Saturday, June 6, 2026

Graduations

All the major graduations at the various levels of schools have taken place this past week, ending with the high school.

How many graduations did you have during your school years? And were the pre-high-school ceremonies called "graduations" or promotions"? I was of a time when there were no pre-school or kindergarten graduations. Not to mention that Pre-K or TK did not exist then. For me, graduations were just for junior high school (now called middle school), high school, community college and university. Our eight-grade graduation (which  people now insist be called a promotion) did not have caps. Yet, now it seems pre-schoolers and kindergarteners sport caps at their graduations. 

 


I also graduated in the years before social media, and do not recall any of my ceremonies getting out of hand as described in this video.


Not having children, I have not seen any ceremonies like this in person. However, on Facebook groups focused on my neighborhood happenings, people have been asking for someone to make graduation leis out of paper money or candy. And the high school has forbidden wearing high-heels, carrying balls or other decorations  during the procession. I don't recall any of this happening at my graduation. One thing I enjoyed about growing up in the 1980s. Nothing had to be that elaborate then. But in the age of social media, people think events like this should be filled with action and decorations just to go viral online. All we had in my day were still photographs that are now lying in a box somewhere in the garage.
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6 comments:

  1. Liz A.June 6, 2026 at 11:29 AM

    We called it 8th grade graduation, but our teachers insisted it was a promotion. At the schools I work at, it's called 8th grade promotion. And there was lots of talk about whether kiddos could "promote" or not (bad grades and behavior issues got them excluded from the festivities).

    At my college graduation, the computer science majors were tossing floppy discs. (It was 1995.) And there was some of that.

    I did not attend the schools' events, but from what I understand, it's pretty sedate. It is, however, livestreamed. I'll have to find the recording and check for you to see what they got up to.

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  2. PaulaJune 6, 2026 at 12:38 PM

    I’m from the 1960s-70s, and we didn’t make such a big deal out of things. As you said, graduation ceremonies were for jr high, HS, and college. Now they “graduate” from preschool! We also had lowkey birthdays with a couple games and cake. You weren’t obligated to invite an entire class, provide lunch, and have a crafts table. Or take a group of four friends on an expensive outing! So nutty nowadays…

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  3. My name is Erika.June 6, 2026 at 4:20 PM

    My mom was an elementary school teacher so I went to Nursery school, now called pre-school. I remember graduation from kindergarten, 8th grade, high school and then college. I also taught highly school for 36 years so I went to a lot of high school graduations in those years too. And my graduations were like yours so I don't remember much getting out of hand then either.

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  4. Live and LearnJune 7, 2026 at 4:01 AM

    I didn’t go to kindergarten and only had an awards assembly in eighth grade. The big graduations were only for high school and college. However, no one had big parties to go with them. My kids however had kindergarten, 5th grade, 8th grade, high school and college graduations. We only had a party for their high school graduation.

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  5. Al PenwasserJune 9, 2026 at 3:17 PM

    I graduated from eight grade (Catholic School, don'tcha know) and I graduated from high school. Things have changed quite a bit from the 70s.

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  6. Sandra CoxJune 10, 2026 at 5:36 PM

    I grew up in a small town about a hundred years ago;) We only had a grade school and high school, and grade school and high school graduation. Both were big deals in our town;)

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