Anyone else want to go back to 1992 when every single grade didn’t have a “graduation” ceremony?

[jacquewoolard]

@fireflyinoh I went to the hooding - not the graduation.

 

[kimberlyb891]

@fireflyinoh Same. They wanted an absurd amount for a gown I’d never wear again because I wasn’t going into academia. F that.

 

[monkeym24]

@tornado16 Seriously! I had HS, undergrad, and grad school, so technically three. But I think attending more than one graduation ceremony every three years is cruel!

 

[zonn]

@monkeym24 How old are you? Im 43 and we did kinder graduation (no cap n gown though), probably grade school (5th grade) although I don’t remember that one and junior high (cap and gown).

 

[katstamper]

@monkeym24 Pre-K to K makes sense to me. That’s a super big transition for most kids. I went to preschool in the 80s and we didn’t do a cap and gown but our teachers did hand us little rolled-up diplomas. Our middle kid’s preschool graduation is in a couple weeks. Our oldest went to the same place, and it’s pretty low-key. It’s short, on a weekend morning, they do a little slide show of the year and the kids sing one song. If I had firsthand experience with more elaborate/involved ones, I’m sure I’d be grumpier about them. (Like I’ve seen that the 100th day of school is apparently A Thing now but thank goodness the schools our kids go to don’t do that whole thing.)

We had an assembly in 8th grade to celebrate our moving up to high school, where a truly awful singer from the local community college sang (honestly she was probably fine at actual singing, but the thing I remember was her stopping partway through two different songs to say she’d forgotten the words. So mainly I remember being miffed that she agreed to sing but didn’t bother to learn the songs).

 

[kgramm]

@katstamper I have a picture of my pre-k graduation in 1983. I was wearing a cap and gown.

We had graduations from 6th and 9th grade too. Those were when we transitioned to a new school.

 

[kunjax]

@kgramm I also had a pre-k graduation in 1983. We made construction paper caps (no gowns) and our picture was in the local paper (city of about 30k).

 

[daddylopez1963]

@monkeym24 We were going to be on vacation during my sons pre-k graduation—he’s doing another year before K so I wasn’t fussed about it. When i mentioned that to the daycare director she said “well he isn’t graduating so he wouldn’t have been able to participate anyway”, and obviously I agree on principal and that’s fine but ma’am are you aware this isn’t…real? None of them are graduating. It’s pretend. Like yall were planning to just exclude him?? Rude lol.

 

[monkeym24]

@daddylopez1963 I hope you don’t mind that I chuckled at this story. Especially when you wrote “this isn’t… real?” People have really lost the plot on these “graduation” ceremonies.

 

[cynth]

@daddylopez1963 I would have been so pissed off if my kid wasn’t going to be allowed to participate and he had to sit there and act happy while everyone else got to be “celebrated” - even more pissed if I didn’t really know about it and didn’t think to not have him at school that day.

I was born in 1979 - I had one high school graduation, one for undergrad, two grad school. My parents came to all of those but I felt horrible that they sat through my first grad one (it was a masters in accounting from the business school - since we only had 26 in our program, we went after all the undergrads and most of the other masters - although I think the mba grads had their own). And the one I wish we all had just taken a cruise or celebrated separately was law school - it was Texas in May and outside. No one should have been subjected to that…

I had never heard of the PK, kinder, 6th or 8/9th graduation/promotion - my public schools were traditional elementary (k-6), junior high (6th-9th) and then high school. I still believe high school shouldn’t have 14/15 yr old freshmen with 18/19 yr old seniors in high school (not that anyone else cares).…

 

[abyers56]

@monkeym24 I was born in the 90s and we had “ceremonies” for the following transitions
-kindergarten
-5th grade -> middle school
-8th grade -> high school
High school
College

 

[alex1234567]

@abyers56 I’m from the Midwest and we had all these in the 80s and 90s, basically anytime you moved up to the next school. My daughter will have an 8th grade graduation this week, but she’s been in the same school since K and all the kids in her class will end up at different high schools so it is definitely a big transition for them.

 

[dryerfire]

@abyers56 80s baby in Southern California and same

 

[monkeym24]

@abyers56 Interesting! I wonder if this is a regional thing. Mind if I ask where you grew up?

The first grad ceremony I was a part of was end of HS.

 

[abyers56]

@monkeym24 Yeah Coastal California. My parents did not buy the cap and gown for kindergarten graduation and I felt very left out. Lol.

 

[duke87]

@monkeym24 Not the person you’re responding to but I grew up in the late 90s in California and we had kindergarten, sixth grade, eighth grade, and high school graduations. However I think most of the lower level ones were called “promotions”

 

[goldielocks]

@monkeym24 Not the commenter above, but I’m from Brooklyn, NY and also had multiple graduations/“moving up ceremonies” growing up (pre-K, 5th, and 8th before HS, not sure about kindergarten). I graduated HS in 2009, so the pre-K graduation was in 1996.

 

[jenijenn]

@abyers56 Meanwhile my youngest is having his last day of kindergarten literally today and no graduation for him. There wasn't one for my oldest either when he finished kindergarten. He did have a ceremony for when they went from 5th grade to middle school, but it wasn't a graduation.

 

[thorwald]

@monkeym24 Pretty sure I graduated pre—k in 1992 sooooooo…..

 

[monkeym24]

@thorwald Haha… based on the replies I’m learning many people did in fact have this in the early 1990s. My first “graduation” was for HS! It seems maybe this was a more regional thing.