The tall round-faced girl beams, breathing fast with excitement while her friends in younger grades admiringly surround her. The slender girl wearing silver high heels sighs. "How do I feel about graduating? Relieved."
Walking the floor, the rite of passage for high school seniors, features inspirational songs and speeches, balloons bouquets, and shrieks of joy from proud relatives. For the approximately 60% of urban public high school seniors who graduate, this is a wonderful day. These students earned the necessary credits to complete 13 years of K-12 schooling.
Remembering the excitement and sadness of my own high school graduation, I did a little informal interviewing in Oakland this week. Most of the seniors I spoke with seemed in a state of euphoric shock. For example, I was unable to interrupt one group of close friends who were lying on top of each other like puppies, laughing and teasing. Others appeared more sober.
"Senior year is extremely stressful. The teachers, home, my part time job. Everyone wanting more from you every minute."
"I don't know how I feel. I'm glad it's over but I'll miss my friends."
"Quite a few of us won't walk the floor; we lost textbooks and can't replace them, or we failed one class we needed, or messed up on our credits."
"I have one piece of advice for freshmen: stay away from all the drama - he said and she said. There's so much going on, and if you fall behind in your work it's hard to catch up."
As I walked around campus, I noticed both happy faces already looking at summer vacation and worried faces looking at final essays and exams. But seniors's faces glowed. They had finished finals, signed out, cleaned out lockers, gone to graduation rehearsals.
It hadn't hit them yet. High school graduation represents achievement; it also represents a goodbye to childhood, a loss of innocence. After the cheering, our young men and women face the overwhelming reality of the adult world.
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