Tag Archives: graduation

Community and Belonging

Yesterday 18 Inquiry Hub grads crossed the stage and received their high school diplomas. They then went to a room and stood behind a camera for a quick 3-5 minute interview. I watched them all, hearing what they had to say about their experience at our school. Time and again I heard them speak of enjoying the community and relationships they built with each other.

I know we have challenges at the school and things can always be better, and I know that in a small school, things can get cliquey, but we have been able to foster a lot of cooperation and acceptance of very different groups.

One of our students who has thrived at our school was actually out of school, taking online courses having been completely dissatisfied with her previous school experience. She was coming to our building to do testing, (I’m principal of the online school too, and Inquiry Hub shares a room with the online school to offer testing twice a week). She said that when she came in for testing she could feel the positive atmosphere from the school and knew that it would be a good place for her.

We’ve had educators come through to visit the school and they have said the same thing. This has been a constant. It even happened 4 years ago when we were struggling to build community with two student groups that felt more like factions than cliques. It was weird, here we were struggling to build community and even bringing in an elder to do a circle, and a couple days later four educators from Alberta spend a morning with us, and when I meet them at lunch they told us what a great vibe they had, and what a positive learning environment it was.

As I said, we are far from perfect, but we strive to help everyone feel like they belong. Our school special events and celebrations are run with a lot of student input and organization. But this has been much harder to do with students mostly learning remotely. The iHub Annual tomorrow night is usually 90% student run. This year its being run by me and two former students hired to assist. Their expertise will go a long way in making the event special, and since they are brothers they can work closely together while we still respect social distancing expectations. It will go well, it won’t be the same as a team of students both running the event and training the younger students, which normally happens this time of year for us.

With the likelihood of school starting up in a limited capacity in September, I wonder what we will need to do differently to foster that sense of community and belonging? It’s harder to build community than it is to sustain it, and so we will need to intentionally think about what we do to keep our positive sense of community going next year.

Grad day part 1

Today the Inquiry Hub grads cross the stage, but that’s not the end of grad. They will be coming in 15 minutes apart, and they won’t see each other receive their degrees. On Thursday night we will share their moments up on the stage with the rest of our community, and any family members that want to watch online.

It isn’t what they were expecting grad to look like, but we’ll do our best to make it a great experience for them.

Grad 2020 hasn’t been anything we expected to experience, I know this not only as a principal, but as a parent too. Nothing about this grad is normal, but everyone is doing their best to make it special.

Crossing the stage

I lived in Ontario and had to do Grade 13 to finish high school, as was required if you wanted to go to university back in 1986. Recently I was thinking back to my grad convocation and while I remember the grad dance, I have no memory of crossing the stage to get my degree. I remember that at the end of the school year I needed to have a nose operation (it was broken playing water polo and needed to be re-broken to fix), and so I must have missed the stage crossing, or I’m sure I would remember part of it. But what I do recall missing is not my grad ceremony, but a huge year-end party at my friend’s cottage. I was so disappointed at missing that!

I don’t remember putting on a cap and gown, I have no recollection of a valedictorian, no photos with family and friends. Oddly enough, I remember the valedictorian for the school year before, reading his speech at an assembly.

Fast forward to university, and I didn’t go to my grad again. I went to my girlfriend’s grad the year before I was supposed to graduate. I know because the guest speaker was Benoit Mandelbrot, famous for his work with fractals. That was a memorable speech.

But as for me, I took an extra semester, and followed that with a semester off. Then the following year got special permission to take my final courses at a different university so that I could play varsity water polo. Then after I got my final course required I thought I would get my degree, but the convocation date came and went with no notice sent to me. I inquired to learn that I must actually apply for graduation, it isn’t just granted to me.

After my application was accepted, I was told I could cross the stage in the spring of the next calendar year, 3 years after I was supposed to graduate. At that point I didn’t have any friends still attending the university and didn’t bother going back to cross the stage with strangers.

I didn’t cross the stage until I was 30 and graduating from teacher’s college. I crossed the stage again for my Masters, eight years later. In both cases, my wife came to celebrate the event with me. So, I’ve had the experience, I’ve tasted the sense of accomplishment of crossing the stage in a cap and gown and receiving my degree… I just had to wait a lot longer than most.

Milestones disrupted

There are many families trying to create prom and grad experiences for their graduating kids. There are photo shoots happening in back yards and parks, minus the limos and groups of friends congregating at fancy halls and decorated school gyms.

I’m the parent of a Grade 12 student. Tonight was supposed to be opening night of her school play. She was to be Morticia in The Addams Family. We’re ordering in and having a family game night.

I don’t remember crossing the stage for my Grade 12 grad. I remember that I had an operation to fix my broken nose around that time, but I don’t remember missing my convocation for this, I don’t remember anything about it at all. Strange. I remember my grad dinner/dance. It was a fun night, but it isn’t something I cherish.

But my last water polo game I’d ever play in high school wasn’t cancelled. I wasn’t in band, choir, or musical theatre, and I didn’t miss my last performance. I got to walk the halls on the last days of school with my yearbook, getting it signed by friends and acquaintances.

It won’t necessarily be an easy end of the year for our high school grads. No matter how graduation is celebrated, it won’t be what was expected, what was being looked forward to. It’s up to the adults to step up and make it special. Plans might be disrupted, but we can still make events positively memorable.

The not-so-normal path ahead for young adults

It’s challenging to look ahead these days and try and imagine what the new normal will be?

My youngest daughter is in Grade 12. In a month and a half she was supposed to have a lead part in her spring musical. I don’t think that will happen as we imagined it would. Next up for her is graduation. Will the dinner/dance happen? Will she cross the stage with her peers? Will parents be invited?

Imagine being in senior year of NCAA basketball and you are a starter. You aren’t good enough for the NBA, so this is your final season playing for huge audiences, and your season is cut short because of a virus?

In the grand scheme of things these might seem like trifle thoughts compared to exhausted health care workers, or people on ventilators and their concerned family members. But to a young adult this is a crushing blow to their plans and aspirations.

The new normal ahead is not one that will be kind to young adults in our community. Let’s remember this when they get restless and feel down. Let’s remember this when they are connecting with friends digitally. Let’s remember this when they join us in talking about the challenges ahead.

Everything we do to bring normalcy to the coming weeks will still be far from normal, and not all young adults are ready to cope with that. Let’s try to be helpful and supportive of them.