As another graduation season fades into memory and I am left to reflect on 52 consecutive years in public education, I continue to be befuddled by the hyperbolic ebullience emanating from the stands as each graduate navigates the platform to collect a diploma. What is the genesis of this ephemeral frenzy?
It can’t be the fact that the student has survived the 16,000 hours from kindergarten to senior year and is now bridging to the real world. With legions of sedulous and ubiquitous people, parents, teachers, administrators, counselors, psychiatrists, para-educators, board members, curriculum writers, policy makers and support staff encouraging them, their journey should be easily negotiable.
In addition, with the eclectic levels of structure from multi-levels of rigor, career paths, Advanced Placement, Academic Challenge, university parallel classes, credit recovery programs, summer school, programs for cognitively or physically challenged, and a multitude of extracurricular programming, there is ample institutional creativity to stimulate the curiosity of students as well as to sustain them if they struggle.
With all of this backing, what would be truly remarkable is that some of them would not graduate. This experience is not parallel to an athletic team whose competition is working against them in the quest for a state championship. In this instance, during their entire time in the school, the system is working with them, enhancing the possibility of a propitious culmination of their time in school.
Some don’t graduate.
If not the relief that their children have escaped the claws of an experience determined to deny them the very desideratum they coveted, what could be another reason for this jubilation?
Could it be that parents have come to the realization that graduation is an important viaduct that has been crossed, one which produces for their children total independence and freedom, and completely changes the gestalt that is their family?
Regardless of the reason, the proclivity for celebration at graduation will continue at kindergarten ceremonies, through high school and into the next level of education. The joy of the instant may serve as an inspiration to those who experience it as well as to those watching.
So, while the reason for it may not be fully understood, let the ululation continue.
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