graduation
PSCS Graduation | 06/12/2008 | 8:00 – 9:30 pm | Entry for CIA: Learning Theories | Attendees: PSCS Community Members including students, staff, parents and volunteers
I had the opportunity to attend yet another PSCS graduation. Much like the rest of the school, this ceremony is also unique. The graduating students are honored by having community members appreciate them publicly. Fellow students, staff, volunteers, parents, friends and all other PSCS supporters come so they can listen and speak about the graduating students. It is a cherished ceremony, one that each student looks forward to with the greatest hope. Tears and not uncommon at the ceremony.
This year, the school had just one graduating senior, though if you knew Rose O’Kane you’d feel like she represented the richness and diversity you’d get from a whole class of graduates. Rose is a very unique human being. She is one of the few people I know who is comfortable being herself and guess what, she is only 18! Heck, even I don’t know how to be myself all the time and be so comfortable with who I am. Rose has mastered the art at a very young age. What’s more, she creates the space in which all those around her can be themselves. Needless to say that the graduation ceremony for the one and only Rose I know was unique. She chose to present her Credo; statement of her beliefs in life that guide who she has become and who she will be; in front of the entire graduation audience.
As I heard Rose’s credo full of talk about the beauty she sees in life, the love she has for life, how she plans to live it wholly, and how inspiring others to live life wholly is one of her goals, it made me pause and smile at how Rose has graduated in many more ways than are applauded by the Washington State Diploma she earned. Rose has graduated in the school of life. Few people do that. She has found herself, who she is, what she loves, what she hates, what she can/not do, what she will/not do, how to love, how to live and how to be herself. What diploma can honor that? While we give diplomas at PSCS, they are only symbolic. Rose’s real diploma and graduation will happen in her life experiences, in the moments when she embraces life wholly. We could never measure and reward that and for that, I am thankful!