Yesterday my high school held commencement, also known as graduation. The ceremony itself doesn’t change very much: the rituals, the speeches, the accolades, all follow a tradition carried on, essentially, because that was how it was done last year.
The seasons follow a pattern, but graduation should not.
Every year brings some new faces, perspectives and human drama which should be recognized at commencement. It isn’t just about the valedictorian, a keynote speaker or ill-fitting gowns in two colors. Graduation is about real human stories. No two people in the graduating class of 2016 went through the same experience. The yearbooks never tell their stories. I’m sure that if one were to go back into two decades of yearbooks, they would look exactly the same but for the faces.
Do schools still do yearbooks?
So the class graduated, and school is over until September. Over the summer friendships will change, beaches will fill with bodies, and in August relocations to college towns will be arranged. It’s a transition as old as modern civilization.
Of course, a few unfortunates will be attending summer school (if they still do that).
We’re in the middle of the longest days of the year, and soon they will grow shorter as autumn comes. The next class of senior students will start the annual ritual of something they now call “Project Graduation.” What’s up with that? Is it truly a project? When I finished high school, it was a matter of gathering all your required credits and making sure you turned in your school activity issued supplies. For me that was a band uniform. No problem.
Public schools still let out by June because most of the buildings are too old to require air conditioning under governmental grandfathering policies. School should really be a year-round thing, just as life and work are. Sure, there are breaks (I figure a week in June and July and the last week of August should do it), but learning and retention do tend to fry off in the summer heat while kids are tanning their bodies at the beach and sunburning their heads.
When I graduated, I went home and my parents and I sat on the front steps, enjoying the cool evening. The next day, I started a job. There was no Project Graduation or lawn signs of congratulations. Life continues into summer, after summer, after summer.
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