THOUGHTS ON GRADUATION

It's been decades since I went through a graduation ceremony. Don't remember much about it, except that I was wearing white high-heeled shoes, and my name was called halfway through the alphabet, so I had plenty of time to wonder and worry if I was going to disgrace myself by falling up the steps to reach the Superintendent of Schools who was giving out diplomas, or if I was going to, instead, fall down the steps on the other side as I exited the stage. Neither happened--I made it up and then down, intact and upright, diploma clutched in my sweaty hand.

In memory, graduation from high school took place on a Sunday afternoon, and I started college the next day. Probably it wasn't quite like that, though I did indeed go to summer school at the college in my town. I took 12 weeks of Chemistry--the whole freshman year: 4 weeks of 101, 4 weeks of 102, and 4 weeks of 103. We had class and labs from 8 AM to 4 PM, five days a week. By the end of the course, it was September and my schedule included English, Math, Physics, and 200-level Chem courses. For me it was the big time.

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Some of the rituals for school graduation remain the same--diploma ceremony on a Sunday, party at home in the back yard/community room/country club/library/fire house, wherever a venue is available--then a summer of fun/work/prep for college--and before you know it, the graduate is thrown out into what seasoned folks love to call The Real World. (What do they think school days are? Make believe? Fantasy Land? It's all Real World. Just different arenas.)

Other parts of the moving-on business are very different nowadays.

I don't remember anyone in my era graduating in January. But it's not uncommon now. Students can also take college courses in their high school--get credit for high school and for college. One advantage is that some of the lower level college courses in English and Math can be taken while in high school and thus free up college time for electives or, more likely, additional course work in the major area of study.

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Graduation as a rite of passage makes sense. It's a signal, a sign, a physical experience that means we step out of one kind of life into another.

In the school district where I live, 5th graders had a graduation program or party; one school conducted a 5th-grade walk to visit former teachers; these students will go to the middle school in August. Middle School 8th-graders had a day out for a movie, cookout, and yearbook signing. High School students participated in graduation walks to their former middle and elementary schools.

And then there are those who rack up a lot of college course hours in our pursuit of Perpetual Student status. For those people, graduation day never comes.

I confess to having continued long after the normal time for finishing a degree. These days we like to say we're "lifelong learners," a lovely phrase that lets us keep on studying and learning and never graduating. But we thought of ourselves as perpetual students, and had to field the "real life" question at every turn.

For some folks it may be a cop-out--if we're always learning, that's a good thing, right? But what if we never apply what we've learned? Is it good to say we're "going to be" instead of saying "we are"? Apparently hard questions appear in all phases of life.

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There are other kinds of graduation experiences.

Some folks see getting married, starting a family, buying a house as the natural progression from being a single to being part of a new family.

Career-minded people, single or not, look for advancement in their chosen fields of endeavor. Gain experience, try different fields of work within the broader picture, test the waters in a sideways move--all are ways of continuing to learn, and continuing to move forward.

Retirement means, for some, a kind of graduation from a "regular" job into an abundance of time to enjoy life as All-Sorts--family stuff, travel, part-time work, volunteer work, making a former hobby or side interest into the main show.

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I heard a few days ago that public school starts in about four weeks. Four weeks! Good grief--I thought we just finished graduation parties. While students return to classrooms in August, the recent grads will be gearing up for college classes, heading off to boot camp, filing job applications and securing interviews. Some will continue with jobs they've had during school.

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The underlying message here seems to be--Life Goes On. 

Nothing stops - you pause to catch your breath - then you continue on a path. If you don't like that path, or it doesn't help you be the person you picture yourself to be, then you find and pursue another path. Life goes on--and on--and on.

And we can be grateful for that.