Classless of 2007
Unruly audiences at high school graduations get failing marks
Been to a graduation lately?
The pomp and circumstance has been replaced by romps and circuses.
Some in the audience dress like they're at a luau. Others bring air horns and carry on as if they're at a professional wrestling event. Some cheer for their little babies so loud and long that the next hard-working graduate doesn't get his or her moment in the sun.
How incredibly self-absorbed and crass.
Boorish behavior has nearly taken over graduations.
It makes you wonder if there are any special occasions left, any milestones that aren't muddied by the classless.
Is this just the fate of a society that revels in having peanut shells on restaurant floors? Or is there any hope for dignity left?
The fine folks at Galesburg High thought so, anyway. Officials at the Illinois school, after a particularly indecorous graduation in 2005 that nearly led to fights in the stands, required students and parents to sign a contract promising to be dignified this year. The punishment for violators: no diplomas, at least for the time being - and eight hours of community service work to get them later.
Five students received just such a punishment this year, bringing the requisite outrage and indignation and shock from folks who knew the rules going in and violated them.
Of course, no consequence in 21st century America goes into effect without an appeal. We hope the school sticks to its guns.
In fact, we wish the policy would be imported here.
We understand you're excited about your little baby getting a diploma. It's wonderful. It's a big deal. We get it already.
But truth be known, when you whoop and wail and turn graduation into a contest to see whose student is more loved and appreciated, that makes it less special, not more. Ceremonies such as graduations and weddings are meant to be formal and dignified. That's what makes them special: The decorum is what separates a ceremony from a ballgame or a night at the pub. It's what gives the event meaning and significance. It cries out, "This is a special moment!" Save the whooping for afterward.
And what are we teaching our children when school officials pronounce all these rules of decorum and then simply sit there and watch them be violated several hundred times over? The kids have to wonder which rules in life are real and which are facades.
For the life of us, we don't understand why school superintendents or board of education members don't promise unruly audiences that they'll shut down graduations in progress if folks don't come to order and respect not only the dignity of the moment but the sensibilities of those around them.
Is there no special occasion anymore?
From the Tuesday, June 05, 2007 edition of the Augusta Chronicle
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10 comments:
I believe students should get no more than 5 tickets for their family, no more. If their family cannot be orderly, then they should be asked to leave. I dont believe Graduation to be a circus, but a very serious time in a persons life. It is a major accomplishment and the start of creating more accomplishments.
Unruly graduations are not something new. When I graduated from high school in 1975, my school got a page 2 article & editorial in the Washington Post. Of course, the audience was relatively subdued, the graduates were the unruly ones! As over 95% of us went on to college, it was not that special of day to us.
everyone liked to dance around this issue but im gonna come right out and say it.....
The "blacks" that attend events such as these be it a graduation, a band performance, football game or other public gathering always seem to bring unruly behavior with them. I have witnessed this all my life here in Barnesville and can only attribute it to "Tribal Like Behavior". The more of them you get in a bunch, the louder and more unruly they will be.
So I have this to say to ANYONE fitting this description, SIT YOUR A$$'es DOWN, SHUT THE HE(( UP AND LET EVERYONE ENJOY THE EVENTS OR KEEP YOUR RUDE UNDISCIPLINED A$$ AT HOME.
POWP
i think that says it all right there,sometime the truth hurts
now now not all maybe 99.9%
hell i ain't just graduation,it's anything they do
When my nephew gradauted from Griffin High four years ago I remember the whooping and hollering but also people with gigantic balloon bouquets rudely blocking my view. When my daughter graduates from Spalding High next year after a hard-fought high school career riddled with major (and painful) health problems, I worry that I will not be able to hear her name called when she gets her diploma because somebody before her has rude friends and relatives. In Griffin, graduations are held in the stadium and there are no tickets- anybody can come. I think that's a good thing because my daughter enjoys watching her friends mark that milestone. Unfortunately some folks abuse the privilege of being able to freely attend graduations. I don't know how to stop it.
Oh, one more thing...It's not just graduations, and it's not just certain ethnic groups. At last year's performance of the Nutcracker, in which my little nieces danced, after a very good local ballerina performed in several scenes, several of her friends seated right behind me whooped and hollered at each instance. At a BALLET! I looked back and found that they were girls from my neighborhood, from "nice" families. Just goes to show that a lack of class is not limited to one group...
Good Morning,
I am a 12th grade sponsor at a high school in Philadelphia and I was looking for words and phrases that I could use to reinforce expected behaviors at graduation, when I came across this blog. I just need to tell you how offended I am by your racist and inaccurate comments. If I am to follow your assessment am I to conclude that ignorance and bigotry seem to follow “whites”? Graduation behaviors and standards of behaviors are social issues, not racial ones. I will certainly use your postings as a teachable moment in the upcoming school year. Thank you for being so honest with your beliefs.
I didnt know Al sharptons wife is a school teacher in Philidelphia!
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