too many graduations

Sue wrote:
"Donna Metler" wrote in message

I can kind of see a pre-K ceremony when children are leaving the building
and moving on to a new school, just as a way of marking that change (and
parents enjoy it). However, many are not age appropriate. Young children
don't do a good job standing and waiting, or saying memorized lines, or
singing on demand in front of an audience, and too often these events turn
into a scared kid on stage while an adult hisses their lines at them,
while
the others fidget, bored out of their mind.

We never had any kind of ceremony like that for the little ones. It has been
a party/picnic at the park. The teacher handed out little awards for the
kids and she said something positive about every student as they came up for
their award. The kids did absolutely fine with that. Then they resumed
playing on the playground.

There may be some semantic confusion here. I don't know
precisely what the OP's concerns were, but to me, there's a world
of difference between a "graduation" (heck, you "graduate" from
each grade to the next regardless of whether you bother to have
a party) and full-blown, caps & gowns, formal, "commencement
exercises" with speakers and photos and music and whatnot.
This may seem nearly inconceivable, but these things do happen!
I've got no problem with graduating (in fact, it's vastly
preferable to the alternative ;-) ), or with parties, but I
think full-on commencement exercises are more than a bit silly
and certainly aren't done for the benefit of the students
(who would likely choose some other way to mark the occasion),
but for the benefit of parents.

Best wishes,
Ericka

On Jun 14, 2:23 pm, Ericka Kammerer wrote:

snip

There may be some semantic confusion here. I don't know
precisely what the OP's concerns were, but to me, there's a world
of difference between a "graduation" (heck, you "graduate" from
each grade to the next regardless of whether you bother to have
a party) and full-blown, caps & gowns, formal, "commencement
exercises" with speakers and photos and music and whatnot.
This may seem nearly inconceivable, but these things do happen!
I've got no problem with graduating (in fact, it's vastly
preferable to the alternative ;-) ), or with parties, but I
think full-on commencement exercises are more than a bit silly
and certainly aren't done for the benefit of the students
(who would likely choose some other way to mark the occasion),
but for the benefit of parents.

Yes, that's what I meant. Especially the cap and gown at a preschool
graduation seems incongruous to me. The children have just made the
first step in a long journey, not completed it.

In article , Sue says...

"Donna Metler" wrote in message
Absolutely agreed here. As the music teacher, I had to deal with a
preschool
"Graduation", Kindergarten "graduation" and 6th grade "Graduation", all in
the space of less than a week. Sigh.

Maybe as a parent now, your views will change once your little one is moving
on in life.


As a parent whose little one moved on through all of that, my view is similar to
Donna's. Especially in the early years there can be too much of the party for
party's sake stuff. And precious time I would have with my son would get
stuffed full of, well, stuff from school. Not that it was a big deal, but it's
sort of an escalation of partyness going on from when I was in school certainly.

I can kind of see a pre-K ceremony when children are leaving the building
and moving on to a new school, just as a way of marking that change (and
parents enjoy it). However, many are not age appropriate. Young children
don't do a good job standing and waiting, or saying memorized lines, or
singing on demand in front of an audience, and too often these events turn
into a scared kid on stage while an adult hisses their lines at them,
while
the others fidget, bored out of their mind.

We never had any kind of ceremony like that for the little ones. It has been
a party/picnic at the park. The teacher handed out little awards for the
kids and she said something positive about every student as they came up for
their award. The kids did absolutely fine with that. Then they resumed
playing on the playground.

I see no benefit for a kindergarten graduation when Kindergarten is just
another school grade, and by 6th grade, the kids should understand what a
graduation really is and that they haven't finished anything.

Well here, the 5th grade moves on to middle school, so there is a fifth
grade recognition that they give and I like it. It is an ending and they are
moving on, so essentially they have finished something. )

I did enjoy my son's fifth and eighth grade moving up ceremonies and he did too
(esp. fifth grade when he had some actual awards). By then at least there are
real accomoplishments to talk about. Kinder plus 1st grade plus end of primary
grade at third grade seemed too much for me. That was an age that was
overstuffed with birthday parties too. There just plain wasn't much to talk
about in the early years, and it did seem to be more all about the cutsieness of
little kids in caps and gowns.

Banty

Beliavsky wrote:
On Jun 14, 2:23 pm, Ericka Kammerer wrote:

snip

There may be some semantic confusion here. I don't know
precisely what the OP's concerns were, but to me, there's a world
of difference between a "graduation" (heck, you "graduate" from
each grade to the next regardless of whether you bother to have
a party) and full-blown, caps & gowns, formal, "commencement
exercises" with speakers and photos and music and whatnot.
This may seem nearly inconceivable, but these things do happen!
I've got no problem with graduating (in fact, it's vastly
preferable to the alternative ;-) ), or with parties, but I
think full-on commencement exercises are more than a bit silly
and certainly aren't done for the benefit of the students
(who would likely choose some other way to mark the occasion),
but for the benefit of parents.

Yes, that's what I meant. Especially the cap and gown at a preschool
graduation seems incongruous to me. The children have just made the
first step in a long journey, not completed it.

Actually, I'm not concerned about them confusing
the first steps with the end of the journey. They don't
have any point of reference to see it that way. It's the
dog-and-pony show aspect of it that bugs me. I think an
event celebrating the completion of preschool should be
appropriate to the ages of the participants, not aping
the behaviors of adults or near-adults just because the
adults think it's cute.

Best wishes,
Ericka

"Ericka Kammerer" wrote in message
. ..
Knit Chic wrote:

I think they are a lot of fun. We just did a preschool graduation and
the kids were great. It was a nice way to end the year.
It amazes me when adults resent kids having fun.

Eh, I think there's a difference between having fun
(parties, etc.) and staging preschool graduations with caps
and gowns and such. I'll bet dollars to doughnuts it wasn't
the preschoolers clamoring to wear the caps and gowns, nor
do trappings like that have any historical relevance to the
preschool crowd. As I said before, I'm all for fun, and
all for rites of passage, but the whole caps and gowns
thing is a bit much to me.

I have never seen caps and gowns at a preschool graduation. Our preschool
is a co-op, that may be why.
The kids wore whatever clothes they wanted. My daughter wanted to wear her
holiday dress, so I let her. She doesn't get to wear it very often. The
kids did have caps but they were made of paper. Pizza and baked goods were
served. They also had a best wishes cake.
My daughter didn't get a gift. (But I'm sure you remember my feelings on
gift giving from other shower, party, etc. threads.)
I guess the way I see it that if it's not a big issue in your family (you in
general not personal), don't do it and if you feel as though you have to do
it to keep up w/ the other families, there is something wrong w/ you, not
them.

And, as I also mentioned, some
of these celebrations seem a bit over the top to me. The
amount of money and effort that goes into our school's
6th grade celebration is staggering, while some (though
not many) other projects go begging.

Best wishes,
Ericka

In article , Knit Chic says...


"Beliavsky" wrote in message
oups.com...
On Friday my son's preschool will conduct a "graduation" ceremony.
When I visited the school he will attend next fall, the
kindergarteners were rehearsing for their graduation. My first
graduation was of high school in 1987. I think having yearly
graduation ceremonies devalues the important ones. A real graduation
ought to signify a particular level of academic accomplishment,
certified by grades and possibly standardized tests. If children in
preschool and kindergarten are too young to be evaluated in this
manner, they are also too young to be having graduation ceremonies.
Instead I'd prefer that the schools just have a party on the last day.


I think they are a lot of fun. We just did a preschool graduation and the
kids were great. It was a nice way to end the year.
It amazes me when adults resent kids having fun.


I think the question is - how much of it is for the kids; how much is it really
for the adults? At my son's early graduations (at the end of June where we
are), they were all picnics and we pretty much either sweltered or shivered and
a lot of the kids really didn't enjoy it much. Really, it was hit or miss if
any particular child enjoyed it. It's video camera fodder more than anything
else realy. And it's an age already overstuffed with birthday parties and the
like. Come fifth grade and after, they actually had an auditorium for it.

Banty

In article , Knit Chic says...


"Ericka Kammerer" wrote in message
...
Knit Chic wrote:

I think they are a lot of fun. We just did a preschool graduation and
the kids were great. It was a nice way to end the year.
It amazes me when adults resent kids having fun.

Eh, I think there's a difference between having fun
(parties, etc.) and staging preschool graduations with caps
and gowns and such. I'll bet dollars to doughnuts it wasn't
the preschoolers clamoring to wear the caps and gowns, nor
do trappings like that have any historical relevance to the
preschool crowd. As I said before, I'm all for fun, and
all for rites of passage, but the whole caps and gowns
thing is a bit much to me.

I have never seen caps and gowns at a preschool graduation. Our preschool
is a co-op, that may be why.
The kids wore whatever clothes they wanted. My daughter wanted to wear her
holiday dress, so I let her. She doesn't get to wear it very often. The
kids did have caps but they were made of paper. Pizza and baked goods were
served. They also had a best wishes cake.
My daughter didn't get a gift. (But I'm sure you remember my feelings on
gift giving from other shower, party, etc. threads.)
I guess the way I see it that if it's not a big issue in your family (you in
general not personal), don't do it and if you feel as though you have to do
it to keep up w/ the other families, there is something wrong w/ you, not
them.

??

Wow.

We did go to all the early graduations, but because my son expected to be there.
Everyone else was going to be there, and they had been talking about it in
class. It has little if anything to do with "keeping up".

And him expecting to be there doesn't mean that he actually enjoyed it or
anything. It was just a thing everyone did becuase it was planned. If I had
decided to stay home from it, he'd have been pretty upset. Even if he didn't
actually like the rigamarole of it - he wanted to leave as soon as it was done
unless he could hook up with a friend.

Banty

"Ericka Kammerer" wrote in message
...
Sue wrote:
"Donna Metler" wrote in message

I can kind of see a pre-K ceremony when children are leaving the
building
and moving on to a new school, just as a way of marking that change
(and
parents enjoy it). However, many are not age appropriate. Young
children
don't do a good job standing and waiting, or saying memorized lines, or
singing on demand in front of an audience, and too often these events
turn
into a scared kid on stage while an adult hisses their lines at them,
while
the others fidget, bored out of their mind.

We never had any kind of ceremony like that for the little ones. It has
been
a party/picnic at the park. The teacher handed out little awards for the
kids and she said something positive about every student as they came up
for
their award. The kids did absolutely fine with that. Then they resumed
playing on the playground.

There may be some semantic confusion here. I don't know
precisely what the OP's concerns were, but to me, there's a world
of difference between a "graduation" (heck, you "graduate" from
each grade to the next regardless of whether you bother to have
a party) and full-blown, caps & gowns, formal, "commencement
exercises" with speakers and photos and music and whatnot.
This may seem nearly inconceivable, but these things do happen!
I've got no problem with graduating (in fact, it's vastly
preferable to the alternative ;-) ), or with parties, but I
think full-on commencement exercises are more than a bit silly
and certainly aren't done for the benefit of the students
(who would likely choose some other way to mark the occasion),
but for the benefit of parents.

At the school I taught at, it was full blown commencement exercises, caps,
gowns, speakers, etc. It was not at all interesting or engaging to the
preschoolers or kindergarteners, and often involved several weeks of
rehearsal with bored, stressed kids.

Doing a little end of year program for the parents, with age appropriate
materials, fine. A full, formal graduation with all the trimmings so that
mommy and daddy can take pictures while half the kids teeter on the brink of
a tantrum? Not fine.

At 6th grade, the kids did NOT take it seriously at all, and while they
usually pulled it together for the actual performances, rehearsals were
painful for all involved, and often involved threats of discplinary action
to get some semblance of compliance. An end of the year picnic or party
where parents were involved, and maybe have the kids coordinate putting
together some sort of performance that's meaningful for them, fine, but this
big to-do wasn't meaningful to the kids whatsoever.

Beliavsky wrote:
On Friday my son's preschool will conduct a "graduation" ceremony.
When I visited the school he will attend next fall, the
kindergarteners were rehearsing for their graduation. My first
graduation was of high school in 1987. I think having yearly
graduation ceremonies devalues the important ones. A real graduation
ought to signify a particular level of academic accomplishment,
certified by grades and possibly standardized tests. If children in
preschool and kindergarten are too young to be evaluated in this
manner, they are also too young to be having graduation ceremonies.
Instead I'd prefer that the schools just have a party on the last day.


I'm not big on preschool/kindergarten graduations either, but there's
nothing new about them. I have a graduation photo of my kindergarten
class, complete with caps and gowns, from 1959.

Clisby

Beliavsky wrote:
On Jun 14, 2:23 pm, Ericka Kammerer wrote:

snip

There may be some semantic confusion here. I don't know
precisely what the OP's concerns were, but to me, there's a world
of difference between a "graduation" (heck, you "graduate" from
each grade to the next regardless of whether you bother to have
a party) and full-blown, caps & gowns, formal, "commencement
exercises" with speakers and photos and music and whatnot.
This may seem nearly inconceivable, but these things do happen!
I've got no problem with graduating (in fact, it's vastly
preferable to the alternative ;-) ), or with parties, but I
think full-on commencement exercises are more than a bit silly
and certainly aren't done for the benefit of the students
(who would likely choose some other way to mark the occasion),
but for the benefit of parents.

Yes, that's what I meant. Especially the cap and gown at a preschool
graduation seems incongruous to me. The children have just made the
first step in a long journey, not completed it.

They've more than the first step, though. Learning to get along with
others, wait for late parents and to put some letters together to form
words are skills they will use more the rest of their lives.

It should be remembered that graduation ceremonies are called
"commencement," which means the beginning.

Jeff