I was just reading another school prayer thread, and again the discussion revolved around the assumption that attending the graduation ceremony was a choice.
Really. We’re not talking about a movie, or going to Taco Bell. High school graduation is a (the) high point in many lives, even more so than college for some. The ceremony symbolizes entry into adulthood and the beginning of the responsibilities and freedoms of adulthood. To claim that the student and family can simply choose to not attend as an alternative to being subjected to sermonizing is disingenuous, imo. And extremely selfish.
Sermonize to those who gather around you after you climb down from the podium, and others can truly choose not to hear.
Peace,
mangeorge
My girlfriend was in the top 2% and choose not to go. Her parents had dancing lessons that day, and she really didn’t feel like waiting a few hours to walk up a stage. In retrospect I wish I had skipped it too. A complete waste of three hours that I could have spent sleeping. How am I supposed to feel like I accomplished anything when even the people who failed to graduate got to walk.
I didn’t go to mine either, Tito, I got my diploma in the mail. Wasn’t important to me. But that’s not the point, is it?
Never went to mine. It was merely a “rubber stamp moment” for me. College graduation–that was different. That was something I had to work for and I would be around people I actually liked.
I thought my graduation ceremony was a waste of time. On the other hand, my father says he regrets not attending his.
Perhaps, like many ceremonies in life, it’s not about you, it’s about the people watching. (An extension of my belief that a wedding - at least a large elaborate wedding - is more for the bride’s mother than the couple).
I could have gone on with life, had I not attended my graduation.
I left at semester, was not allowed to go on my senior trip because I was pregnant after that I didn’t really feel like I was a part of the class. Going to the ceremony was more to get on our principals nerves than it was for me.
I didn’t go. I graduated ahead of my class and was invited to attend the ceremony in June, but I declined. I’m not one for pomp (I got married in Vegas, as well). It’s totally optional and I’d have had words with anyone who tried to force it upon me.
Gosh. I must see too many movies. They (and those other threads) have given me the impression that the ceremony was important to many students.
Still, is it right for someone to say that if you don’t want to hear about their beliefs at a secular ceremony, you can just stay away?
I have never attended a graduation ceremony for any of my degrees and never regretted it. I remember being bored stiff when I attended one as a kid, and it didn’t seem that fun for those attending.
My friends in HS were a bit peeved with my decision to work that day rather than attend. Then afterward several said I was right not to go because it was boring and seemed pointless upon reflection.
In fairness, I should point out that I’m not big on ceremony of any kind. I realize we live by symbols. But for many the symbol replaces the substance of what it took to get there. The experience of going through school was what mattered to me, not wearing the gown and receiving the piece of paper. I have similar feelings about weddings. Too many people seem hung up on GETTING married rather than BEING married. The ceremony isn’t the real stuff.
Even though I’m not big in to graduation ceremonies, I wouldn’t like the idea of my school telling me that if I didn’t want to hear a sermon then I could decline to go. Graduating is a rite of passage, not just for christians, but for every one. Why should I be denied of that because some one feels to need to talk about God?
I went to an all-boys parochial high school, and found my graduation ceremony to be very moving. When the curtain dropped on the stage at the very end, there was barely a single guy up there not crying. I really did feel that I’d achieved something, and that I had reached a crucial moment in my life.
A few years ago, my brother graduated from the same school. I was completely disgusted at how much the event had degraded from a solemn rite of passage (punctuated by a few moments of levity) into a free-for-all. The audience wouldn’t stop catcalling, sounding off airhorns, tossing balloons and streamers, and just in general carrying on as if the whole thing were a rock concert. The graduating seniors weren’t much better behaved. One of them released a couple of live mice onto the stage. The valedictory address was about the most trite, self-serving, amoral piece of drivel I’ve ever been forced to listen to.
Let’s put it in these terms: my daughter has just started pre-K. I’m already dreading her high school graduation.
I think the idea of the whole thing is a little awkward and pretty much a giant waste of time.
However, I went to mine… simply because I KNEW I would regret it if I didn’t. Plus 3 or 4 hours, not a huge chunk to waste.
My bro never got to go to his so I felt like I should let my parents have one graduation ceremony to enjoy 
Many of my friends seem to think that if they don’t go to our graduation in June, they’ll die. Or something.
I, on the other hand, have no intention of going.
If I found out that our principal or someone was planning on giving a religiously-themed speech, or even saying a prayer from the podium, I would go, and I would raise all hell about it.
Personally, though, I don’t see the point of it. We don’t even get handed our actual diplomas on stage there (they want to be sure they get their gowns back), everyone in the senior class (regardless of if they graduated or not) gets to walk, and the whole thing just seems rather silly to me.
I never attended a graduation ceremony I wasn’t forced to attend. I find them meaningless, insulting and demeaning to the process of education. They make you wear Halloween costumes for pete’s sake!
You get the degree whether you walk or not. The degree is what matters, not the walk.
BTW, I was a college prof. for 21 years. Never attending a ceremony in that whole time, never a problem except for one single person who just had their clock wound too tight (and died as a result).
There were profs. who liked the ceremony and those who didn’t. As long as each group left the other alone, everybody was happy.
My parents made me go to high school graduation. :mad: I may never forgive them for it. (Okay, never might be a little extreme, but it’ll take at least five years.)
Some explanation may be necessary.
High school graduation is not a big deal in the culture my parents grew up in. It’s not a big deal in the culture I grew up in. (It tends to be lost in the midst of all the final exams.) Therefore, the ceremony sounded, to me, like a waste of three hours of my life. I pleaded and protested, to no avail. I had to go, end of discussion.
Was it a waste of time? Of course it was!
I did not go to either my high school or college graduations. I didn’t see the need to be bored for that long when I could sit at home and read or watch TV.
The high school did not mail the diploma to me as they were supposed to. After a couple months my mother asked me if I’d ever recieved it, and I told her that I’d just assumed it had come and that she had done something with it. I eventually went to the school to pick it up. Currently, I have no idea where it is. My college diploma is buried somewhere under a pile of books, I think.
Where I went to school (in Canada), graduation is nothing special. The ceremony is, quite frankly, boring. Our school does nothing fancy. You sit in a hot gym for a few hours while and endless list of students you’ve never heard of are called up to shake the principal’s hand and receive their diploma. That’s it. That’s our graduation. The gym with the principal on stage and rows and rows of students/parents in the audience.
Many people don’t go. We ain’t missing much.
Okay, admittedly I did go, but that was only because up here graduation is held in October of the following year. This meant I was away at University, so graduation gave me an excuse to come home for a weekend.
I didn’t want to go to my high school graduation, but I went grudgingly.
I’m pretty much required to go to my college graduation, because I’ll be the first kid in this particular generation of my family to do so.
We were told by our school that we had to attend if we wanted to graduate. Same with college. Basically, you show or you’d damn well better have a good reason not to.
College, yes. I attended my technical college graduation, and plan to attend my university graduation.
High school: Hell, no. I did not attend. I was in a class of 1300 students, wasn’t getting any sort of honors and quite frankly saw no reason to go.
Airman and I went to his sister’s HS graduation in June. Interested persons may read the report here.
Robin