THERE'S STILL SOME WISDOM IN THE SANDPILE


or, all we really need to know we learned at kindergarten graduations.

Anyone remember the days when you finished a grade in school, got your report card, and were simply wished a good summer? It was a smile, a pat on the back, and a see ya next year. And that was it. Because everyone knew that another year had passed, that another year was coming, and that all you'd done was what you were supposed to do anyway. It was a reason to rejoice -- hello, summer vacation! -- but not an occasion to celebrate, because you had a hell of a lot more grades ahead of you, and because everyone with straight Ds on his report card did too. The feat was acknowledged, appreciated, and forgotten; it was neither exalted nor amplified, because you and everyone else understood that you don't ennoble mediocrity, that you don't treat a first inning lead like a ninth inning victory, and that you don't declare achievement, much less honor your own greatness, when you finish another one-thirteenth of your work.

But now, at every possible turn, and at the end of every conceivable grade, you have to have a graduation ceremony or a commencement ceremony or, if the school has at least some sense of restraint, a promotion ceremony. You have them for children who finish pre-school and nursery school and kindergarten, for children who finish fourth grade or fifth grade or sixth grade, for children simply going on to elementary school or middle school or high school. It's no wonder kids are so disaffected by the time they become high school sophomores; for some, it's the first year of their lives that their extended family hasn't been invited to their school's auditorium (or gymnasium, or cafetorium) to cheer and hoot and holler for some simple rite of passage that used to be honored with a high five and a bus ride and maybe a few extra minutes added to your bedtime. The phenomenon is as sad as it is silly and, in an early twenty-first century that seems hell-bent on elevating the innocuous, as silly as it is inevitable.

It was a little bit of all three today, when Ethan and fifty-five other kids at Linden Academy concluded a year of kindergarten, capping off one-hundred-eighty days of work and play with forty-five minutes of pomp and circumstance. It was an assembly, a reception, and a promotion ceremony all rolled into one, an extravaganza staged, like most dog-and-pony-shows masquerading as children's school ceremonies, almost solely for the benefit of immature, impatient adults who can't or won't or just don't want to wait to celebrate until their children actually achieve something meaningful. So we took our seats near the back of the room and resolved to endure it all: two speeches, three songs, a couple of readings, and a parade of rainbow-decorated diplomas on stage, with a Hallmark shop's worth of cards and balloons (my favorite: Congratulations, Grad!, a word the kid can't read followed by a word the kid can't be) and gifts in the audience, more flash photography than a royal family wedding, and an orange-drink-and-cookie stampede afterward. It was all nice and sweet and, as these things go, reasonably restrained. Best of all, it was mercifully brief.

The principal, a kind and thoughtful woman who seems to find far more joy in her job than do most of her peers, kept her remarks short and simple and appropriate. She talked about learning, she praised the kids for their good work, and she read a little Robert Fulghum (including my favorite line: Be aware of wonder). One teacher spoke briefly about her class, laughed and smiled a lot, and got right to the business of handing out the packets, the stuffed animals, and the Barnes & Noble gift cards. (In what may have been the high point of the day, the children were more excited by the cards than the toys; there is, perhaps, hope for a literate future yet.) The other teacher, a woman clearly born to teach German and to keep her children's educational trains running on time, spoke at least as long as the other two women combined, told us nothing we didn't already know, and proved what we'd all already suspected: that her favorite vowel is I. In the end, every child got a name call, a handshake from the principal, and a round of applause from the audience — which was, considering the alternatives, not especially excessive. And was, truth be told, maybe even mildly enjoyable.

Perhaps because those kids, who at six are still young and innocent enough to find joy in most everything they do, this year found fresh, fulfilling joy in the simple pleasures of a kindergarten classroom. They took great pleasure in word problems and book reports and homework folders, in small desks and loud lockers and tiny, hard-to-open milk cartons in a crowded cafeteria. They came to a place many of us once could not wait to leave and, finding delights we'd forgotten or forsaken, realized they would be more than happy to stay. They carried those joys, those pleasures, those gentle, unassuming delights into their songs and smiles and laughter today, for a ceremony that was but one more new experience in a year chock full of them. Most of the adults wanted to take pictures and give presents and obsessively capture the moment; the kids just wanted to talk to their friends, eat some cookies, and get ready to go home. In their happiness for the day, and in their indifference to the event, they seemed to be teaching us all a lesson in the little things; they seemed to understand, better than most of the adults in the room, that these sorts of moments and days and years are just beginning, that the end of kindergarten is only the start of first grade, and that, no matter how much their parents or teachers or principals try to hurry them, they will learn and grow and maybe even one day actually graduate, but always in their own sweet time.

Posted: Wed - June 14, 2006 at 10:28 PM          

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