Technolandy

Day 178 (of 2024/25) bonus graduation events (and leaving school ceremonies)

Here’s the debate prompt. Do students need to have completed all credits before they cross the stage for a graduation?

Sub prompt 1: if yes, shouldn’t ceremonies take place in the fall when classes and summer school opportunities are complete and an authentic count can be done?

Sub prompt 2: if no, shouldn’t ceremonies take a disclaimer be: you only get to cross the stage once, so choose “when” wisely…

Sub prompt 3: can we celebrate students choosing to end learning even if “we” as adults aren’t happy that they didn’t cross the finish line established by a bunch of middle/upper class old people many decades ago? Explainer philosophically I LOVE BCs “educated citizen” descriptor that came out of the Year 2000 program ad imagined around 1988… but doesn’t always fit the neuro diverse need for … speciality. Why take senior science when it’s not about a specific area of interest (eg why not astronomy or microbiology of ___) but a survey course. As my son has always explained when he shares a correct answer to a tough piece of trivia… I know it thanks to the power of YouTube. It was cute when he was 10… now it’s a pattern… as he did an adult dogwood which we celebrated just as much as his sisters more … robust(?) grad transcript… 

Sub prompt 4: if schooling/courses are a choice (such as a drivers test for license) can we say that is different than something that is not a choice (schooling k-12)?   Fail a drivers test, of course you don’t get your picture ok the piece of plastics, but not successful in a course decided for you by people long since deceased and you are excluded… well, admittedly mindsets like some organizations do think that arbitrary courses and %s ought to be exclusionary (even if not chosen) https://www.fraserinstitute.org/commentary/school-board-shouldnt-let-non-graduating-students-walk-across-stage

Sub prompt 5: if, as I found a reasoning: Part of the graduation ceremony is an attestation by someone (principal, academic dean, etc.) that every one of the graduates has met the requirements of the (state) to earn a high school diploma. If you have not done this you don’t belong in that group. It’s a harsh reality, but there it is. How many are willing to bet the mortgage that every student will have every requirement (including behaviours) before the actual last day of school… heck, looking back, I think that’s why my grad ceremony was on the last weekend in June… there was a follow up with a negative mindset that most students who promise to finish courses after the ceremony don’t – and I know of a couple who have done just that… but they don’t have their graduation diploma… which is a barrier that many opportunities need resolved before moving forward… is the “harsh reality” of not letting students walk across a stage with peers they’vev(likely) attended school for years really making people happy?

Sub prompt 6: do the kids excluded from “their” graduation actually turn things around and become academic leaders? I’m just saying that retention is one of the main indicators of students dropping out of formal learning – please tell me why it is different in the final year…

Sub prompt 7: who keeps count of who ‘tricked the system’, walked across the stage, and then didn’t have enough credits to authentically graduate – what is the link to other significant offences they then did… or is the measurement ‘it may devalue the feeling of those who finished on time’?? 

Ughs 

Graduation ceremonies are for graduates. Headlines like this make me laugh at just how serious some people take grad events – I still support “crossing the stage with dignity” – but only once at each level… if you end up not finishing a course, you don’t get celebrated again (just congratulated for getting all the hoops jumped through). 

Those poor kids back in the pandemic who didn’t get the arena event. Just finished our much smaller/quieter/personalized online school grad event – not everyone wants to go to the over-stimulating brick and mortar pageant. I shared with our new superintendent that I’m glad of the strategy used during the pandemic because the “one at a time” setup was something my son could deal with – he would not have attended the louder/crowded event — oh, and everyone attended those events, even the adults who wished it could be more of a loud party atmosphere (which means many graduates don’t attend, but I guess that method of excluding successful graduates is okay …?) 

It’s all about “declining standards in Canadian schools.”

I know people think their own school experience was the apex of learning – and maybe it’s just me that thinks back to the number of disillusioned students who opted “out” each year… a bunch at grade 7 and then our 120 grade 8 class had a tad over 60 cross the stage 5 years later… but there is still the same range of students that i see. The overachievers. The just getting-by-ers. The anxious kids are seeking more help so are more visible than the self-medications done by my generation to dull the pains of life and school. So much more going on (and accessible) than in cocooned past generations/decades. And the world is still channeling Socrates and blaming the decadence of youth these days instead of seeing how they are interacting with the world they live in, rather than the imagined utopia of years gone by – trust me: the good old days… weren’t, and the kids are gonna be all right.

Let’s let them cross the stage if that’s what’s important to them (many don’t want to actually show up anyways – this is not a public protest but a small %) Who are graduation ceremonies for?