High School Graduation Means Options

Throughout the history of mankind in the civilized, more modern world as we know it, a hierarchy has developed within the ranks of our schoolchildren; a hierarchy that is meant to accentuate the development of not only their increasing education, but also their maturity. The public education system, with its tiered grade level dichotomy, gives children a more feasible means of identification, as well as a clear cut, tangible observance of growth.

We start out our children when they are four, five, or six years of age, whether they are beyond ready for school or still hiding in mama's skirts. They enter the hierarchy of the public school system as the little ones, the bottom of the food chain, the kindergartners. They learn their colors and the alphabet, all about wild animals and, at least in our school district, how to begin forming sentences on paper. As they move through the grades, they, ideally, grow into bustling youngsters, taught to be polite, taught to share, and given the foundations for future studies.

Once they hit the sixth grade, their first graduation swiftly approaches. The ascension from little schoolchildren to the more mature, "cooler," junior high kids begins at the elementary graduation and doesn't really set in until school supply shopping with dad suddenly gets more interesting-perforated instead of spiral, pens instead of crayons, and "big kid" scissors instead of the plastic ones with rounded tips that couldn't cut tissue paper.

As important as this first huge jump from the first tier of the hierarchy to the second is, the graduation from junior high or middle school to the senior high school is everything more in comparison. In our town, students don't attend the senior high until the tenth grade, but the sophomores still report feeling "like the smallest things on the planet" compared to all the tall, seventeen and eighteen year old seniors.

This is the hierarchy at its best. It is in high school that every child finds his niche, finds that definition of themselves-however flexible and living that definition is. Converse All Stars replace Skechers and fashion becomes an expression of self, rather than a necessity. The "over achievers" are separated from the kids who go across the street to smoke a cigarette in passing periods. As the students grow into upstanding-or not so-young adults, as they perfect their educational strategies and finally begin to figure out who they are and what they want to do with their lives, the hierarchy spits them out as the cream of the crop, the big guys on campus, the seniors with their own special parking lot at school.

High school is a whirl for anyone and everyone who ever attended. Graduation is still just one more step that leads to real life. The world opens itself up to the freshman college student and says, "Here I am. Do what you will." Opportunities, options for everything are suddenly available: stay in town or go away, do nothing or work or study, use drugs and alcohol or remain with virgin lungs and your chastity in tact, live your life the way it was meant to be. High school teaches our students to live life as an exclamation, not an explanation. Graduation means that a student has survived the ultimate food chain, jumped through all the developmental hoops of the public school system, and bounded from tier to maturing tier with success and honor. Graduation is symbolic of doors opening up, angels singing, and real life being introduced to every senior walking across the arena stage with a diploma.

I'm graduating in an hour.

Hello, life. It's nice to meet you.