Skip to main content

Graduation Party

Over the weekend, I went to Lucia's high school graduation party in Brooklyn. I never thought I'd get actually invited to a student's graduation party (being a teacher), but there I was, dressed to impress and ready to pretend that I am not awkward.

Lucia is special to me, because she's the other student I spoke about here. She's a work horse, scoring some of the highest grades at our grade on all the New York Regents Exams. She's incredibly motivated. I'm quite proud of her: she'll go to a community college for a year or two and then transfer out.

As we sat at our respective tables enjoying the company, I remembered what it was like when I was in my students' shoes in this moment. Graduation right around the corner, everyone thinking this was a big deal. My thoughts during my graduation process:
Hmm. Well, I don't feel any older...
I wanted my high school graduation to end as soon as possible. I didn't want to go to a "formal" dinner afterward. I didn't want to get pictures taken at different angles holding an empty diploma holder (they mailed it to us later). I just wanted summer to end so I could get the hell out. But that was me and if it's one thing I've learned, not all students are like me. Yet.

Kareem, student who I've written about several times, was also at Lucia's graduation party, as well as other students and teachers. It was fantastic being there, to see how far Kareem and Lucia went after they came to my school two years ago, looking for a fresh start. When I originally went through their transcripts, I would never have guessed these two individuals would later became the "good ones" I'd think about after a rough day. Shows how much paper tells you about perseverance.

I began to wonder how they will feel around August, when it's time to start college: that magical place where they're supposed to broaden their horizons, figure out what they don't want to do in life, and ultimately choose their vice: beer or pot or both.
Readers: you know which category you fall into.
With my dad driving and my mom up front talking up a storm about something insignificant, I sat in our green van for two and a half hours from Chicago to Urbana-Champaign with a couple of songs on repeat in my iPod. This was one of them.



Sometimes songs represent feelings better than just words. Thank you, Blink 182.

Comments

2 said…
"beer or pot or both.

Readers: you know which category you fall into."

You forgot neither
Yo Mista! said…
@ 2:
No, I didn't ;)

Popular posts from this blog

We Need to Talk About Tenure

The idea and privilege of "tenure" in public education has garnered a lot of attention as of late. Most people who have never worked in education a single day in their lives seem to feel that tenure is unfair and teachers should work under the same expectations that other "regular" and hard-working Americans work under. At least, that's the narrative being presented in the media. Three years ago, I would have agreed, but I didn't know any better. At the college and university level,  tenure  is difficult to obtain and can take 4-8 years. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but from what I think I know, the candidate usually needs to have published some sort of research and have demonstrated a strong teaching record, among other things. Before becoming a high school teacher, I understood why tenure was necessary at the college and university level as it protected academics when they published work that went against the mainstream, and thereby prevented profes...

On My Visit to My Old High School

I had the incredible opportunity to visit my old high school while I was in Chicago last week.  This was something I was really looking forward to; I was worried I wouldn’t have enough time to cram in a visit. I wanted to not only visit my old teachers, but also to walk around the hallways aimlessly and remember what it was like to be me eight years ago. It still blows my mind that I’ve been out of high school for that long. Okay, fine. The voice of accuracy in my head desperately wants me to clarify how long it’s really been. Technically, I had gone back to visit a few of my teachers shortly after I graduated high school, but I choose not to count that as a “proper” visit as I was still in college and coming back home quite often. It’s not like I was living out of the state as I am now. So it doesn’t count, okay? So Wednesday morning, I walked into the visitor’s entrance at gate 3 and received my visitor’s pass for the day. It was odd because as a student, I neve...

Teach for Pakistan

I've been visiting Karachi every other year since I was six months old. My parents were both born there. The bulk of my extended family still lives there. It's strange how my perspective and investment in the country has changed over the years. I hated going to Pakistan when I was younger. My mother dragged me there for two, sometimes three months at a time over the summer. The heat was miserable and the humidity was unbearable. My family wasn't well off, so it's not like I was in a huge mansion of sorts living in the tropics, eating cold mangoes. That would've been nice. The only things I enjoyed were the company of my cousins, the food and the taste of Coca-Cola made from real sugar. Besides that, I really never did anything else. I was pretty quiet: my aunts would compliment me on my lack of communication. Heh. It was not until I was a teenager that I truly began to appreciate my experiences in Pakistan. I started engaging in the family functions, weddings an...