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 remember my grad school, middle school, and high school graduations. For me they were a waste of time because it was expected by everyone, including myself, that I would graduate. It wasn’t seen as a celebration, it was just was expected so there wasn’t any reason to celebrate. College graduation there was a bit more celebration just because we spent so much money for the college degree and I had just gotten back from France but even then I was like I wanna just stay in France and backpack for the summer, screw graduation. But I was happy to be with my friends so it wasn’t all that horrible.
I have to agree with the movie and @Tonton Michel. To me having a kindergarten graduation or prom is no different than the kids who play basketball, don’t keep score during the game, and then hand out participation trophies to everyone OR students and teacher who think A is what is awarded for average work when really it is a C. It is just another way to celebrate mediocrity without making people “feel bad” or getting them to push themselves further.
Were they seriously playing Soulja Boy’s at a kindergarten prom? Couldn’t they play a Kidz Bop cd or something? *smh*
Exactly! Kidz Bop would have been great but why play Souljah (sp) Boy for 5 and 6 year olds!! A totally mess.
Yeah the Soulja Boy was a complete FAIL but other than that I say let the cuteness continue. See no problem with holding graduations etc. At least they didn’t have to sing “We are the World” like we had to during ours. #80sBabies
I agree with Bob.
What learning, obstacles, and achievements you all considered average and mediocre (i.e: learning ABCs and 123s) a five year old thinks is major and a big deal. And its hard for a five year old to foresee and wait for his high school graduation and prom as being the ONLY celebration his is entitled to.
There is nothing wrong with celebrating academic achievements. Its not like they are having these proms or graduations every weekend or at the end of every semester. Its one, three-hour celebration at the end of a school year (which from a five year old perspective a school year must take FOREVER to end). After kindergarten the next graduation isn’t until six years later. I think its okay to have another little celebration after six years of academic progress.
Plus its important to teach our children how to socialize early on. Yes,…that particular school failed at playing Souljah Boy at a Kindergarten Prom. But its an important life lesson to teach our kids how to dress up formally and how act properly in that attire.
I think that we need to lighten up and stop trying to find something wrong with everything. :(
See now this comment above me is from a pure fool. So a five year old sees the end of the school year “taking forever”. If that is the case, you failed as a parent. NO CHILD, and i mean no child should dislike school so early. If they do that is nothing but the parents’s fault for instillin backward ar.se notions about school and education. “A child can’t wait for the prom to celebrate” Again backward ar.se thinking. how would a 5 year old know what a prom is unless someone tells them? I mean really…. A child can’t wait to bring home straight A’s is what you should be saying, but I guess bad weaves, fluffy dressses, balloons and parties is all you care about for your child. Moron.
I had graduations from preschool, elementary, and middle school, and honestly none of them took away from the experience of graduating “for real”. Once you get to high school your mind’s in a whole other place because youre done with grade school for good, and you have to take on responsibilities that you didnt need to worry about when you were moving from grade 5 to grade 6. So I think mini-graduations are fine… I dunno about the proms though. I think they should stick to “school dances”