A Few Thousand Special Snowflakes....

Last week I again had the chance to participate in what is one of my favorite professional duties. It also happens to be one of the most frustrating.  Graduation.  I love graduation ceremonies and I will admit that I tear up at every single one.  What’s not to love?  It’s the one day in an academic career when everyone is happy—parents, students, and faculty. 

 

Since I started teaching, I have had the chance to participate in roughly 18 graduation ceremonies.  In all that time, I never seen a ceremony disrupted by a student.  This year two students, one male and one female, decided that moment after shaking hands with everyone on stage was the appropriate time for Tebowing.  In both cases, their self-conscious silliness was mostly ignored.

This fall’s ceremony was disrupted several times by parents and family members.  In every ceremony, the attendees are instructed twice to please hold their applause and cheers until after everyone’s name is called.  Families are told that every one present is there to hear the name of one person, and everyone present deserves to be able to hear that one name be read as that student crosses the stage.  It shouldn’t require an advanced degree to understand that if you’re blowing an air horn (and it does happen with dismaying frequency), no one is going to be able to hear the name being read at the same time.  For the first 50 names, more or less, everyone behaves appropriately.  Then one family member decides that their special snowflake is far too special for their family to be held to the same standards as everyone else, so they yell and scream when that snowflake’s name is called.  A few minutes will pass and some other family will decide their snowflake is far MORE special, so they yell and scream and clap.  Sooner or later, someone breaks out the air horn.

This happens at every ceremony.  Most of the time, it’s only half a dozen families or so who think their student is the most special snowflake in the blizzard.  Occasionally, it happens frequently enough that the nomenclature or the provost feels compelled to scold the crowd and again ask that they not prevent other families from hearing the name of their student.  This time, both the nomenclature and provost had to scold the crowd several times, with increasing irritation.  At one point the rest of the crowd was so disgusted with the blatant disregard for the several hundred other graduates that they broke into applause after one scolding.  You have to know you’ve really crossed some social boundary when a few thousand people are applauding you being publicly scolded.

This annoys me every year, but it was particularly galling this year.  Unless you live under a rock or on a deserted island in the Pacific ocean, you have at least some vague notion of the events that have plagued Penn State this fall.  I don’t wish to minimize the trauma to everyone involved by oversimplifying the case, but three men are currently awaiting trial, several more have had their careers either ended or irrevocably disrupted, and an entire community had been turned on its head because at least three people decided the rules did not apply to them.  Apparently, and sadly for all of us, some people in the PSU family have not learned from this lesson.  You would think that any one in any way connected with the university might be particularly sensitive to playing by the rules, doing the right thing, and looking out for the other people around you.  It makes me unspeakably sad and unsettled to discover that it’s largely the parents who chose to do otherwise.  We often wonder why it is that so many young people seem to feel that there are no consequences for their behavior and that the rules don’t apply to them.  We have no business being shocked by this; they are only following the example they have been taught.

In all fairness, even this fall it was only a small percentage of families who behaved badly.  Most smiled and waved quietly as their student crossed the stage and then cheered their hearts out when the last name had been called.  After the last student had crossed the stage, several yelled out from various points “WE ARE…”and everyone—administrators, faculty, students, and families thundered back “PENN STATE!”  It was a fun and proud moment, but not as proud as the one that came at the end of the ceremony.  Just before the administrators and faculty process back out of the hall, the entire crowd is asked to sing the Alma Mater.  In most ceremonies, the students begin singing proudly “For the glory of Old State…” and then peter out from there, humming along and leaving the faculty and the alumni in the crowd to carry the song to its end.  This year, to my surprise and delight, the students sang with earnest through the first three verses.  The real moment of pride, though, came at the beginning of the last verse when the singing from the students swelled considerably.*  I hope their families noticed, too, and decide to follow their example.

*For the non-PSU folks, the last verse begins with these two lines:

"May no act of ours bring shame,

To one heart that loves thy name..."

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Dirty Hands and Peanut Butter Crackers?

An elementary school in Florida has implemented a series of minor classroom policies to help protect a 6 year old girl in a first grade class who has a severe peanut allergy.  Peanut allergies, unlike many other allergies, can cause asphyxiation.  Meaning a 6 year old could die (yes, die) from the particulates and oils from peanut products including peanut butter.  We’re not talking about a tummy ache here.  In that light, the policies of the school district seem almost laughably fair—no food in the classroom, students must wash their hands and rinse their mouths twice a day, and the surfaces in the room are wiped down with Clorox wipes.  Some other parents in this district heard that their own kids might be forced to wash their hands as much as twice—Twice!—a day and went completely berserk. They picketed the school with signs informing the elementary school principal that their children were “special too” (‘cause really, this is a message we never hear in elementary schools these days—that every child is special) and encouraging other parents to demand their children’s rights.

Now, I’ve read the constitution (because I had one of those lazy, slacker teachers who wanted to be paid his exorbitant salary while not doing any work, so he made us read something someone else had written!) and nowhere in it is there a guaranteed right to have peanut butter sandwiches for lunch or food of any kind in the classroom.  Yes, I know what you’re going to say…implied rights and all that…but I still can’t seem to get from freedom of assembly and protection from unlawful search and seizure to peanut butter or Little Debbie snack cakes.  Maybe I’m missing something.  Nor have I found anything about freedom from cleanliness, which would cover the hand washing and Clorox wipes.

Let me set aside, for a moment, the fact that these parents (to be fair, most of them mothers)are upset that their children are being inconvenienced in the name of protecting another child’s life.  Has it not occurred to any single one of these parents that these policies are not only minor inconveniences, but that they might have some positive effect on the health of their own children?  There was a time not very long ago when we never allowed food in the classroom—not because of allergies, but because it was unsanitary.  Allowing kids to have food in the classroom and inadvertently teaching them that it was important to be eating at any moment they weren’t actively doing something else may very well have contributed to the current obesity problem we face.  The prevalence of obesity in this age group is approximately 20%.  None of these children will starve if they aren’t allowed to have pretzels and fruit punch during a Valentine party in their classroom.  They’re in the first grade; if these screaming moms hadn’t pointed it out with a neon sign, they wouldn’t have known it was strange NOT to have food in the classroom.  The CDC has done everything but send people to personally knock on our doors to plead with us to wash our hands several times a day to prevent the spread of the flu.  In an elementary classroom, even infrequent hand washing (and let’s face it, for 6 year olds, twice a day is infrequent to the point of absurdity) can help prevent the spread of not only the flu but colds, strep, and a number of other bacterial and viral illnesses.  Likewise, wiping down frequently touched surfaces is also an effective method of stemming the spread of viral and bacterial illness.  Do these folks think their kids have a right to be sick?  Personally, if the teacher had only insisted my daughter wash her hands twice a day when she was in elementary school, I think that might have prompted a conversation with the school personnel.

So even if you’re selfish enough to be outraged that your kid is being asked to make some adjustments to their day to accommodate another child’s well being, you might at least acknowledge that these adjustments actually work in your child’s favor.  And we really are talking about selfishness here.  I hear people complain quite often about the sense of entitlement and level of self absorption among teenagers and college students.  If that’s true, and I’m not entirely convinced that it is uniformly true, doesn’t it stand to reason that they learned such behavior from being taught that they should never have to accommodate anyone else’s needs and never be inconvenienced in any way no matter what the cause?  To scream that my child is being picked on because he’s not allowed to bring snacks to school and has to wash his hands, is more than a little like saying “I’m in a hurry; why should I have to stop just because the school bus is letting kids on and off?  Shouldn’t you people teach your kids not to walk out in front of cars?”

Maybe I shouldn’t give them any ideas.