Graduates inspiration for children, all of us
It is early June, and just about every night in Southwestern Pennsylvania, at one high school or another, families crowd into gymnasiums or stadiums to witness the ritual of graduation: the release of another crop of young people from a sheltered environment to an uncertain world.
Tonight is Washington High School’s turn. The students will file to the podium for their diplomas in caps and gowns of black and light blue – the school’s colors – and hear speeches intended to inspire them. These graduating seniors, however, have done a good bit of inspiring themselves.
On Monday, their last as students, the senior donned their caps and gowns and paraded through Washington Park Elementary School, where their formal education began, running a gantlet of children from kindergarten through sixth grade holding signs and yelling words of congratulations and encouragement.
Seniors at Carmichaels Area High School had done the same thing a week earlier.
For teachers, the Inspirational Walk was a display of the fruits of their labors. Superintendent Dr. Roberta DiLorenzo said.
“We really emphasize that kindergarten teachers have as much to do with our kids graduating as high school teachers.”
Though it’s not a trend yet, it’s likely more schools might follow their example, and that would be a good thing.
We live in an area – a nation, perhaps – that is sports crazy, where athletic achievement receives disproportionate attention, and where district athletic budgets typically escape the cuts suffered by academics.
Washington, with three football stadiums within a few miles of each other, could well be a symbol of this imbalance.
But graduation is a celebration of academic achievement, and when the graduates are elevated as role models as they were at Carmichaels and Washington, the real purpose of school – and staying in school – is driven home.
“Work hard! Stay in school!” read one of the signs carried by a senior during the Inspirational Walk.
We can only hope that more will. The number of kids who never make it to graduation is depressingly high, and that’s because it is not easy to finish high school. Just ask anyone who has struggled to achieve a Graduate Equivalency Diploma, or has seen the test. And as we raise the standards and requirements for graduation, more will inevitably drop out; we can’t have it both ways.
It is especially tough for districts like Carmichaels and Washington that do not enjoy the tax bases of richer communities, where there are more resources to keep kids from falling behind.
Wash High’s graduating seniors are an inspiration to more than elementary students.
They are racially and economically diverse, and anyone who has visited their school can attest to the respect that they show each other and their teachers, and to an atmosphere that is remarkably harmonious and accepting.
For this, they are an inspiration to us all.