This is the season for school graduation and commencement, two words that stand in opposition and yet have the same understanding. Graduation refers to the certified completion of an academic or training journey while commencement signifies the beginning of a new one.
Both concept are part of the same ritual that formalizes the end of one way of life and the beginning of another. It is a transformative experience that emulates the life cycle that has an ending and a new birth as well.
The hard work of achievement results in what can be called a miracle that actually creates a new significance for an individual. The magic and life-changing wand is the sufficient acquisition of knowledge to deserve public recognition.
This year, I have two granddaughters finishing an educational stage. One completed an engineering specialty at the Colorado School of Mines and the other is graduating from North High School.
Both planned their program of study, and both will be going on to the next phase of their lives. The plan also included the ritual of graduation and commencement.
Graduation and commencement were not always available in the past. In most cases, it was because graduation from college or high school was not part of the experience for many in the Latino community.
As a migrant farmworker, school was something I attended after coming back from the fall harvest and something I left early in the spring before the academic year was over. To have a truncated year of school time after time allowed for no thought about the ceremonial part of educational advancement.
For those like me that were looking to a second chance at school completion, there was the General Equivalency Development (GED) program that offered an alternative way to finish high school. In the military, I was also offered and took on the opportunity to test out of the first two years of a university education.
A combination of circumstance and a little bit of luck allowed me to participate in graduation and commencement ceremony on completion of my undergraduate degree. Over time, that event became a marking point in finding the future direction of what was to become my career.
I realized that the ceremony allowed me to “die” to the previous condition and be “born” to a new life with what I saw as a new set of rules. I became convinced that for these reasons among others, graduation and commencement had to be an essential part of the life of family and loved ones.
It is a well-known axiom that education is deemed the “light of the world.” It is the only transformative legacy available to everyone, rich and poor. That and hard work have been the major instruments in the elevation of the Latino community to a certain prominence beyond the demographic and political issues that consume the country today. In a very quiet way, education is changing the Latino contribution to nature of the evolving backbone that holds America together.
In this time of great division in the country, it is the leadership through example rather than hollow words and promises that will endure and make a difference. There is no going back from what we are becoming.
For this reason and others, celebrating true success and true accomplishments must stand and be one of our major priorities. In honoring excellence, we honor the best in all of us.
There is no better place to start than with the accomplishments of our young. Graduation and Commencement is their day.
The views expressed by David Conde are not necessarily the views of LaVozColorado. Comments and responses may be directed to News@lavozcolorado.com.
