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

[pakraticus.livejournal.com]

I'm generally left wondering why the spotlight was brought out in the first place.
The band, orchestra, or chorus performing without other distraction is worth the spotlight. An art show is worth the spot light. A play is worth the spot light. An academic awards ceremony is worth the spotlight. If your experience was like mine it tried to mix all of those things along with a lot of self esteem crap for everyone.
Having endured two middle school "moving up" ceremonies rife with perfect attendance awards for students that couldn't bother to be present and the principal and key teachers puffing themselves up, I think my kids got a raw deal compared to having the last day or few as field day (And I HATED field day events).

As for the rudeness, odds are that rudeness has been disrupting your child's classroom every year she was at middle school. It was one of the important factors in my youngest girl declaring she didn't want anything to do with the local public high schools.