Another Year, Another Graduation

I have developed a tradition every year after graduation. After wearing my academic regalia and listening to stirring speeches about how our graduates are going to change the world, I go for a workout. I run sprints. I run the stadium steps if I can. I work up a good sweat and then I go home and then it all happens again the next year. While I can see that from their perspective this is the most important day of their young lives; from my perspective, it is just another day like the one last year and the year before it. By running the stadium right after graduation, I remind myself that the work never ends until God holds a graduation ceremony.

I distinctly remember one year when a valedictorian said these words: "Our class is talented. We will go forth to do great things for God." (Strange that I've never heard, "We don't do great things for God; it is God who does great things for us, so let us respond faithfully to all that He has already done for us," but that is another matter.) I suppose I've heard this sentiment in varying forms from numerous speakers through the years. Each year is a special year. Each class is talented. Each graduate is a world changer. But of course it is all the sentimentality of the occasion. I can't imagine a speaker saying, "Honestly, our class is fairly mediocre. It is unlikely we will do much other than have kids, pay taxes and occupy mundane positions in society."

What strikes me about all of this is the psychology of the graduate, especially the high school graduate. Because I've been teaching at the high school level for so long, I feel qualified to offer a few thoughts on this, since I see certain recurring tendencies at close range.

First, I see many high schoolers thinking that they or their class somehow "make the school" what it is. It's status as a premier school is hitched to their status as a premier class. They have every confidence that if their class didn't exist, then the school would be so impoverished that it couldn't function. But of course that is rank megalomaniacy. The truth is that even our best classes are forgotten after only a few years. I have taught thousands of students in my many years in private schooling, and only a precious few rise to the top of my consciousness when I think over those many happy years. The school is defined by what in it remains. And they stay for four years. The fact is that they benefit from the school, not the other way round.

Second, many of our students come to expect the world to be like high school. But surely high school is a play world. It bears only the slightest resemblance to the way the world actually works. For example, in the real world, there are not hordes of people ready to praise you for the most routine of accomplishments. No one in my adult life has applauded me for showing up to work on time, paying my bills, doing my job well or writing a coherent sentence. And yet this kind of silliness happens all the time in high school to the point that some have come to expect it. Some graduates come to expect applause for accomplishing what is merely the normal maturation process. One wants to tell some of them, "Great job! You have finally come to value what you should have valued since you were nine!"

When I was potty training my children, we would praise them for doing a simple bodily function, because that was their maturity level and we wanted to encourage them into the practice. What if we urged the parents of our high school students to stand outside the bathrooms shouting affirmations to their kids for going potty? Obviously that would be amusing, but also sad. Why are we not equally shocked at the applause afforded to sixteen year olds for doing minimally good work in English class?

Another dimension of this is the expected relationships in high school. Many high school students think the teacher should just be enthralled with them. Why? Because of course all the adults in his life are enthralled with him. But what if I'm not? Or what if he could not possibly care less about things I happen to think are of profound importance? That doesn't count against his value as a human being, but perhaps it counts against what I think of him. Do I have to see him as his mother sees him? Perhaps he is just not that impressive to me. Surely there are many students that feel this way about me as a teacher. Am I not permitted to feel this way about some of my students? Where does this psychology of the student come from that expects teachers to add to the cacophony of cheap praise for him?

The other side of this is those students whose parents don't encourage them, and who therefore come to us deeply wounded and even desperate for adult affirmation. It is true that we can provide them with some attention, some positive adult input, but is that really enough? Surely they will leave us one day. We are not their parents. We cannot undo the damage done by absentee parents. We can and should do our part in their lives as caring educators, but there are limits to what we can do. They will not be able to move on from us and expect their college professors to be surrogate parents. And surely they will not be able to expect such support from their future bosses.

Think of the challenge for the modern educator dealing with both groups mentioned here. The first group expects the teacher to love and adore them because everyone else does and the second group expects the teacher to take their parents place because no one has loved and adored them. The group is shrinking that expects the teacher to simply teach!

Third, many students think of growing up as a curse. The pinnacle of human existence is youth. Of course this idea is not the fault of our high school students, but they also haven't developed the depth of soul to challenge it either. How many times have I heard high schoolers talk about growing up as a descent from the heights of the human experience in high school? For many of them adulthood will be a curse because the zenith of their accomplishments will be those they accomplished in high school. They will be that pathetic sort that harkens constantly back to the "glory days" of high school, when all was right in the world. She was cheer captain. All the boys called her name out in public. She was an honors student and all her friends marveled at her wit and youthful beauty. Surely it won't get any better than this for her!

He was front man for a band. His charisma kept the girls attention. They loved him, paid ceaseless attention to him and even the teachers bowed to his authority. And then he goes on to suffocate in a larger world that does not know how he rocked crowds of hundreds back in high school.

It is pitiful to watch many of them. They really do think that their volatile but sweet youthful relationships are the best relationships to be found. They really think that the glory of the high school championship will buoy them through life. No, they will never take that away! They were division 4aaa high school champions of section 6b. And they have the ostentatious Jostens novelty rings to prove it. (By the way, does any high school student ever come to suspect that Jostens is using their adolescent egos to become rich?)

I know this sounds a bit negative, perhaps a bit of a rant. And for that I'm sorry, but I wonder if that counts against any of it being simply true. Let me end with something more positive.

High school students should enjoy their graduation celebration, but hopefully they would do so with some perspective and humility.

Aristotle made it clear that the good life cannot really be determined until its end. Jesus also waits until the end to say to his faithful ones, "Well done good and faithful servant." So perhaps at graduation ceremonies we should merely say, "Our class did what thousands of others have done before us. We graduated high school. It remains to be seen what we will do in the real world. Perhaps we will come together again at the end of the race to determine the share of glory that belongs to this class."