Graduation pomp and circumstance
I graduated from college 25 years ago and I have no memory whatsoever of my graduation ceremony. Nope, I didn’t hit my head nor do I already have Alzheimer’s. It’s because I skipped my own graduation. I went to a really big university and thought that such a formal event with thousands of other students was a bit impersonal. I was also a little impatient to go out into the “real world.” My high school graduation was much more nostalgic. It was a smaller affair and in the school I went to, they kept you in the same class for the entire four years. I had therefore gotten close to my classmates with whom I vowed that day that the only thing that would change between us was where we would study for college. I also have some fond recollections of my grade school graduation although, when I think about it, what always comes to my mind first is my elder brother’s college graduation which took place that same year.
The crowd was abuzz when my brother hinted in his valedictory speech that a fellow graduate had pledged to do something extraordinary that night to commemorate the event. Everyone knew that my brother was referring to one of his friends who already had a reputation for funny antics and who later became a famous comedian. As the guy walked up the stage, the university president allegedly whispered to him not to do anything crazy. After accepting the symbolic diploma, he then faced the crowd and took what seemed like a normal bow. But upon bending down, he also took off his graduation cap and hidden wig to expose his shiny bald head! Nagpakalbo! That brought the house down but the Jesuits were not amused. Subsequently, a rumor went around for some time that the university’s guards had been instructed not to allow him to enter the school grounds!
Regardless of whether one celebrates it with solemnity or youthful irreverence, the graduation is universally considered to be a highly prized ritual and rite of passage for the youth. There is also a lot of history and tradition involved. As such, there is much pageantry and ceremony. In fact, even the song that is considered a standard for all graduations — the Graduation March — is actually entitled Pomp and Circumstance (March No. 1). The march’s title comes from a line in Shakespeare’s Othello (“Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war!”). It was originally composed by Sir Edward Elgar in 1901 and was used in the coronation of King Edward VII.
However, after it was played at the 1905 commencement exercises of Yale University where they awarded Sir Edward with an honorary doctorate, everyone else started using it until it eventually became common practice in schools in the US (and of course, in their prized colony). The other regal traditions that we observe in today’s ceremonies go all the way back to the 12th century when the very first universities came into existence in Europe. The Church had a monopoly on education then and only the Pope and his bishops could issue licenses to teach and to confer degrees. This and the fact that the first graduates were most likely the scholastic monks explain why the graduation gowns today look like clerical robes. The graduation cap is said to have also evolved from the religious attire of those times — the clergymen’s square-shaped hat called the biretta. The variant that eventually became the most popular was the one that was used in Oxford University which is why the cap is also known as an “Oxford.” The square flat top of the Oxford cap resembled a tool used by bricklayers to hold mortar and so it was also given another nickname, “Mortarboard.” Since paper was quite delicate and also difficult to make during the Middle Ages, the original diploma was made out of sheepskin, to the dismay of millions of sheep. It was also hand-written, rolled, and tied with a ribbon. Given the ease of manufacturing fake diplomas in Recto, this is one tradition that the Department of Education should probably consider reinstating! But while modern society has retained many of these age-old traditions, some schools have also already added their own unique twists. In the school that my children go to, for example, incoming grade 1 students are welcomed in June by the high school seniors who hand them roses. Then, at the graduation ceremony of the seniors in March, the gesture is reciprocated by the very same first grade students who send them off with their own roses.
There are some people who say that graduations are obsolete and useless rites that we should not spend time and money on. Others point out that only the college ceremony should really matter for it is only then that the youth truly “graduate” to adulthood. However, I think that even if a graduation marks only the completion of an elementary or high school education, it still symbolizes an important change in the graduate’s life and signals one’s entry into a world filled with new opportunities and responsibilities. So despite the fact that I skipped my own college graduation, I do believe that all graduations deserve to be celebrated with pomp and circumstance — within reason, of course. Yet amid all the “pomp,” I think that we should also never forget the individual story or “circumstance” that surrounds how each graduate got there. It is this remembrance that ultimately gives the event its soul. And finally, the teacher. I think that graduations should honor the teacher just as much as the student. The teacher, who after the ceremony perhaps, goes back to his empty classrooms to turn off the lights and close the door on yet another group of young people he had helped grow and mature in ways that he could not have predicted. Tomorrow, he will go back and start all over again.
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