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When school officials in Rock Hill, South Carolina, tell graduation ceremony crowds to hold their applause until the end, they mean it — Police arrested seven people after they were accused of loud cheering during the ceremonies.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,365461,00.html

I wish we could do that at every high school graduation. I'm so sick of the most uncultured thugs highjacking the ceremony from those who are there to honor and respect the graduating class, I'd like to puke.

mrkelley23 wrote:I wish we could do that at every high school graduation. I'm so sick of the most uncultured thugs highjacking the ceremony from those who are there to honor and respect the graduating class, I'd like to puke.

In one degree or another, this seems to be a problem in many places. The friends and families of a few graduates make so much noise for so long that the people who are there for other grads, who just happen to be next in line, can't even hear their kids' names.

And it is nearly always the families of the kids who barely made it through high school, if at all, (we used to let kids walk before they had actually completed all the requirements for graduation) who make the loudest noise for the longest time. The one thing I tell people who get upset by it is, "Remember, this is absolutely the highlight of that child's life."

Pretty sad.

I went to 5 different graduations this year. I could not get over how much it was like an East Texas football game. Signs and airhorns were predominant at one graduation at a stadium. Parents yelling at their kids to stop and look at their camera. I really think some people have forgotten or just don't know how to act during the ceremony.

One long interruption was definitely appropriate during the graduation ceremony at my previous school.

I may have told this story before.

Last summer, two of my former students (who would be Seniors this past school year) were in a very tragic vehicle accident. They were cousins who worked with each other at a fast food restaurant and were headed home. One of them (who was talking at the scene) died after paramedics took her out of the vehicle. It was literally holding her together. Her cousin was barely alive. My grandfather and my former student wound up in the same ICU unit for about 2 weeks. The student was in a coma for quite some time. It was touch and go, with fever, low blood pressure. It really looked bleak for him. They told his father that even if he did survive that he wouldn't be the same, that they didn't know if he would ever be able to walk again, or if he would ever be able to even function.

At graduation, with the help of his father and a walker, he walked across the field and received his diploma and smiled for his graduation picture. He was given the loudest applause and a standing ovation.

I think it serves 'em right. I wish they would do that here.

I would rather listen to family members celebrate and cheer for a graduating student than to the insipid and immediately forgotten speeches given by the school officials. Would it kill them to lengthen the diploma presentation to allow for the cheering and shorten their speeches?

My son graduated from high school a few years ago. Aside from his moment getting the diploma, the part to which I was most looking forward was when he and the rest of the choir seniors performed the class song for the year -- "For Good", from Wicked, which always gets me (and is a perfect graduation song).

Too bad I could barely hear it. The bunch of yahoos next to me talked... LOUDLY... through the entire thing. And this wasn't kids, but primarily adults. No matter what I did, they just kept yapping. Grrrr.

When DD graduated in '02 (OMG, has it really been 6 years???), her Catholic HS held Baccaulaureate in a large church. You would have thought it was a cocktail party by the way the parents acted and talked! Her choir performed, but we couldn't hear a single note, even though we were sitting within 4 rows.

At the actual graduation the next day, the principal decided the kids had been too noisy -- although it was (again!) the PARENTS who had the airhorns, etc -- and stepped to the mic to announce there would be no showing of the planned slideshow, and no formal recessional. He just dismissed everyone. The kids were stunned, and just wandered outside to meet up with their families.

I was furious, and wrote a letter to the principal telling him so. How in the world did he expect the students to behave when they have the "excellent" example of their parents to learn from?

hermillion wrote:When DD graduated in '02 (OMG, has it really been 6 years???), her Catholic HS held Baccaulaureate in a large church. You would have thought it was a cocktail party by the way the parents acted and talked! Her choir performed, but we couldn't hear a single note, even though we were sitting within 4 rows.

At the actual graduation the next day, the principal decided the kids had been too noisy -- although it was (again!) the PARENTS who had the airhorns, etc -- and stepped to the mic to announce there would be no showing of the planned slideshow, and no formal recessional. He just dismissed everyone. The kids were stunned, and just wandered outside to meet up with their families.

I was furious, and wrote a letter to the principal telling him so. How in the world did he expect the students to behave when they have the "excellent" example of their parents to learn from?

Did you notice that the article I referenced said that an Illinois school had punished the students for people cheering for them by not giving them diplomas until they had completed eight hours of community service?

Bob Juch wrote:

hermillion wrote:When DD graduated in '02 (OMG, has it really been 6 years???), her Catholic HS held Baccaulaureate in a large church. You would have thought it was a cocktail party by the way the parents acted and talked! Her choir performed, but we couldn't hear a single note, even though we were sitting within 4 rows.

At the actual graduation the next day, the principal decided the kids had been too noisy -- although it was (again!) the PARENTS who had the airhorns, etc -- and stepped to the mic to announce there would be no showing of the planned slideshow, and no formal recessional. He just dismissed everyone. The kids were stunned, and just wandered outside to meet up with their families.

I was furious, and wrote a letter to the principal telling him so. How in the world did he expect the students to behave when they have the "excellent" example of their parents to learn from?

Did you notice that the article I referenced said that an Illinois school had punished the students for people cheering for them by not giving them diplomas until they had completed eight hours of community service?

Sins of the fathers . . .

We hold a "promotion celebration" for our fifth grade students as they complete their elementary school years and move on to middle school. (we had to quit calling it a graduation when the high school people complained that there is only one "graduation") There are people who feel the need to scream in celebration even down at our level.