Make Graduation Day a Special Day Across the Grades

Whether you call it Graduation Day, Move-Up or Step-Up Day, or Recognition or Promotion Day, the day you set aside to honor your school's "senior" class can be a special one with these ideas from Education World's "Principal Files" team.

No matter what grade levels are taught in your school, the end of the school year offers a special opportunity to recognize those students who make up the school's "senior" class. Many school districts reserve the title "Graduation Day" for grade 12 students, so the progression of students from primary to elementary, elementary to middle, or middle to high school is called by another name. Move-Up Day, Promotion Day, Recognition Day, or Step-Up Day are among the names given this special and memorable event.

STUDENTS AND FAMILIES FIRST

"We believe graduation is a time for families to come first. Families come to see their kids walk across the stage, so everything works from there," principal Tony Pallija told Education World. While Pallija is a high school principal, his thoughts about graduation make real sense across the grades. He and the staff at of North Canton Hoover High School in North Canton, Ohio, make an extra effort to communicate carefully and often with families about the upcoming events. "We spend the extra postage to mail each family an invitation to the ceremony along with information about how many tickets they will receive, parking, times, dress… You name it, we mail it."

North Canton's ceremony also puts the kids up front. "The best speeches at graduation are the ones by the students," added Pallija. "We let them talk about their four years and the future. We don't get some Ph.D. to tell kids to be flexible or to be lifelong learners."

MAKING IT SPECIAL

Wright shared another idea that can make graduation a very special time. "This idea takes a little planning, but it provides parents with a recording of their child's voice each year of school," explained Wright. "In kindergarten, the child might be reciting their ABCs and in first grade they might do a little reading." In second grade they might recite a poem, in third grade their times tables…

"What a special tribute for a child to give to parents!" Wright added.

it was not awful. I did not sit there listening to speeches given by peers (most of whom I can't even call acquaintances) and fight an endless soliloquy in my head, declaring that their cares were silly and that they knew little of what I'd been through. I was relieved that although I felt older than them, I didn't experience the thoughts which I'd feared would mark me as a self-absorbed and unkind person. I wasn't overwhelmed by my sense of being different.

But, I did feel grief about not having had a "normal," happy high school experience. My five years were not filled with events linking me to my classmates and leading to long friendships with them. Rather, they were increasingly frightening, lonely and challenging to my sense of self.

Looking back at high school and reliving those years was scary. I felt as if I'd been dragged back in time to ancient pains, ones which I wished to dismiss and forget.

In the weeks before graduation, I grew bitter and afraid. I didn't wish to revisit my early years , I wasn't strong enough for that, at least not at this time when every other student's celebration seemed to remind me of how different I was from my peers. My classmates were beginning new adventures, with their assumptions that hard work would yield rewards and happiness mainly still intact. I was wondering if I should give up on my dream of becoming well someday. The contrast was obvious and it was taking most of my strength just to fight off jealousy. It was clear to me that the present time was as much as I could deal with, so when I

began finding retrospective thinking nearly unavoidable, I began to worry. Revisiting my past was not a good idea and I did my utmost to resist it. But as Graduation Day neared, I began to wonder if its symbolism would push me over the edge. Would the experience be so solemn as to force me to face my old emotions, without any pleasant distractions to serve as excuses for forgetting them once more?

By graduation day I was quite nervous; it was a relief to me that we'd planned to keep our family celebration quiet and small. We made sure to hold it before the ceremony so that if I felt physically or emotionally drained afterwards, I could return home and rest without abandoning my guests. To celebrate with my family and favorite tutor was appropriate and comforting. These people knew what a long road it had been because they'd been with me every step of the way. But despite their good company, I remained anxious about what might, for me, be a somber and disturbing event.

Apparently graduation has changed since my parents' school days; my classmates came to my rescue and ensured that the experience was nothing like I'd feared it would be! Somewhat to my dismay - but mostly to my relief - they behaved horribly during the ceremony. They sang and shouted during speeches, tossed beach balls and generally disrupted everything. No air of symbolism or seriousness was left intact when the guys sitting near me were through. Rather than having to fight off a sense of major life change and possible depression, I was distracted by them (and by the concentration it took for me to sit up) and had very little brain left with which to worry. Instead, I turned my attention to the speeches, followed the beach ball as it made its way above the class of 1995 and listened for my name to be called. A wave of relief washed over me and it began to sink in that I was finally done with high school.

I couldn't bear the idea of leaving school without having done something to make myself known to my peers, nor of marking the date of my graduation amongst people who had no idea how much that achievement meant to me. I wanted them to know that despite having battled CFIDS and taken five years to complete high school, I was still a human being in their class, deserving the same diploma and sense of community support. It was a comfort to me to know that although I couldn't recognize their faces, some of the kids from the health classes knew my name and my story. I might have been ill and confused by the graduation day crowd, but there were classmates out there who could recognize me. I felt a sense of kinship with them and was grateful to not be marking the date alone.

The year since graduation has not been easy, but it has been joyous. I have felt somewhat like the ugly duckling, not able to behave as my peers blossoming at college do. But I have discovered that, as during high school, there are rewards for those who awkwardly find their own, seemingly individual, paths in life.