No One Came

Another speaker from my conference last week opened up his keynote with something that resonated with me. Dr. Donyall Dickey introduced himself with the story of how he graduated high school and no one from his family came to the ceremony. Then he graduated with his bachelor's degree, and no one came. He earned his master's degree, and no one came. Finally, he earned his doctorate, and again, no one from his family came. As a first-generation college goer, I can see how it is difficult for a family to understand the value of those accomplishments. Particularly if they do not value education itself. While my own family certainly valued my education, my last degree did leave them asking exactly what it was and what it meant. Being a first-generation college-goer is usually not a path you travel alone, but in the case of Dr. Dickey, it was.

I remember my last year working for a neighboring school district and the intense efforts that went into controlling crowd noise at graduation. We trained teachers and employed security that were supposed to ask people to be respectful and quiet if they cheered. A second violation was supposed to result in asking them to leave. I, personally, have never understood that. I have no trouble in pausing to read the next name so that a family can let their child know that they are there and are proud of the accomplishment.

This concept got me thinking though. Why do we wait 13 years to let a child know that someone is there? Why do we only get one moment to celebrate their accomplishment? For some of those kids, it may be the last time that anyone does that in their entire life. We started this year out saying that we wanted to celebrate more of our accomplishments. We know and understand that it's important to do that. With that in mind, how are we doing that for our students? Do we celebrate growth and achievement in the classroom enough? The few moments that students get to feel that pride can mean the world to them, especially if they live in a home where no one will come to celebrate for them.