How I learned to stop worrying and accept pre-school graduation

I was a kvetching, whiny mess at my first pre-school graduation. Mind you I wasn’t even the child; I was an adult attending the ceremony. I was also in my mid 20’s when my experience with children was limited to teaching them for 25 minutes at a time. At first I thought the other teachers were having a laugh at me, ‘really, a pre-school graduation, you can’t be serious’.

But they were and any parent of a child that’s attended pre-school, kindergarten, elementary or middle school can attest to worthless school graduations that happen before high school graduation. Worthless, yes, but they do serve a purpose, I learned as the parent of a child going through one.

Congratulations you didn’t choke on glue, stuffed paper or other craft supplies and your parents paid the tuition so get out of here and go to public school! No, it’s more than that, but when you first hear about it or watch it from the outside then it does look really silly.

The point is that it’s for the kids. They get super excited, have a valid reason to dress up (which is always nice for pictures), go to parties with their friends and get to watch mom and dad fawn over them. They might sing a song, move their arms around, look super cute and then go back to their classroom for early dismissal.

There is no reason to get up in arms about pre-school or kindergarten graduation because they’re little kids and the concept of moving up in grades isn’t even on their radar.

However, you middle schoolers, we need to talk. I just discovered that you have a graduation ceremony from the eighth grade to the ninth grade. What is that all about? At 14 you know that high school graduation is the end goal, or at least a stopping point for more education. You’re simply transferring schools; do you need a middle school graduation that means nothing?

You’ll never see a job advertisement that’s solely looking for middle school graduates. Wait a couple of years; get that high school diploma and it’s a good starting point.

Middle school graduation is a silly exercise in meaningless self appreciation for coddled students. That’s what I say to myself now that our kids are still 9 years before that age. Catch me in 2024 and I’ll be on the planning committee for the graduation ceremony though. After party at our house, but nobody goes upstairs and you’re out of here by 11:30 PM.