Stormy gets "promoted"

[elfs]

Storm at graduation

Omaha, Kouryou-chan and I attended Storm's promotion ceremony at her high school. It was a two-hour event that featured some of the most rude people I've met yet in my dealings with the school system.

It's called a "promotion" because the kids aren't graduating from anything at all; they're simply moving to a different facility, the high school down the block, and so will no longer be under the care of the middle school staff. They're being promoted to ninth grade. Still, there's a ceremony for getting out of middle school alive.

Man, the lighting in a gymnasium does nobody any favors. It's too dark for a high-speed lens, and too garish to make anyone attractive.

Storm was one of the top 10% of students, so she got a "silver" award, signed by Barack Obama's autopen, congratulating her on the constant 3.8 average and consistently higher than average test scores. She looked bored throughout the ceremony, but as she pointed out, most of her friends were up on the peripheral stage with the band.

Not paying attention

The band played for the opening and closing ceremonies, and that's where the rudeness was most pronounced. After having chaperone them at the Disneyland trip and having heard them play, I can say they were a highly competent middle school band. The audience apparently didn't care, because they talked right over the band's performance, constantly. They chattered and giggled and ignored the hardworking students on stage who were trying to play a rather complicated medley. The woman to the right was one of many playing a video game or otherwise just staring into his or her phone. It was all very disconcerting.

I think it's a small but representative sample of what's wrong with America: our generation didn't learn how to let other people have their moments in the spotlight. We all want it, and if it's not on us, we're as like to ignore it and do our own thing, damn them all.

I congratulated my daughter, and then sadly sent her on to her mother's, where she'll spend the next two and a half weeks, pausing only long enough to come back and watch Kouryou-chan's ballet. Ah, well.

Comments

[elfs.livejournal.com]

If you need cues and signals for how to behave at a ceremonial event, UR DOIN IT WRONG. We aren't chimpanzees. We don't look to the silverback for moment-to-moment guidance.

[tamino.livejournal.com]

If I filter out the 4chan aggression from what you just said, here's what I get:

"I think the biggest clue in this case was that it was a ceremonial event, which carries with it a different set of defaults than other situations in which there might be a band."

Sound about like what you meant?

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Politely, yes.

[omahas.livejournal.com]

I think I have to disagree with you, my dear. And here's why. Many people who put together various types of events that include live music, either music meant for background or music meant to be paid attention, don't know how to do so appropriately so people understand when it is background and when it is TO BE PAID ATTENTION TO.

I've seen this in many different types of events. But in Storm's ceremony, the person at the podium specifically lead everyone's attention to the band. That was the very specific signal that everyone was now to pay attention to the band.

The problem was that people were rude enough that they wouldn't even STFU when the teachers and principle at the podium were speaking. This is the core of rudeness. All they wanted to do was to be there when their kid received the award/piece of paper/other item, then scream their lungs out (I do NOT exaggerate). Any other time was to be ignored. After all, it was some other person's kid...why should they care?