Tag: graduation

alumni standing in academic dress

SubscribeStar Saturday: Yet Another Round of Dubious Graduation Wisdom

The Portly Politico2 Comments

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It’s that time of year again: Graduation Day. At least, it’s graduation for my students, and my last graduation as a full-time teacher. Apparently, the graduating class is so large, and seats are so limited, the admin was encouraging teachers not to attend, but I’d like to be there, so I’m going.

Our graduation ceremony is blessedly short on speechifying. The honor graduate (“third in class”), salutatorian, and valedictorian each give a very brief speech, and there are some general platitudes from the headmaster. They announce a couple of teaching awards, and the kids process across the stage with little video montages they put together. If it weren’t for those videos, it would be lightning quick; as it is, it’s still pretty fast.

Of course, every year I roleplay the alternative: what if there were more speechifying, and I was asked to deliver the keynote address? Well, here’s another round of dubious graduation wisdom from yours portly:

Write Every Day

Most of you will not pursue writing as a career—nor should you, as it’s an oversaturated market that not only competes against real people, but now robots, too. But all of you should write something—anything—everyday. Most of you will through your work; even police officers have to write up fairly descriptive reports of arrests, for example.

Indeed, writing is inescapable. The problem is that very few people do it well, with any degree of competency. The only way to do it well it to practice doing it well. When you send a text message, for example, don’t (as a rule) just type, “k” in response to a message; instead, reply in at least a clear, complete sentence: subject, verb, predicate/direct object. “Okay, that sounds great”; “I will see you at the theater at 6 PM.”

And, yes, use punctuation, especially periods. Look, no one really knows how to use commas; just plop them in whenever it feels like there should be a pause for a breathe. Don’t do that thing that some people do where they end a sentence with an entire string of “…………..” or “,,,,,,,,,,,”—it doesn’t make any sense and it makes you look stupid. It is also really, really annoying.

But I digress. Even if you don’t nail all the grammatical rules, try to write in a way that is clear and precise. Yes, some of us are wordy, verbose writers, addicted to parenthetical asides and em dashes—which are now apparently taboo because AI uses them (don’t let the robots take good things from you)—but you have to learn to walk before you can ascend into a cloud of subjunctive clauses.

Of course, in order you write well, you must…

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SubscribeStar Saturday: More Dubious Graduation Day Wisdom

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Today is another graduation, which means it’s time for yours portly to dish out some more dubious graduation day wisdom.  The older I get, the more I realize that the only certainty we can have is found in Jesus Christ.  Human frailty is such that, no matter how hard any of us try, we are going to let even people we love down—and they’ll let us down (don’t worry, no one I love has let me down lately—ha!—and I hope I haven’t done the same, I’m just noting a general Truth).  Perhaps that is the greatest wisdom I have to offer, younglings:  put your trust and faith in the Lord.

But besides the preachy stuff, what about more spicy nuggets of enlightenment?  Come, gather at my feet, and let me teach you.

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Lazy Sunday CXLIX: End of School Events

The Portly Politico4 Comments

The end is nigh!  The end the school year, that is.  Unlike all the folks that work year-round—the fools!—I get to revel in approximately two months of summertime goodness every year.  It’s a fair trade-off for the brutally long hours I put in during the school year.

With this ending-of-all-things in mind, I figured I’d glance back at some recent posts about end-of-school-year events:

Happy Sunday—and Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

SubscribeStar Saturday: Yet Even More Graduation Day Wisdom

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Another graduation ceremony is upon us, signaling the end of the school year and the beginning of another summer vacation.  The grand cycle of the academic calendar continues, coming to a stately close after a few hectic months.

Last year I predicted that my chances of being asked to speak at commencement increased from 1% to about 5%.  That was overly optimistic; given that we don’t have speakers at commencement besides the valedictorian and the salutatorian, I’d put the odds at less than 1%.

Even if we did have a member of faculty speak, I think my chances would improve only slightly.  I’m a good teacher, and well-spoken when working from a prepared text, with a rich, buttery voice made for radio.  But I’m not one of the “glamorous” teachers.  My administration is very fixated on photogenic and youthful teachers—essentially, they want the face they put to the public to be wildly attractive.

I get that, and while I’m a handsome-ish dude and a dynamic music teacher, I’m too much of an iconoclast to fit into the mold.  I don’t check any sexy diversity boxes, and I don’t hang around the front office like desperate courtesans trying to win the favor of the king.  Perhaps if I did play politics a bit more I’d be a more likely candidate, but I have no desire or inclination to do so.

But I digress.  If I were to speak at graduation, I’d have some spicy-but-pedestrian bits of wisdom to share with the Class of 2024.

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Graduation Season 2024

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Graduation season has matriculated for yours portly.  Indeed, college graduations have already been rolling on for a few weeks now, with a flurry of graduation photos and heartfelt Facebook posts accompanying the accomplishments of young people across the land.  My school observed a graduation ceremony for our eighth graders last night, continuing the long-standing tradition of watering down “graduation” to apply to any milestone.  Never mind kindergarten graduation ceremonies; pretty soon we’ll be having graduation ceremonies for when youngsters leave the house to head to school for the first time.

Regardless, it is a season of joy and celebration, and there is something to be said for all of that pomp and circumstance (and the constant playing of Elgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance No. 1,” which is echoing across the land even as I write, I’d wager).  Nowadays graduations are largely an opportunity for mothers to take thousands of pictures of their children (which likely explains the explosion of “graduations” referenced earlier), but they still hold certain symbolic and cultural importance.

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Even More Graduation Day Wisdom

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Another graduation ceremony is upon us, signaling the end of the school year and the beginning of another summer vacation.  The grand cycle of the academic calendar continues, coming to a stately close after a hectic few months.

I never anticipated being asked to speak at graduation, and I long doubted I ever would.  I still have not—lest the last sentence come across as misleading—but after delivering the baccalaureate sermon this past Sunday, I suspect the odds of being asked to speak at commencement at some future date has increased, even if only slightly.  What was hovering at around 1% might be up to 5% right now, but I possess no special insights into the vagaries of my administrations hive mind.

Regardless, if I did get to speak before our graduating seniors, I’d offer up some of my dubious wisdom, such as it is.  The first time I wrote on this topic I offered mostly financial advice; last year, after experiencing the effects of The Age of The Virus, I revised my wisdom to include more spiritual concerns.

This year, my advice is a grab-bag of plainspoken wisdom—take it or leave it.

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SubscribeStar Saturday: More Graduation Day Wisdom

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Way back in May 2020, I wrote a SubscribeStar Saturday piece with some advice for graduates, most of it financial in nature—stay out of debt, start an IRA, save for retirement, etc.

A lot has changed since 2020.  I wrote that post during the early days of The Age of The Virus, back when we were all a bit frightened by what was going on, but already waking up to the tyrannical nature of the government’s response to The Virus.  It was also before rampant inflation and market instability in a structural sense really hit.  Sure, you had the shutdown collapse that March, but with government largesse forthcoming, the markets recovered those losses quickly.

I would still recommend saving and investing, but I would temper my advice in a less materialist direction.  So, here is my some more dubious graduation day wisdom.

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Graduation Day Wisdom

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Today marks graduation for the private school where I teach.  For the first time in my teaching career, attendance at graduation is option for faculty and graduates, except for “essential personnel.”  I’m The Sound Guy, so I’m essential.  On the plus side, I’ve rigged up my Yamaha mixer in the teacher’s lounge, so I’ll be chilling—literally—in air-conditioned comfort while my colleagues are sweating it on the front lawn.

We’re conducting one of the first major graduation ceremonies in The Age of The Virus in our region, so the school is going to great lengths to make the graduation as safe and socially distant as possible.  They’re spreading everyone out over a yuge front law and capping attendees to four per graduate.  Everyone’s wearing face masks (facial freedom is another benefit of being alone and inside behind my Wizard of Oz curtain).  Our Buildings & Grounds crew has been working hard all week to make everything look immaculate, and I pre-rigged cables earlier in the week.

With today being Graduation Day, I thought I’d do as so many other unqualified individuals have done and offer up my nuggets of wisdom to the Class of 2020:

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