Graduation Cermonies - Yes or No

Excerpts from a letter written in Chicago Tribune

I applaud the measures that the administration took to ensure that every graduate had the opportunity to hear his or her name called over the microphone.

And I wanted to add that graduating high school is not the same as it once was.

Yes, the ceremony, the pomp and circumstance, the party at the house, etc., are all things that graduating seniors enjoy upon completing four tumultuous years of secondary school, yet we tend to emphasize this event way too much.

Americans look to high school graduation as the end of our educational journey, yet with manufacturing jobs being outsourced to other countries, securing a job without even some college is becoming more and more impossible.

So in an age when countries such as Sweden and Germany are blowing us out of the water in regard to science and math, why do we put so much emphasis on an old rite of passage?

I understand that college is not for everyone, but then there are trade schools and even technology schools that are set up to help the non-mainstream, college-bound student.

With the number of college-bound students increasing every year, and with financial aid becoming more readily available, there is a way to go to college, no matter who you are or where you come from.

Don't blame graduate

I don't believe that it is the graduates' fault that their friends and families failed to obey the rules.

You cannot control the audience.

What the school should do is put the rude people out.

Before the commencement exercise begins, the school should announce that if anyone is rude, he or she will be escorted out of the graduation.

When that person does what he or she wants, then put the person out, no questions asked.

Don't punish the person who has waited and worked hard all those years to get what is rightfully his or hers.

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