By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO– Earlier this week, my 11-year-old grandson Shor participated in a ceremony marking his promotion from elementary school to middle school. Next week, his 5-year-old brother Sky will participate in another ceremony commemorating his advancement from pre-school to kindergarten. Like most parents, grandparents and occasional great-grandparents, we were there with still cameras and video cameras for Shor’s ceremony, and we’ll be just as anxious to record Sky’s.
Amid all this, I have been reading some commentaries on the web that mini-graduations like these two are somewhat silly, that they are inventions of the cap and gown and greeting card industries rather than events of any importance. Agreeing, a neighbor friend recalled that when he was a boy, no one made a big deal of passing from one type of grade school to another. Graduation ceremonies were reserved for when you finished high school, or college, and as far as he was concerned, that’s what they should still mean.
Shor’s promotion ceremony from Marvin Elementary School in the San Diego Unified School District wasn’t a long, drawn-out affair; it took approximately 40 minutes. About 50 fifth-graders from two classes lined up outside the auditorium and, at a signal, and without any processional music, they filed into the auditorium and took their seats. Members of the audience were welcomed. Allegiance was pledged to the flag. Achievement awards were given to some very accomplished students.
We heard some words of advice from the school principal, E. J. Derwae, which were read by a colleague because a family health matter had kept the principal away from the ceremony.
I was struck by the cautionary, protective tone of Principal Derwae’s short remarks. First he told the students that he hoped that they had enjoyed their time at Marvin, and assured them that whenever they might like to return top Marvin Elementary School for a visit, they would be welcome, and that their teachers would be there for them.
He added: “You are no longer elementary school students; you are now middle school students. You will have new experiences and challenges. All I ask is that you try your hardest. I don’t expect you to be perfect or get perfect grades but I do expect you to try and learn from your mistakes. Peer pressures will continue to be present. That means, of course, that your friends will try to influence you. Please remember to do the right thing and don’t let anyone try to make you do something that you know is wrong or that your parents would not approve. Don’t grow up too fast; you will have plenty of years as an adult. Enjoy your time as a young person.”
Thereafter came the main event, when students one-by-one were called onto the stage to receive their promotion certificates and to pose briefly for pictures with their teacher. Once all the students had been so recognized, the 5th-grade class sang for us a version of Green Day’s “I Hope You Had The Time of Your Life.”
As in the principal’s message, I couldn’t help but note the cautionary mood of the lyrics.
Another turning point
A fork stuck in the road
Time grabs you by the wrist
directs you where to go.
So make the best of this test
and don’t ask why.
It’s not a question
But a lesson learned in time.
It’s something unpredictable
but in the end it’s right.
I hope you had the time of your life.
So take the photographs
and still frames in your mind.
Hang them on a shelf
In good health and good times
Tattoos and memories
and dead skin on trial.
For what it’s worth,
it was worth all the while.
It’s something unpredictable
but in the end it’s right.
I hope you had the time of your life…
Adding up the comments of the principal and the lyrics of the song, my conclusion was that this ceremony was marking with some misgivings the fact that the students were about to enter another phase of their lives. They would be leaving the sheltered safety of an elementary school for less predictable, potentially hazardous, experiences in middle school. Who knows what awaits them there; they can’t remain the sweet, innocent children that they now are forever. As they are buffeted by adolescence, will some be pulled away from prescribed paths of learning, and growing? Will some yield to drugs, or premature sex, or violence?
No wonder when the children looked at the audience of parents and grandparents, they saw amid the smiles and cheers, some tears as well. No wonder that one of their teachers couldn’t help but cry during the proceedings.
And yet, not all themes of promotion ceremonies are like this one.
I asked Rabbi Simcha Weiser, headmaster of Soille San Diego Hebrew Day School where Sky is completing pre-school, what function these ceremonies serve. As Romans set milestones on the roads they built to the nations they’d conquered, so too does modern-day society like to set out milestones as a way of marking progress as a person climbs higher, increases understanding and attains personal growth, the rabbi noted.
“I put this in the category of celebrating successes, celebrating progress which, if done in a healthy, meaningful way, reinforces the child’s sense of achievement and creates an appetite for additional achievement,” Weiser said.
“There is a woman named Carol Dweck, a well-known researcher, and she found with children that the more people complimented them on being smart, the less they achieved. The more people complimented them on their effort and their tenacity and their interest in achieving, the more they succeeded…. So how we choose to celebrate the progress of a child either sets them up for continued progress and development, in a good way, or it can make achievement harder.
“Just like if you have a kid in Little League and the very first time he gets up, he hits a home run. He may never get another hit again for the rest of his life. He thinks, ‘Wow, anything from here on in is going to fall short.’ Whereas the kid who gets up the first time and thinks, ‘boy, this is a complicated thing; I want to learn to do this better’ and fouls off two pitches, thinks ‘well, I’ve made contact with the ball; I’ve just got to keep working at it,’ so that becomes a growing experience.
“So measuring success and failure and what we equate success and failure with have a great impact on what the course of a person’s growth will be, but the goal of any graduation should be to stimulate future development and growth as well as celebrating what the kid has done until now.”
In the course of an interview on another subject, I asked Jennie Starr, a parent who founded the Tarbuton program that teaches children modern Hebrew and Israeli culture, for her thoughts on graduations.
She responded that such ceremonies should not only celebrate individual accomplishment, but also should reinforce communal feelings.
People are shaped by their common experiences, she noted. “Whether we feel we are part of a community is important. If you feel connected, there is meaning: you have gone through a journey together, and you will continue together, so there should be a celebration of that togetherness as well.”
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted at donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com