Lessons Learned at Graduation

A tried and true approach to describing the process by which students move from one level of education to go on to another is to juxtapose the word “graduation” (i.e. “completion”) with the word “commencement” (i.e. “beginning”). Countless valedictorians, salutatorians and invited dignitaries have resorted to this well-worn trope for decades, if not hundreds of years. It continues to resonate, year after year, however, because, unlike many over-used clichés, it actually characterizes the reality of students’ experience as one chapter of their lives ends and another begins. Whether it is graduation from elementary school, high school, and college or beyond, young people experience these moments of transition as exciting and challenging – at the same time.  They are thrilled to have reached a particular moment of accomplishment and nervous about what comes next. Having spent the last 35 years listening to countless descriptions of how the graduation/commencement dichotomy is expected to play itself out, it was a bit of a shock for me, therefore, to discover at this, my 16^th graduation ceremony at La Salle, that I am no less subject to this dynamic than the young people eagerly awaiting the parties that would follow their formal participation in the awarding of diplomas on Friday, May 22, 2015.

For me, that dynamic typically plays itself out along the axis of “I am grateful our seniors succeeded at La Salle and am excited to see what comes next for them.” This year, however, was different. I discovered that, at the “tender” age of 60, like our graduating teenagers, I still have much to learn. My learning curve – my axis between completion and beginning – revealed itself in a rather mundane, but no less dramatic way; and here’s how…but I must digress for a moment.

We have all attended various graduation ceremonies – from elementary school to graduate school. Our American culture has witnessed a steady erosion of – what would have been called in an earlier era – manners.  This is nowhere played out more dramatically than at school graduations where all sorts of bad behavior is tolerated in the name of “celebration.” There was a time when graduation ceremonies were viewed with the same reverence as church ceremonies.  That era is rapidly withering away. So much so, that some public and private institutions are trying to “put the toothpaste back in the tube” by insisting on proper behavior on the part of parents and graduates during the commencement ceremony.  I fear the effort is more quixotic than practical – a perspective I learned the hard way at our most recent graduation ceremony this past Memorial Day weekend.

Don’t get me wrong, as commencement ceremonies go, graduation at La Salle is fairly tame.  We don’t see beach balls bouncing around or seniors behaving badly on stage. What does happen – and which is problematic as our ceremony takes place in a church – is the excessive cheering and shouting by proud family members who, unbeknownst to them, drown out the announcement of the name of the next graduate in line.  Even with reminders throughout the ceremony, this continues to happen. Here’s how Tracy Stanciel a middle class mother described her experience of a sixth grade graduation ceremony on the South Side of Chicago – the title of her Blog was “It’s Graduation, not a football game.”

Let me make this perfectly clear: You should NOT clap when specifically asked not to. Nor should you whoop, holler, scream, catcall, or yell things like “Mah baybay!” or “You go, girl!” or “Work that stage! Work that stage!” (These are actual statements shouted at various children.)

In the abstract, we recognize that her counsel makes abundant sense. In reality, however, over-enthusiasm often leads to the behavior she described at her child’s elementary school graduation. Then, of course, gone unchecked, it is only human nature for the next proud family to make even more noise than the one before.

                With that in mind, and recognizing that hindsight is always 20/20, here’s the lesson I learned and which convinced me that we are all works in progress and needing to be reminded that it isn’t just teenagers or college graduates – but adults as well - who are confronted by an endless series of beginnings and endings: at a particular moment, midway through the graduation ceremony, some attendees spontaneously broke out in the kind of cheering that Stanciel described at her child’s sixth grade commencement event. I was about to shake the graduate’s hand, when suddenly – and without much thought – I swung around and stared at the source of the disruption in the congregation gathered in the church.  In those few seconds, the proud senior was unable to shake my hand and proceeded to walk off the stage. It didn’t take me long to realize the mistake I had made and the ineradicable memory of that teenager and that family with respect to that graduation ceremony that night

                I later sent a note of apology to the graduate but, of course, the damage had been done. I realized that, I, too, had more to learn, that I, too, must greet the future as a new beginning and to take the lessons of the distant – and recent – past and use them – as we expect our graduates – to figure out how to take advantage of the future lessons which await us.

Earlier today I was exiting the 210 Freeway at the Madre Street exit. Those who frequent this intersection will know that there is an ever changing cast of homeless people who await the first car to come to a stop when the light turns red. From time to time, if I am the first one in line, I’ll give the person whatever change happens to be in my possession at that particular moment. Today was one of those days. The petite woman to whom I gave the meager coins in my possession seemed aged beyond her years.  Her face was weathered by too many days of sitting in the bright Southern California sun.  What was more remarkable for me was the brilliant smile she offered me as we concluded our transaction. And, as I was preparing to roll up my window, she turned to face me, with that amazing smile and said: “Take one day at a time.” I thought to myself, how often we assert that maxim to each other; and how rarely we really take it to heart. It took a homeless woman with an infectious smile to stop me in my tracks and confront me with the inescapable fact that we are all works in progress and we all must negotiate endings and beginnings one day at a time.