Clarifications

I went to my first high school graduation as a teacher. Some things are a little different from when I graduated 15 years ago.  I believe I witnessed a conflict between the need for a profound ceremonial reflection and the needs of the students to own their graduation experiences as individuals.

In addition to the frequently seen–and just as frequently confiscated–beach balls bouncing among the graduates, there were also a number of students who were barefoot, a brief volleyball game with a blow-up sex doll, and two girls who unzipped their robes to reveal scanty clothing underneath: one was wearing low-rise shorts and a bright green bikini top.

In their speeches students also mispronounced the names of Yeats and Ovid, whom they quoted, but that only bothered the English teachers like me.

I happened to be sitting next to 2 teachers who retired this year. They both noted the irreverence of ceremony in these actions. But, while I agree with their observations, they failed to note the need of students to make an individual mark.

I certainly don’t support these students’ actions, but I think that graduation ceremonies are generally mishandled, and the few ceremonies we subject students to in school are thin facades for control. Students see through the school ceremonies of bell-regulated schedules, desks in neat rows, no talking/texting/drawing/eating/drinking/individual thinking, and they conclude that all ceremonies are probably as meaningless to their lives as most of the artificiality of school. Since most students don’t attend strictly structured religious services, or come from traditional cultures with long-standing traditions, there is little other exposure to any other ceremony.

And students need to be individuals. They don’t want to be recognized just as a class; they want to shine. They want to be Leigh, Kodi, Cody, and Alan. Putting all the students in maroon and white gowns and caps and having them sit in neat rows according to the letter of the alphabet does not impart profundity to my students, it screams Maoist oppression–not that any of them know who Chairman Mao was.

As a result, the conflict between an (adult?) need for a profoundly ritualistic ceremony and the (students’?) need for individual expression became not a conflict at all. the students were in control.  Individualism wins.

I wonder how other teachers use ritual and ceremony in their classrooms. Is there any purpose behind it? Do we have metacognitive, explicit conversations about the value of ceremony? Do we show the students of ceremony or tradition? If not, do we believe that there is a value in these ceremonies?  Or do we just cling to tradition like old codgers, without reason?

While considering a few different items I had a thought about schedules…

1) I was reflecting on the shift of my own thinking from concentrating on what I taught this year to how I would change my curricula for next year (which seemed to occur right around Spring Break).

2) I was thinking about how destructive to instruction it was for my district to postpone Spring Break for several weeks so it couldn’t interfere with our CSAP tests;

3) and I was listening to many teachers complain about the scheduling of professional development right before the start of classes each year in the fall–there’s no point in teaching us something we can’t integrate because we see kids in 48 hours, and PD in June is too late, teachers are all burned out.

The soup I made from all these ingredients is that we should have an extended Spring Break. The students would have an additional 1-3 days off each year during which the teachers would come back, refreshed and looking toward the next year more than the remainders of 4th quarter, and it would help us ease back into school after vacation. We could move the PD days from August without complaint.

I have suggested this, but each person I mention it to nods his or her head with a “Yes, that makes sense,” and an implied, “but it’ll never happen.” The teachers believe (accurately) that they occupy a separate universe from the District Administrators. Whereas most teachers consider how each decision will affect students’ learning, most administrators seem to consider… everything else.

Even in our faculty meetings, I am bothered by how rarely someone says, “How will this help our kids?” Although, as a newbie/probie/schmuck I concede that this thought may underlie many of the comments veteran teachers make, I also think it would benefit everyone to address it more explicitly.

Now that I’ve identified that problem–and now that I’ve been offered a position next year–I think that voice will have to come from me.