High School Commencement
According to Dictionary.com, it is the ceremony of conferring degrees or granting diplomas at the end of the academic year. The statement is so simplified in the dictionary. For some students, it is that simple. These students are the academically blessed students. Or they are the students who are strong in one area and have managed with Bs in others. They have had successes in school starting in kindergarten through high school. In the senior year of high school, they have been accepted to a college or university that will launch them to further success in their field. Now they have maybe had a disappointment or two or three at this point, but nothing that they will remember in six months. Commencement, for all, will symbolize the pull and tug of values, which have occurred for all during the school experience.
For some parents and students, the definition is not so simple. Students with special needs such as aspergers, autism, ADHD, hearing difficulties, dyslexia, and behavioral problems, it is a day of relief and celebration. At this point of the educational process, it does not matter why the difficulties occurred. It has been a journey for the soon-to-be graduate and his or her family. Even in great school systems, there have been road bumps. The diagnosis path could have been an uphill climb for some, convincing the educational system the student had difficulties could have been an issue. There could have been parents or teachers who have fought the diagnosis or the process for a multitude of reasons. Some how the student has come through it all. A lot of learning has occurred for everyone involved. The student has touched many people and has learned from even more. And now, the student will complete thirteen years of schooling and be handed a diploma.
Some parents and students will acknowledge and accept the ceremony as solemn and dignified. They will celebrate after the Board of Education accepts the graduates and their collective accomplishments. Others will whoop and holler and start celebrating when they hear their student’s name – causing the next set of parents not to hear their student’s name. Some soon-to-be graduates will interrupt the ceremony with beach balls and silly string because they have mixed this up with another opportunity to pull a belated senior prank, spoiling the ceremony for others and their families. Some families will boo at the professionals who have the job to stop the beach balls; some families will applaud those same professionals.
The definition of commencement is simple. But the process to get to and complete the commencement of schooling is anything but.
