Kindergarten Proms and Grade School Graduations: Taking It Too Far?
To borrow an exchange from an unlikely source, I’d like to refer you all to a conversation from my favorite Pixar film of all time, The Incredibles:
Helen: I can’t believe you don’t want to go to your own son’s graduation.
Bob: It’s not a graduation. He is moving from the 4th grade to the 5th grade.
Helen: It’s a ceremony!
Bob: It’s psychotic! They keep creating new ways to celebrate mediocrity, but if someone is genuinely exceptional…
Every time I watch this scene, my mind travels to the many preschool and elementary school and middle school graduations my generation now finds itself attending. And while I don’t think that these micro-pageants suggest a celebration of mediocrity, I do wonder why they’ve become so popular. It seems they get more formal and taken more seriously each year.
Admittedly, my junior high did have a “graduation” ceremony. In 1990, I think this was just becoming a thing. There were no caps and gowns, and there was no conferring of certificates, just an end of the year assembly with choral singing, the principal giving a speech, and a lot of hugging and “See you next year!”-saying. We kept it in perspective; most of us would be seeing each other again in three months or less, either at the same high school or in the same communities. We knew it wasn’t goodbye forever or even the end of anything particularly momentous. It wasn’t like we were getting to leave home and live like grown-ups or anything.
While it’s cute to see our little ones in miniature caps and gowns, twirling tassels and shuffling across the cafeteria or gym floor, isn’t it possible that making such a big deal about them moving on to the next grade will desensitize them to the graduations that actually mark the end of something major?
Graduations aren’t the only traditions kids are experiencing too early and too often. In the past decade, there’s been a trend toward kindergarten, elementary and middle school “proms,” where kids are encouraged to dress up in formal wear, find dates, and have big getting-ready/send-off photo sessions, in mimicry of the rituals we’ve attached to actual high school proms. A few years ago, a series of pictures made the internet rounds of small children dressed up in colored wigs and coordinated prom formal wear, to the chagrin of many commenters. Here’s some footage from a kindergarten prom that took place last year (Peep the song choice.):
Whatever happened to building anticipation for adolescence and adulthood, to watching older girls and boys prepare for their send-offs into the adult world and getting excited and daydream-y about your own big days? Aren’t proms and graduations supposed to celebrate long-term accomplishments? Aren’t you supposed to earn them after years and years of successful progression from one level of school to the next? Do kids today really need full-on cap and gown ceremonies just to get from elementary to middle school or from preschool to kindergarten? Do their parents need it as a pat on the back for an academic calendar year (or three) of good work? Did your grade schools have graduations?
I do think a kindergarten or 1st grade graduation is important to instill the fact/hopes that completion is important and to be celebrated. A prom for those grades is silly.
I am against this for the subliminal message this instills in kids and parents of a certain socio economic background. It tells them that they have arrived and reached and end as opposed to them understanding the journey is not over yet and you still have work to do. You have HS drop outs who can say they have had a prom and graduation ceremony and they never got out of the 9th grade. These ceremonies are awards and privileges given to you for reaching a milestone. Getting out of middle and elementary schools are not milestones. That’s what you are supposed to do and what is expected of you. Your life does not start after that and you have earned nothing, its this type of thing that feeds into their little heads the sense of entitlement and this willingness to quit everything without trying first.
+1
Yes, my school had grade graduations, starting from nursery! I LOVED it! The teachers were very much involved with every aspect of our lives, and that is why I am soooooo into graduation. My parents NEVER missed any of this. I suppose some people see it as celebrating mediocrity. I see it as a wonderful opportunity to get your kid to appreciate the essence of an education. I don’t see what the brouhaha is all about. I sure as hell will be forefront and center cheering my baby, when she is graduating from nursery school. I’ll try not to be loud.
Greetings Sissy!!(I’ve left you greeting all over this blog today…they’ll soon ban me if I keep up)
LOL @ you’ll try not to be too loud! You’d have a ceremony for the rising of the sun if you could….love you for that….but this here is a tad excessive!
brahahahaha!!! nursery school! @AM you a flaming hot mess!
@ Dalili!
To be honest, I ALWAYS look forward to seeing your greetings!!!!!!!!!!!! Girl please, if they ever banned you for promoting sisterhood, it would be a motherlover’s wrap!
There’s something about you, I don’t know I like!!! NYHOO, *HEYYYYYYYYYYY********
-eh, yes, I do have to agree that having a prom and what not is a tad excessive, even for a person as extra as me. But, if my kid’s school has it, I’ll support!
@iQgraphics,
Hun!!! I know I know, and you know what, it takes a kray to identify another.!!! *wink wink*
People keep talking about celebrating achievements and making education important to the child, but there are other ways of doing that without dumping them in thee grown-a** situations that they haven’t earned. When I was growing up, we had awards ceremonies. Students got certificates, ribbons, and statues for the things that students today are getting graduation ceremonies for! We never felt deprived. We were proud to get three or four awards for one ceremony; we didn’t need a graduation! We had skate parties in elementary school. We didn’t need the prom! These little kids don’t even recognize the significance in what they are doing. They just do it, going through the motions. These parents need to admit that these mock milestones are really for their benefit, not their kids’. The parents want to see their kids dressed up. The kids don’t really know what’s going on.
Graduation and prom are things that you earn. If you have been going to prom since kindergarten, what is the point of going when you’re 17? Where is the motivation to get to high school graduation if you’re graduating from things every year? These things take the significance out of the real deal milestones, and yes, the milestone itself becomes mediocre. I am a teacher, and I keep seeing us move further and further away from the things that our parents thought was common sense, then get upset at the result! There are many different ways to give your kids social experiences and pride in their education while still instilling in them the value in EARNING WHAT YOU GET. No high school, no prom. No diploma, no graduation.
@ rhea,
This long ting you”ve written….awards ceremony-we had those EVERY year, as well as GRADUATION-EVERY year.
99% of my peeps have GRADUATE degrees-your point?!
My son recently had his kindergarten graduation. I was fine with that. It marks the beginning of a new phase in life. Gone are the days of preschool, pre-k and kindergarten. Grade school will begin and expectations will be higher. Just like graduating from high school marks the beginning of adulthood and the end of grade school. All the other graduations are probably gratuitous, though. And baby proms, yeah…no!
My Son had a Kindergarten graduation recently. I think k-garten graduations are fine as they mark the beginning of a new phase in life. Gone are the days of preschool, pre-k and kindergarten. True grade school begins, and expectations will be higher. Senior High graduations mark the beginning of adulthood and the end of grade school. All the graduations in between seem rather gratuitous to me though. Now these baby proms….uuummmm, no!