May is here and summer vacation is not far behind. High School Seniors will be graduating at the end of the month. It is an exciting time. Getting your cap and gown. Sending announcements. Senior activities, awards ceremonies, "Senior Check Out", and graduation practice. Signing yearbooks. Exchanging pictures. Finally knowing where you are going to be the next year.
My career as a Senior English teacher enabled me to share in the experience year after year. I sometimes felt like a sociologist, watching the evolution of a species. Early in the fall, the "Senior" title was intoxicating. The new status and power was long anticipated and now relished. Senior Parking lot, the "good lunch", leaving campus for concurrent enrollment or DECA and ruling the Pep Assemblies. Most Seniors were now confidently within their "groups". Those groups were the circles of friends that had been developing and repositioning in the lower grades. There was less "angst" Senior Year.
After Christmas, the atmosphere changed. College applications were due. FAFSA forms indicated eligibility for aid. GPA's became very concrete reminders of effort and opportunities. ACT scores were in for the last time. Those prepared and ready were looking forward. Those that never got it, began looking back. Effort and drive in the final semester? Those that did, were and those that didn't, really weren't. This time of year, it was a difficult job to keep either group engaged in Macbeth or Expository writing or the evaluation of logical arguments.
Spring. Senior Week finally arrived. There was the ginger- haired kid who was absolutely elated because he "passed" high school. There was the Valedictorian, headed East in the fall, who brought a small gift with a personal note that made me cry. A tattooed and pierced tough guy spontaneously picked me up and twirled me around his last day of class. A very young and unmarried Mother asked me to sign her yearbook and to pose for a picture with her, baby and all. A newly enlisted and shorn eighteen year old boy shared dreams of opportunities offered by the military. He would head off to Basic, six days after graduation.
You try as a teacher to instill a love of learning. "It's important" - you repeat again and again. You try as a teacher to expand horizons and widen the often limited vision of teens. How to get them to step out of the now and how to look toward the future. How to give them the tools to set life goals and then, zero in on how to attain them. To realize all things are possible but no things are given. You try as teacher to lead each student to a bright and promising future. The next step? You stand back and cross your fingers.
This time of year I always get nostalgic. I miss the excitement and anticipation I vicariously absorbed through my graduating students. I miss the hub-bub and energy of the last week. I miss the shared plans and destinations. I miss their youthful confidence in the future. I miss their smiles as they bounce, or run, or bop, or glide across the stage. Each gown clad graduate receives their diploma, shakes an outstretched hand and heads down the stairs- to their future-and to the rest of their life.
****Best Wishes Class of 2008****
**May All Your Dreams Come True**
Showing posts with label Graduation Activities. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Graduation Activities. Show all posts
Monday, May 12, 2008
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Senior Trips -Oh My!
Out of four children, we allowed our oldest boy to go to Cancun. He was graduating high school and assumed his right of passage was the Senior Trip south of the border. We allowed him to go, but so did his Father with two other Dads. These middle age men returned from sunny Mexico with eyes as wide as sand dollars, shaking their graying heads. These calm and well-traveled men were tongue tied and incredulous.
Even with his own parent somewhere in the vicinity, my son bungee jumped at a tourist stand, trusting other countries to have the same safety standards as his own did. Our designated Dads accompanied the kids crammed on a party boat called the Booze Cruise to Isla Mujeres. The evening culminated in various "games", organized by the cruise line and fueled by the tequila and Corona that had been consumed coming across to the island. You have seen "Girls Gone Wild"? Six years ago, this behavior was not marketed and aired on MTV. Our "chaperones" were absolutely shocked as inhibitions were broken down and good judgement disappeared as quickly as young girls T-shirts. Another night there was an altercation at Carlos and Charlie's and a stampede resulted as kids tried to get out of the way and out of the bar. Several were injured.
Perhaps you argue, "I trust my child. He would not participate in dangerous behavior." Or other parents counter, "They're graduating. Let 'em go have fun. You're only young once." The one my husband and I succumbed to was "everyone else is going"- but only one time.
Our kids go out of the country where liquor laws are non-existent and our teens are targeted customers. Granted, thousands of students return with a good tan and none the worse for wear. However, ask any of them if they would ever go back. In my totally unscientific survey, 8 out of 10 will say no. As young men and women mature in college, they realize what dangerous situations they were in and how naive and stupid they were. The P-A-R-T-Y attitude of so many hormones, combined with unlimited tequila, and all wedged into one small area can possibly result in bad things. Bad things. Remember Natalie Holloway?
There is binge drinking everywhere. There is random sex everywhere. There are bad people everywhere. But somehow, marketed trips that openly promote these behaviors are unsettling and disturbing. Yet year after year we allow our precious children to go out of the country, unsupervised and unmonitored.
The whole world is at their fingertips. The possibilities are limitless. How about Student Tours to Europe, backpacking in the Rockies, Teen Fantasy Camps or American beach destinations ? There is Disney World, Worlds of Fun or Six Flags. A group could book a floor at a lakeside resort , go Snow Skiing or tour the Rain Forest. How about identifying a popular band and planning a road trip in a chauffeured bus to their concert city? Cruise to Alaska, find like minded friends and take a week long course somewhere cool doing something you love, see New York, or Chicago, D.C. or San Antonio, .........just encourage your graduate to make a wise, a safe and a life- broadening choice.
If we find the above too expensive, should we allow our child to go South because it is cheap? Let's all agree it is OK to just say no to the trip and promise other choices at a later time. OK, I'm practicing, no......no...No!
Even with his own parent somewhere in the vicinity, my son bungee jumped at a tourist stand, trusting other countries to have the same safety standards as his own did. Our designated Dads accompanied the kids crammed on a party boat called the Booze Cruise to Isla Mujeres. The evening culminated in various "games", organized by the cruise line and fueled by the tequila and Corona that had been consumed coming across to the island. You have seen "Girls Gone Wild"? Six years ago, this behavior was not marketed and aired on MTV. Our "chaperones" were absolutely shocked as inhibitions were broken down and good judgement disappeared as quickly as young girls T-shirts. Another night there was an altercation at Carlos and Charlie's and a stampede resulted as kids tried to get out of the way and out of the bar. Several were injured.
Perhaps you argue, "I trust my child. He would not participate in dangerous behavior." Or other parents counter, "They're graduating. Let 'em go have fun. You're only young once." The one my husband and I succumbed to was "everyone else is going"- but only one time.
Our kids go out of the country where liquor laws are non-existent and our teens are targeted customers. Granted, thousands of students return with a good tan and none the worse for wear. However, ask any of them if they would ever go back. In my totally unscientific survey, 8 out of 10 will say no. As young men and women mature in college, they realize what dangerous situations they were in and how naive and stupid they were. The P-A-R-T-Y attitude of so many hormones, combined with unlimited tequila, and all wedged into one small area can possibly result in bad things. Bad things. Remember Natalie Holloway?
There is binge drinking everywhere. There is random sex everywhere. There are bad people everywhere. But somehow, marketed trips that openly promote these behaviors are unsettling and disturbing. Yet year after year we allow our precious children to go out of the country, unsupervised and unmonitored.
The whole world is at their fingertips. The possibilities are limitless. How about Student Tours to Europe, backpacking in the Rockies, Teen Fantasy Camps or American beach destinations ? There is Disney World, Worlds of Fun or Six Flags. A group could book a floor at a lakeside resort , go Snow Skiing or tour the Rain Forest. How about identifying a popular band and planning a road trip in a chauffeured bus to their concert city? Cruise to Alaska, find like minded friends and take a week long course somewhere cool doing something you love, see New York, or Chicago, D.C. or San Antonio, .........just encourage your graduate to make a wise, a safe and a life- broadening choice.
If we find the above too expensive, should we allow our child to go South because it is cheap? Let's all agree it is OK to just say no to the trip and promise other choices at a later time. OK, I'm practicing, no......no...No!
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