Re: Mt Healthy high school withholding a diploma because a family cheered at graduati
Quote:
Originally Posted by
westofyou
Give the kid his diploma, don't blame him for the cheers and tell the school to pull the plug out of their butts and let life be a little more than protocol and rules, in short live life, not inhibit it.
Yeah, I hear what your saying and don't totally disagree with it. I hate having to get people to sign forms, take an oath of blood, and engage a bunch of bureuacratic BS to get people to act like responsible human beings. Generally speaking, probably about 95% of the people there would act in a civil way and celebrate, but also be considerate of others and everything would be fine. But you've always got the folks that think that what they want comes first and I'll do what I damn feel and the hell with everyone else and that's why all there silly rules get instituted. These kind of people really exist.
But the issues that me and MWM and oneupper have mentioned are real problems. Been to any graduation commencements lately? I've been to 3 of my kids and another 4 for nephews. They can be long. There are tons of elderly folks there and for them, its an extra-special time and I'd hate to exclude them because other people want to be rude.
Sure I understand that its a time of joy and celebration and there is a certain amount of that. It's not that everyone has to sit on their hands. Your kids' name gets announced, you get to go "yeaaaahhh, wooooooo, yay <name>, we love you, woooo". And then your moment is done and they move to the next kid. It's a balancing act and I think they do a pretty good job of it. If you give people carte blanche with time to carry on and air horns and cow bells, well, it's not going to be a lot of fun. It's going to go on forever and like someone said, it starts to be a competition to see who can go on the longest and loudest. I guarantee this will happen.
Re: Mt Healthy high school withholding a diploma because a family cheered at graduati
Quote:
Originally Posted by
MWM
It's impossible to have a discussion if people refuse to not misrepresent the opposing viewpoint. How many times does it need to be said that it's not because they were cheering. Geez.
So it is because they were wearing shoes?
Of course it was because they were cheering.
Re: Mt Healthy high school withholding a diploma because a family cheered at graduati
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Yachtzee
In this day and age, when schools are laying off teachers due to falling property tax revenues, do you think they can afford headphones and the system needed to operate them? That brings up another issue: most larger schools can't accommodate the number of guests for graduation on campus, so they have to rent out an outside facility. If you factor in time for set up and tear down, you're already looking renting the place for 6 hrs for a 2 hr ceremony. At that length, its cutting it close for a facility that might have 2 different graduations in the same day, or maybe a morning graduation and some other event in the evening. Stretch it out to four hours or more and the facility is going to charge to rent the place for the whole day, another expense schools could do without. I think schools are more likely to cancel graduation altogether and mail everyone their diplomas than buy headphones for everyone or just have 4 hr graduations.
Have people bring their own headphones then. Attempting to be a judge doesn't work. It is a ridiculous idea.
Re: Mt Healthy high school withholding a diploma because a family cheered at graduati
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Roy Tucker
Yeah, I hear what your saying and don't totally disagree with it. I hate having to get people to sign forms, take an oath of blood, and engage a bunch of bureuacratic BS to get people to act like responsible human beings. Generally speaking, probably about 95% of the people there would act in a civil way and celebrate, but also be considerate of others and everything would be fine. But you've always got the folks that think that what they want comes first and I'll do what I damn feel and the hell with everyone else and that's why all there silly rules get instituted. These kind of people really exist.
But the issues that me and MWM and oneupper have mentioned are real problems. Been to any graduation commencements lately? I've been to 3 of my kids and another 4 for nephews. They can be long. There are tons of elderly folks there and for them, its an extra-special time and I'd hate to exclude them because other people want to be rude.
Sure I understand that its a time of joy and celebration and there is a certain amount of that. It's not that everyone has to sit on their hands. Your kids' name gets announced, you get to go "yeaaaahhh, wooooooo, yay <name>, we love you, woooo". And then your moment is done and they move to the next kid. It's a balancing act and I think they do a pretty good job of it. If you give people carte blanche with time to carry on and air horns and cow bells, well, it's not going to be a lot of fun. It's going to go on forever and like someone said, it starts to be a competition to see who can go on the longest and loudest. I guarantee this will happen.
Sounds a lot like a black baptist church service.
Which begs the question, is this a cultural thing?
Re: Mt Healthy high school withholding a diploma because a family cheered at graduati
Quote:
Originally Posted by
MWM
So families should be able to cheer as long as they want at graduations? If that's your opinion that's cool, but if everyone followed that pattern these things would take forever.
Probably not forever, that would be impossible!!
But maybe longer than Titanic, but easily more gratifying
Re: Mt Healthy high school withholding a diploma because a family cheered at graduati
Quote:
Originally Posted by
westofyou
Probably not forever, that would be impossible!!
But maybe longer than Titanic, but easily more gratifying
I wouldn't know, I've never seen Titanic. It's one of my proudest accomplishments.
Re: Mt Healthy high school withholding a diploma because a family cheered at graduati
Quote:
Originally Posted by
westofyou
Sounds a lot like a black baptist church service.
Which begs the question, is this a cultural thing?
It's the start of the decline of Western Civilization.
If I were king of the world, I'd send out the notices to students and family and get people to sign just to bring up the awareness of what is expected behavior. People do need to get reminded of these things. But unless someone went totally overboard, I wouldn't go around handing out excessive cheering tickets and be all anal about it.
I will say that all the commencements I've been to, this hasn't been a problem. Was there a couple times that things went on a little long? Well, yeah, but nothing terrible. It was just well-intentioned exuberance. I'd let it slide.
Re: Mt Healthy high school withholding a diploma because a family cheered at graduati
Quote:
Originally Posted by
MWM
I wouldn't know, I've never seen Titanic. It's one of my proudest accomplishments.
Ahhh me.... Top Gun/Flashdance/Born on the 4th of July
Congratulations on that accomplishment, very nice.
Re: Mt Healthy high school withholding a diploma because a family cheered at graduati
Quote:
Originally Posted by
westofyou
Ahhh me.... Top Gun/Flashdance/Born on the 4th of July
Congratulations on that accomplishment, very nice.
I've seen Top Gun of those. But I was12 when it came out, there was no way I wasn't watching it. The summer after it came out me and my friends watched it probably a dozen times.
Re: Mt Healthy high school withholding a diploma because a family cheered at graduati
Quote:
Originally Posted by
MWM
I've seen Top Gun of those. But I was12 when it came out, there was no way I wasn't watching it. The summer after it came out me and my friends watched it probably a dozen times.
Too Danger Zone for me
Re: Mt Healthy high school withholding a diploma because a family cheered at graduati
Quote:
Originally Posted by
westofyou
Too Danger Zone for me
Watching the jets is stil pretty cool.
Re: Mt Healthy high school withholding a diploma because a family cheered at graduati
I think the school is going above and beyond what they should do. I'm not sure why anyone should be punished for something like this.
That said, the kid is a legal graduate and it is very rare that employers and other schools will ask to see the actual diploma. All they care about id if the kid graduated. If he wants the diploma so bad, he should go back in a bot 3-4 years and get it. I'm sure it will be blown over by then.
Re: Mt Healthy high school withholding a diploma because a family cheered at graduati
Quote:
Originally Posted by
westofyou
Sounds a lot like a black baptist church service.
Which begs the question, is this a cultural thing?
I'm sure a lot of different things factor into it -- high school graduation was viewed differently at the school I went to (private, Catholic school in Washington DC), where everyone was expected to move on to college and possibly graduate/professional school, than I'm sure it is in other places where high school graduation rates are lower and a diploma represents the highest level of education most people will be expected to obtain.
But, I hesitate to say it's simply a "cultural" thing. A given culture can be more accepting and tolerant of joyful or boisterous celebration, but we're talking about an issue of common good and respect for fellow celebrants. As Roy pointed out, these events are attended by lots of different people -- I know when I graduated from law school the ceremony was extremely taxing, physically, on my grandparents. Sitting in uncomfortable folding chairs for an extended period of time was difficult for them, and anything that extended the ceremony would amount to additional physical discomfort. I don't think "culture" gives one a right to make an experience unpleasant for others.
Re: Mt Healthy high school withholding a diploma because a family cheered at graduati
Hopefully I'm not stirring the pot here as there seem to be some high emotions about this story ;) but there is a way to get through a graduation ceremony without it being 4 hours long and allowing people to cheer.
I went to Colerain's graduation a couple weeks ago and they had a similar rule in place about excessive cheering (apparently last year's ceremony was absolutely horrible with people going crazy for way too long). The kids were all aware of the rule, it was mentioned about three times before they even got to the reading of the names, and people in the crowd around me were very well aware of things. The biggest thing they did to make this move smoothly but also give people a cheering chance was how they read off the names. They first read off the kids on the stage (summa cum laude, etc), then the Student Senate officers, then the other Senate kids, and finally they went to the alphabetical order for everyone else. After each group, or in the case of the alphabetical section after about 15-18 kids, the teacher or administrator who was reading simply said the words, "Thank you" which were the crowds cue that they could now cheer and clap for their students. When your kid walked by on the stage, you got to hear his or her name, see them walk and get their diploma, and when that particular group was done you were able to go crazy however you wanted to support them. It was one of the smoothest and most enjoyable graduations I've ever been to and it didn't bother anyone around me that they couldn't cheer right after their kid's name. They just cheered when their kids group was done. It seems like this type of system would work rather well for a lot of the bigger schools and I can't see how anyone would have a problem with it. And for the record, we were in and out of that ceremony in a little less than two hours (class size: 425 kids). :jump:
BTW-If the family and kid were both informed of the rules, and it sounds like they were, then the family should have respected their kid and the other kids in his class enough to follow those rules. I can understand them being frustrated that he's being punished for their actions but they should have known better. It really isn't that hard! :eek: And count me as another who is a little irritated with them for running off to the press with this instead of dealing with the school and figuring out a way to help their kid get his diploma. That just screams 'attention getter' to me and I have no patience for that sort of thing. Obviously that's just my opinion but this story got way out of hand and could have been handled better. :eek: