High School Graduations

          

              May is the month of  High School graduations in the United States. All around me that is all I heard for a few weeks in May. Such joy and relief in the voices of 12th graders who are finishing up school and their parents. A graduation ceremony complete with a cap and gown! Followed by graduation parties with graduation cakes hosted by their families, graduation dinners, the whole nine yards before they start prepping for the college that they have already chosen or the college that has chosen them. I couldn't help but start thinking of my own son's turn in a few years and wondered where his party should be hosted and who to invite. As I pondered on those, I thought of my own 'graduating' from 12th grade in India and how different passing out of 12th grade was perceived back then. What kind of a High school graduation did we have in India?  A cap and a gown, a walk to get our diploma? A party?  Ours was completely different.

           I graduated high school about 25 years ago under tremendous stress . Stress towards finishing strong and scoring the magic number which was going to determine which line of specialty I was going to go in my life. Well, that kind of pressure really starts in tenth grade as we look upon the public exams! The '10th grade public exam score' paves way to where you are going-Science or Math or Economics or Commerce. Then the '12th grade public exam scores' seal the deal for you. Between the exams and the results, we were enrolled in medical college coaching classes, to prepare for the entrance exams. Everyone involved  had their tunnel vision glasses and worked with a focus. The 12th grade results pretty much determines what you will eventually major in. I have never heard of anyone being able to change their major midway, like in the US. For those who were successful in acquiring a seat in a medical college, their future was clear. They were becoming doctors! For those who did not, we moved on, dusted off the disappointment and enrolled in Arts and Sciences and graduated after 6 six years with a Master's degree. There were plenty of options and we all succeeded in different areas in the end. But we all started off vying for a medical seat or an Engineering seat. I do not know why. Looking back,I wished I had never tried to become a doctor. The dream of becoming one was fascinating but the grueling process of studying for and writing entrance exams and being turned down only proved that that cake was not mine to eat. Sure, I am all for Grey's anatomy and its doctors but I have never envied their jobs or their lives.

          25 years later, from the news I get from India, nothing much has changed. More stress, more pressure to perform better, score better, get into that Medical/Engineering college. I find it interesting to see parents my age, who underwent such pressure and stress themselves would willingly subject their own children to this again. And yet they do. As our children battle it out to get the best scores- to win among the highest scoring children- to the quota systems- to battling the courts to relax NEET requirements......what is it that makes us be this way? To impose such high standards on our children that they risk cracking under pressure. Is our greatest wish to do the best for our children ...more a vicarious attempt at realizing our failed dreams?  Sure, it is a competitive world out there, I get it. But at what cost do we keep pushing our children? In the end, a handful get selected, and a bunch get rejected......and chided(for not getting selected).

          How would it be if we just threw them a party at the end of their 12th grade and called it a Higher Secondary school graduation? Invite all your extended family so they can congratulate your kids for the 12 years of hard work and diligence. How about we do not make them feel like failures for not making the cut that last year of  Higher Secondary school. How about we tell them there is so much more to life than Medical college or Engineering College? How about we tell them, "we did not make it into Medical or Engineering college, it is ok if you did not, either. You can still major in something else and be happy like we are with our choices". After all, there are enough doctors and engineers in this world to take care of us.It's time we took care of our own.