A little pomp. And also, circumstance.

[nightengalesknd]

There seems to be a bit of graduation inflation going on. Coworkers have been going to their children’s kindergarten and 8th grade graduations. A patient recently had a preschool graduation, complete with mortarboard, tassel and gown. Of course, I cooed over the picture and I congraduated my co-workers. But I can’t help thinking that preschool

Comments

[sammason]

Here in Britain, nobody calls the end of school 'graduation' and there were no ceremonies for it. I say 'were' because I think there's a movement towards 'proms' in UK schools these days. I don't know whether proms and graduation are the same thing.

Academic dress (cap and gown) belongs to Higher Education, ie University. People who don't go to University have many other reasons to be proud and many ways to show their pride.

[nightengalesknd]

I agree with you on academic dress. And people who have ALREADY been to University do not need to have academic dress ceremonies for subsequent events celebrating completion of things.

A prom is a dance held near the end of the year. A formal dance. Think dress similar to a formal wedding. Weeks of Big Deal about who is asking whom. People may or may not go without a date depending on school culture. Some schools are better about same-sex dates than others. There are some schools in the US with a history of alarming racism, sexism and homophobia as relate to prom policies. There is often a popularity contest that elects a Prom King, Prom Queen and a court. There is also a tradition of consuming alarming amounts of alcohol either before the event or during an "afterparty" considering almost no participants are actually old enough to legally purchase alcohol which has resulted in a tragic tradition of kids dying in alcohol-related car crashes following prom.

[bookgirlwa]

Wow. I'm really glad graduations don't have the same level of significance here in Australia/NZ, and I'm very very glad I was both a high school and university dropout.

"had grown up reading turn-of-the-century books where girls graduated in white dresses, often white dresses they had made themselves in home-ec class."

At a guess, Girl of the Limberlost and A Tree Grows In Brooklyn were two of these books.

[bookgirlwa]

Oh and well done and many many congratulations for being nearly at the end!! It has been fascinating following your journey through med school.

[nightengalesknd]

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was one. The All Of A Kind Family books were another. Also I think my grandmother was supposed to make her own graduation dress in the 1930s. I've actually never read Girl of the Limberlost.

I have no problem with graduations where graduations are due. But I do have a problem where the only way to mark the end of a something is by co-opting the rite of graduation. It's like not having any other way to throw a party than to imitate a wedding.

[sammason]

Did you notice there's something wrong with your post here? 'Irreparable error: user must fix manually.' Those happen for trivial reasons, easily fixed.

[nightengalesknd]

Trivial reasons = information within quotes did not stay in quotes when post pasted from word to LJ. Bleh. Thanks for the eagle eye! Fixed now

[songblaze]

My blasted 8th grade 'graduation' was a frustrating joke. We spent so damn long rehearsing for the damn thing, and who wants to hear speeches from EVERY person in the class? I'll grant you, it was only a class of 8, but still. And each of the other grades had to either sing a song or recite a poem for us