Friday, June 10, 2011

Utterly So




I have been to many, many graduations. I have been to probably 25 graduations now as an educator. I have been to graduations in the morning, in the evening, with caps and gowns and teachers in academic regalia, with students in suits or white dresses. I have been to graduations inside and outside, in gyms, in auditoriums, under tents, in the open air…I know of graduations.

They all start out pretty much the same, once everyone has been seated. The headmaster welcomes the board of trustees, the parents, the faculty, and of course, let’s not forget the graduates.

But you know it is an uncommon graduation when the headmaster begins with “Your Majesty, Your Royal Highnesses, Your Excellencies,…” and then goes back to the usual parade of names. Royal Highnesses and Excellences?? Where might I be? Oh, yes, I am living in a kingdom, near other kingdoms, with students who are children of royalty and children of very modest means. It is our graduation at KA. And even beyond that flashy opening, it is a stunning graduation.

This year’s graduation was so much easier than last year. For one thing, we had done it before. We had a template. We had an idea how to deal with the security, with the 1800 or so guests, how to include the entire school, how to…well, you name it. For another thing, the class of 2011 was a bit more “loved” than last year. I hate to be so plainspoken about it, but it is just true. This class was easier to love. And, in case you don’t know, faculty want to love a class. They sincerely do.

Anyway, we learned a thing or two from last year, but mostly used the well-designed template from last year. We did make it an hour later since the desert sun can still be unforgiving at 5:00 in the afternoon.

The first exciting thing about our graduation is the procession—the entire school forms a double inversion gauntlet. Say what? Our founding headmaster, Eric, loved the idea of having the entire school march in a procession through the rest of the school and then invert and continue into the graduation. He calls it the WIG—the Widmer Inversion Gauntlet. What that means is that the underclassmen are all lined up, and then the faculty march through a gauntlet of 11th graders, 10th graders, 9th graders, then they march through a procession of us, and finally, the senior dean and the King lead the seniors, the graduates through a gauntlet of the entire school. It is a heady experience to see the entire school march and parade in front of itself. The dais is exciting because there is His Majesty, and the chairman of the board, a man who formerly was an Ambassador to the US, and our headmaster now, our founding headmaster, and Alia, the one who will read all the names. There is a royal bagpipe crew that played the entire gauntlet and lead us into the grassy area where the graduation is with about 1500-1800 guests.

Two students deliver speeches, one in Arabic, and the other in English. The two students were chosen from a panel of adults and they do a beautiful job. In fact, about every five minutes like clockwork my eyes well up with tears in this graduation.

I probably remarked about it last year, but the graduation last year was a graduation with no tears. I felt robbed! In over 20 years I had never gone through a graduation without tears. I guess it is like people at weddings. It isn’t just the graduates themselves—it is the moment when we graduate our children from childhood and exhort them to follow their dreams and mine their potential. What isn’t there to love about a graduation moment??? We don’t need to go into it anymore, but this was my first graduation since 2007 then with the usual tears and how-will-I-make-it-through-and-I-am-going-to-miss-them-so-much. Two final awards were given: the student as the Valedictorian, and the student chosen by the faculty for the King Abdullah spirit award. I know both young men well, taught them over and over.

The graduation speakers were the Widmers, founders and role models for the early years of the school. Dr. Eric reminded the crowd that when the ground had been broken for the school a few years ago, His Majesty had remarked that this school was certainly four things and must be these four things: “utterly idealistic, utterly progressive, utterly optimistic, and utterly necessary.” They spoke of the genesis of the school, and now here was the first class to go all the way through four years at King’s Academy. Again, I was very weepy as I thought of these students and what these four years have meant.

The aftermath of the graduation at KA is not my favorite part, however. There isn’t a recessional. We tried last year, but the crowd just stormed over Julianne and me as we tried to do the recessional we loved at Hackley, and then the reception is too crowded and too rushed. And, well…really nothing to nosh on either. The evening party at a hotel in Amman is just too over-the-top and loud to be enjoyable. I think I will skip that in the future. It just isn’t what I want in a graduation party. So actually I thought about what I missed from other graduations.

Since I now have nearly a quarter-century of graduations under my belt, I miss the string quartet playing outside of Gaston Day School supporting the small graduating class with Mozart and Haydn. I miss the academic regalia of Charlotte Latin School. I miss the white flowers on the lapels of the young men’s suits at Hackley. I miss the recessional at Hackley where the faculty recessed and then formed a gauntlet and tearily and happily greeted the new graduates as they marched out. I miss the reception where Anne and I stayed until the bitter end hugging and saying farewell. If you said you couldn’t find us—you didn’t really look. We waited until we were the last. I miss the graduation events from Charlotte Latin and Hackley where you visited with families, had backyard cook-outs, or tasteful receptions at country clubs. I miss the sweet presents and letters given from Hackley students.

But there is one part that has been hard from the first graduation as a teacher. How do you relate to these, your former students now? They are not your students anymore, nor are they your peers. It is always a strange paradox, and one in which they seem almost brand-new to you. I have long told senior classes that when they graduate, they get to call the shots about our relationship. I can’t dictate any more. I act more aloof than usual, waiting for them to decide if we will be more friends, or just a great memory. I suspect it is a little like a parent watching a child go through his or her 20s wondering how they will relate to them as adults. I am reminded of a great line from the musical based on the movie, Big. The mother is singing into the cradle of her son, thinking about how fast it all goes in her ballad, “Stop, Time.” She opines in song:

“Nobody warned you of this parent’s paradox. You want your kid to change and grow, but when he does, then another child you’ve just began to know leaves forever.”

I had thought I might write about a number of the seniors, but I think I am just emotionally kaput! I have written college recs about them that quoted Frost, and Flaubert, and Lincoln, and Joyce and Julian Barnes, etc. and lifted passages from their best works about the Greeks or the Europeans, and spun the top about them in class comments and advisor reports—I fear I am out of words for this lovely bunch.

But there is a very fitting way to end the report on this graduating class, and it isn’t about parties or sunny days or caps and gowns or tears. I am thinking of what His Majesty said about this school: “utterly idealistic, utterly progressive, utterly optimistic, and utterly necessary.” That also neatly sums up this class as I have known them these four years. They have been indeed “utterly idealistic, utterly progressive, utterly optimistic, and utterly necessary.”

No comments: