Nanaimo’s grads deserve congratulations and the chance to celebrate however they like.
Graduation is a tremendous achievement. High school is hard – exams are difficult, homework is time-consuming and classes require commitment. And there are so many other considerations: extra-curriculars, social lives and part-time jobs, to name a few. As a community, we should be proud of our graduates and how they have met these challenges and so many others we don’t know about, and have excelled.
There are a lot of reasons to be excited about graduating high school, but the best reasons, we think, are the opportunities to come. Because at age 17 or 18, possibilities are endless. Grads today might become a doctor or a lawyer, or maybe an astronaut or an NHL player or even prime minister; they are limited only by their own ambitions.
Graduation is interesting because it draws all these teenagers together into a ‘class of 2016’ for a prom and a strut across the stage and then the grad class bursts apart, scattering youths to different places, different schools, different jobs, different paths and pursuits.
As we congratulate our grads, perhaps we should consider the role we played in helping them reach this stage. We all have a stake in our schools and in the education system as a whole. Trustees are forced to do more with less and are having to make decisions they shouldn’t have to make, between closing schools, cutting teachers, reducing programming or forgoing classroom resources. Graduates, diploma in hand, are about to go make their way in the world. So how about our end of the bargain? Did we do all that we can to set up our grads for success? Will we do the same for the class of 2017, and all the other classes to come?
One thing we do know: our grads will succeed, regardless. We should be proud of them, and also motivated to make sure the next grad class succeeds, and the one after that.
