stop trying to emulate Soldier Boy and Lil Wayne(lol)

Thousands of Dallas teachers are talking about the little boy with the big voice who wowed them earlier this week at a big beginning-of-school pep rally at American Airlines Center.

Who is this kid?, they wondered.

At 10, Dalton Sherman is a speech-making pro. Since winning a big oratory competition in Dallas last January, he’s performed at numerous churches and events all over Dallas. He even opened an event for famed poet Maya Angelou.

And since his Wednesday speech, which left many teachers cheering and others in tears, his family has been inundated by phone calls and e-mails.

Dalton is a fifth-grader at Charles Rice Learning Center. His family lives down the street from Kimball High School in southern Dallas in a neat ranch house filled with photos. His brother Demosthenes, 13, is an aspiring astronaut and his sister, De’asure Crawford, 22, an accountant.

Dalton is an “A” student, plays basketball and is a blue belt in karate. His favorite books are The Magic Tree House series. He won his first oratory competition in the first grade. His family describes him as energetic and competitive. His motto is “I’m in it to win it.”

Talking in front of 17,000 people at American Airlines Center was his biggest event yet. The applause motivated him, especially when he gestured and gave shout-outs to different neighborhoods, like Oak Cliff and Pleasant Grove, telling teachers to help children no matter where they’re from.

School district officials contacted the family last May about giving the convocation speech for teachers. Dallas ISD officials wrote it. In June, he memorized the words. Then he practiced giving the speech up to three times a week at his family’s church, Concord Missionary Baptist. His mother and Ms. Redmond stood in the balcony as he practiced his movements and the built-in pauses to punctuate the text.

Mrs. Sherman uses a worn book of her grandfather’s, “Natural Drills in Expression,” published in 1909, to coach her son on pronunciation.

Demonstrating, she reads a sentence. Dalton repeats it— “to dare, to do, to die.” He loves the book.

Dalton wants to be a news anchor someday, but he’s got even bigger plans.

“Maybe after that, I’ll try to be president,” he says. “I want to be the next Obama.”

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