Thirteen years of public education in Texas culminates in graduation. An event that, for many people, is one of the top five lifetime events.
One of my favorite things about graduation is the regalness of it all. Yes, I know, regalness refers to royalty or the king, but I argue the day of graduation you are the king or the queen. Everyone dressed in regalia for the occasion. Everyone looking like royalty. Everyone there to celebrate the end of one phase of life and the beginning of another. (We can argue this point… but I’m conceding to you for the sake of this post that there is an ending and a beginning… conceding just for this blog.)
I have had the pleasure of sitting through a dozen or so high school graduations as a teacher and administrator. I say pleasure and I mean that. I remember sitting in my first graduation as a teacher at Haltom High School and watching the six hundred kids walk across the stage. Many I had not seen since they were in the eighth grade. How proudly they walked across the stage. What a great event that day was for them. I also remember my last graduation at Birdville High School. I sat on the dias as the associate principal and watched the students up close process across the stage and receive their papers to be free from the clutches of the man.
I have also been quite amazed by how many people don’t show up for these events. By how little regalness they see in graduation as a life altering event. My colleague Greg Farr wrote a piece about a program in his school for the kids in danger of dropping out. The article is called, “At-Risk Students - Situational Unawareness“.
I am writing this blog to get to this. Most kids spend the greatest amount of their time in elementary school. Many of them have fond memories of that time. Learning was fun. School was fun.
Why are there not any elementary or middle school teachers at high school graduation? I’m not looking for more work or days added to my contract. I’m not asking that my teachers work another day for free.
I’m just asking the question: why don’t elementary teachers celebrate the culmination of what we do? Maybe they do. Maybe in the crowd of thousands in the graduations that I have been to there are many teachers sitting among the families. Maybe they are there to see their former students process in with regalness and walk across that stage to the cheers of family members. Maybe I just cannot see them.
I have spent the majority of my educational career working in secondary schools. For the past ten months I have been an elementary school principal. I would like to see my staff members get a different perspective of graduation. I would like to see a place for us, the elementary people, at our high school graduations. I would like for my people to process in with the faculty and students from our high school. I would like for my teachers to see how successful their (our) students have been. How they have met all of the requirements set forth by the state and succeeded. How they came into kindergarten not knowing their letters or their numbers, and how they have amassed a great wealth of knowledge. Enough knowledge that the State of Texas has deemed them fit to be high school graduates.
I think elementary teachers need to see that their work is not in vain! They need to see the culmination of their blood, sweat and tears.
