My principal has decided to be super strict with the ceremony. Even though we are wearing robes, he has decreed that we must all wear dress clothes underneath. Also, he wants us to wear fancy shoes.
He has threatened to throw anybody out of the ceremony if they don’t comply with his demands.
I’m going to wear jeans underneath my robes and a t-shirt, and sneakers. I don’t have fancy dress clothes, and I’m NOT going to rush out in the next 5 hours and buy them so I can use them for one evening and then let them collect dust in the closet.
How do you like that, Dr. Huge?*
Expel me from the ceremony if you must. When you do, I will let you know that I disagree with your strict rules, and bid you good evening. I hope my small act of civil disobedience will lead you to be slightly less anal retentive next year.
*The school has nicknamed him “Dr. Huge” because he’s a really, really tall guy.
Blalron, I think it would be funnier if you just came to graduation wearing nothing but the robe…and if they object you can say “But this is the nicest thing I have” sarcastically.
On another note, I’m sure you can find some middle ground if this is a matter of simply not having any nice shoes/shirts. I would talk to them before you try anything, perhaps you can comprimise or something. I see a lot of people excersise ‘civil disobedience’ against people who would have been more than willing to comprimise over an unfair situation, had they ASKED first.
Not that it means anything, but at my college graduation, I wore shorts, a t-shirt and tennis shoes under my gown.
I mean, we were sitting under the hot sun for 4 hours in black robes, for heaven’s sake!
Of course, when I graduated from HS I had some nice fancy dress on under my gown. Of course, that gown was shorter, flimsier and all around cheesier than the college one. So you could definitely tell what we were wearing underneath. Not so with the college one.
Jeans under the robe “back in my day” was a really rebellious act. I don’t dig pomp and circumstance, so I just plain didn’t attend the ceremony. Everyone was cool with it.
Blalron, I used to teach in public schools. If this is a public school that you are graduating from, you have the law on your side. The law provides that you not wear anything which would be disturbing. At least, that’s the last word I heard.
If you are attending a private school, you need to talk with the principal.
My university and Hamish’s used somewhat softer but more effective tactics: they had no requirement as to what you wear underneath, but simply reminded you that the gown is open in front and whatever you wore would show.
Throw everyone into a loop…if you’re a guy, wear a nice dress that he would find normally acceptable for a girl; afterall, he said that everyone had to be in “dress clothes”, not specifically suits for guys and dresses for women. When he is shocked by your behavior, just tell him that you have your shorts, t-shirt and sandals handy in the car if he wants you to change into those. And as for the suit, just tell him you couldn’t afford one, but mom just happened to have this dress that would fulfill the requirement and tell him you’re doing your best to remedy the situation…
I don’t see any reason why you wouldn’t wear nice clothes to your graduation. It’s an important and formal occasion, and you will certainly be seen in whatever you wear both before and after the ceremony. It is appropriate to wear something dressy.
Sure, it’s too hot to wear a suit, but are nice slacks and a short-sleeved shirt really different in temperature than blue-jeans and a T-shirt? And those graduation robes are open in the front, and look much classier if you’re wearing a tie.
This is a rite of passage into adulthood, and one of the things adults have to learn to do is to dress in what is appropriate for the occasion, even if it isn’t necessarily the most comfortable thing.
I’d wear flannel pants and T-shirts everywhere, but I only get respect when I dress for it.
You, of course, have the right to choose how to respond to this situation. But my advice would be to dress nicely.
This graduation is about the students, not about pleasing the principal. He may think that this is a “performance” (those are his words) that we are supposed to be putting on for everyone else, but I vigorously disagree.
I understand. But this is not a job interview. This is our celebration of the end of 12 years of school and the beginning of adulthood. The principal should treat us with respect and not bark orders at us like we are kindergartners.
And I hate to say it, but if you plan to get a job, you’re going to need some good clothes anyway. Even for casual job interviews, dressing neatly is often an immediate threshold you have to cross.
But it does sound like the principal is an idiot.
That being said, do you have some black or dark blue jeans you could wear that at a quick glance might resemble dress pants? And some black shoes? You can probably exercise your civil disobedience that way while still not giving him the satisfaction of tossing you out.
Not to mention – trust me on this one – your mother will be angry for YEARS if you miss your graduation ceremony. My nephew stood on a principle and wasn’t allowed to participate in his graduation ceremony. My sister may NEVER forgive him.
FWIW, with a bachelors and two masters degrees under my belt, the only commencement exercise I ever attended was my HS graduation. It was pure hell. We had to wear formal clothes under those hideous rented nylon robes that felt like being wrapped in plastic garbage bags anyway. (“Formal clothes” as in shirt and ties for guys, light-colored dress and hose for girls, no sandals or open-toed shoes permitted.) Commencement was mandatory, mind, and so was the dress code. I didn’t want to go because my mom was pissed at having to take time for it so the whole event was stacking up really well anyway.
A sudden, soaker thunderstorm hit so the ceremony was moved into the gym. (The auditorium didn’t have enough seating capacity.) No air conditioning so it was a wet, sweltering furnace in there. People–grads and family–were fainting right and left from the heat. Lotsa fun, that, hauling limp bodies out of the bleachers and rows of metal chairs. Of course the nifty faux leather diploma folders were empty. The whole crowd of us had to wait in line for two more hours outside an office while one person checked in our rented robes and then released the actual diplomas. More fainting, vomiting and amublance calls ensued.
Meanwhile most of the cars parked in the unpaved overflow lot sank to their axles in mud churned up from the storm. The well-dressed but matriculated survivors got slathered in mud trying to push out the stuck cars.
It was pure hell, and my already pissed mother was livid with fury. I never attended another commencement ceremony.
Okay, it was an extreme comedy (?) of errors but it lead me to believe that even ceremonial dress had better allow room for common sense.
I always wanted to cut an old dress shirt off in a wide circle around the collar and wear it under my gown along with a tie, and then cut the bottoms of the legs off of an old pair of dress pants and duct tape them to my legs, along with the usual socks and dress shoes. Nothing else, or maybe a pair of boxers.
Funny, my sister just graduated tonight-the dress code was mostly suggestions (light colored dresses for the girls, since their robes are white). (And like we did at my graduation, they tossed beach balls around during the ceremoney-I shit you not).
Dude, surely you have a pair of khakis, at least! You can’t just have jeans!
Grow up and stop acting like such a shithead.
On the other hand, this year they started letting the seniors buy instead of rent their robes and caps. Good GOD, those things are cheap-the shittiest polyester fabric-and what’s worse, you can’t wash them OR dry clean them!
