Behind the Scenes at Graduation

Examiner column June 26.   

     I have attended twenty Fairfax County High School graduations in the last two decades, and after the first five or so, they were pretty boring.

    Each year, the exciting speculation for teachers is how many glitches there will be. Will someone’s cap and gown be stolen from the “green room?” That happens every year, this year included. How many beach balls will be smuggled into the ceremony, and, once put into play, how long will they stay aloft?

    We wonder why that particular contraband has brought such delight to generations of students. Is it symbolic of their beach week to come? Or maybe it reflects the philosophy that all life is a beach after four years of high school prison?

    The most uncomfortable part occurs beforehand, as students wait in narrow, stifling passageways to process, alphabetically, onto the floor of the Patriot Center. There are always two or three students sitting on the ground, their heads lolling to the side---a literal meltdown.

    But finally they hear “Pomp and Circumstance,” the signal to march and to take a breath of fresh air.

    There is always the anticipation that one student will do something quirky as he walks across stage. (Notice the pronoun “he.” It has never been a female.)

    One year a student did a backflip right in front of the principal. This year someone tripped---probably deliberately---on his way to his diploma. Two football players were so full of glee that they each hugged the principal. He looked pleased the first time it happened, a bit less pleased the second.

    Faculty play games to keep our minds occupied while 520 student names are called. We count the pages in the program and murmur “halfway there,” or “two thirds down, one third to go.”

    I try to remember if I have taught older sisters or brothers of familiar names. I can remember vividly the 140 I taught this year., but there are a few hundred I didn’t teach. Wasn’t there once a Vocke? And a Henifen? I wonder how those girls are doing? I wonder why I didn’t have the siblings!

    The speeches, always cliché-ridden, are rarely memorable. This year, on a scale of one to ten, I’d rate them a four. Usually the speeches are about a two, so this was above average.

    My favorite graduation speech was delivered by a Virginia congressman. Twice. I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that politicians don’t compose new speeches for each graduation, but when we heard the exact same speech two years apart, the teachers were rolling their eyes, and grateful that the students and parents had no clue.

    Graduation, after all, is for the students and their parents. It’s a meaningful event for them, not merely a piece of punctuation at the end of the year, as it is to us.

    And as the teachers process out, at the conclusion of one more graduation, we are delighted to put a period on this past year. Just as the speeches are always a ten for parents, the year looks better and better to teachers in hindsight. Yesterday the year was an eight. Today a nine. And tomorrow?

Comments

[David]

At the college i attended for my undergraduate work, the linguistics professor would distribute a passage to all the faculty before each spring graduation. He would challenge them to diagram it, and then afterwards compare their diagrams. One year it was the preamble to the consitution; another year it was the Gettysburg address; another was a particular thorny passage of Paul's epistles. I didn't understand it then, but now I do. For faculty even sentence diagramming is more interesting than another graduation. . .

[Erica]

College teachers are much more intellectual than we are at Oakton. I spent most of my time counting how many students dozed off during the speeches, and most of the teachers around me seemed to be staring into space.