Today is Graduation Day in our high schools / upper secondary schools here. Yesterday I noticed this lavishy decorated entrance at one of the buildings in my neighbourhood. (Decorations still up today.) Someone living there is celebrating "big"! :)
I have blogged about Swedish high school graduation traditions before. Today's local newspaper reminded us all that last years celebrations turned dramatic as a big fire broke out in the town centre - probably not caused by the celebrations as such, but it forced all the parading vehicles with celebrating (ex)students to take a different route than usual. (And the building where the fire was is still wrapped in plastic and undergoing major renovation.) You can read my blog post about that here. Last year the month of June was hot and dry. This year, so far, it's chilly and wet... Hopefully that means less risk of fires - but not so much fun for the students riding around town in open vehicles!
This year it's 50 years since my own high school graduation. Looking back through some more old graduation blog posts, I also found the collage below (photos from 7th June 1974; collage made in 2012). It was raining and rather chilly on my graduation day too.
I did not have a graduation party, as that same weekend I was leaving with my family for a three weeks holiday by car in the U.K. (Our last long trip together as a family.)
My photo album from that journey tells me that exactly 50 years ago today, 14 June 1974, I was at Devil's Bridge in Wales. (Link to a blog post of mine about that from 2021.)
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Adding a link to Sepia Saturday 728
19 comments:
It must be a small bout of nostalgia for you every year when yet another generation of students celebrate their graduation publicly.
50 years ago, the world was a very different place, wasn‘t it! That family holiday has certainly been much longer lasting in your heart and mind than any grad party could have.
What a great tradition of the students' parading around. When my granddaughter graduated high school in 2020, COVID had just shut every gathering down, so the grads' families drove up in cars, the grad got out and received her diploma under a little tent by the side of the school, and then the families paraded around their neighborhoods with lots of honking. This was in suburbia, not an urban area and no parties were held. I graduated high school well before you, but the 70s were a time when young people were really getting into their own.
I think I would not be able to go near that bridge. Especially with a name like that!
How nice to have a photographic memory of your graduation.
In the UK we didn't have graduation celebrations at school. Most pupils at my school (it was an all-girls school) left when they were 16. Just a few of us stayed on into what was called the 6th Form, where we studied for exams to go to college or university. Don't think we had any special celebrations even then, apart from not having to wear school uniform on our last day and taking afternoon tea with the Headmistress (Principal)! We all took National Exams and had to wait for our results until late August - about 6 weeks after we finished school!
Meike, I'd say the end of the school year and graduation is probably as important as "memory trigger" as the major holidays with most people. At least in towns big enough to have upper secondary schools it's always something of an event, so that you're always reminded of it even if you don't have children or grandchildren yourself.
Barbara, during the pandemic there were no big celebrations or parades for the graduates here either. Those who graduated during those years no doubt missed out on a lot as they also had some of their education online rather than in school.
Ginny, I just remember it as a fascinating place - and with a great gift shop!
Carol, in 1972, when I had just finished my first year of three of Swedish upper secondary school ('gymnasium'), I spent a month or so (mid June to early/mid July) with a family in Yorkshire. It was a sort of one-sided student exchange program, so I also attended school with the daughter in that family who was in the 5th form in a Comprehensive school. So I remember a bit about that school system. I had some days off when they were having exams though.
High school graduation was a pretty big deal when I graduated in 1958. There was Seniors' Week with special happenings - one of which was Senior Ditch Day where the entire senior class got out of school to go on an organized trip to a lake resort for the day. This was followed by the Senior Prom, & after graduation exercises was the organized (and chaperoned) All Night Party held on the school grounds in the student union. Today, the local high schools here still have the same things except they add parades down main street as well. The only exception, of course, was during COVID 'lockdown'. Unfortunately, two or my grandchildren were cheated out of those things - including not even being able to have a graduation ceremony.
When students pass their final exams here (The Netherlands), their school bag is hung at the top of a flagpole. And of course our national tricolor (red, white and blue) too.
LaN, they have proms here too, they were held a bit earlier, in May I think. If there was one back when I graduated, I did not attend. Our year was a bit special because we were the first to graduate from a "new" or reformed high school system. We did not have the kind of final exams that the old system did, and that caused some confusion about other traditions too. In the long run the festive traditions have been kept more similar than the "formal" ones, though!
Now that is one tradition I have never heard of being practiced here, Peter! Thanks for the info! :)
This is your chance to start a new tradition is Sweden ;-)
Example: https://jeugdjournaal.nl/artikel/2478869-spanning-voor-middelbare-scholieren-uitslagen-eindexamens-bekend
I did not know that Sweden had an official date for high school graduation. It must make it easier to synchronize Summer activities. In America graduations are so variable between public and private schools that even local celebrations are weeks apart. At university level there can be separate ceremonies in Autumn, Spring, and Summer. I once went on holiday to New Mexico in June and discovered that in some faming communities a high school graduation was a big event because for some families an education degree was a major accomplishment.
Mike, I think the date for the high school graduations may vary slightly from one town/district to another, but no more than a week or so.
I don't recall graduation at all. I don't even recall actually leaving. but then it was over 60 years ago.
I did not have any graduation celebrations because I left a year earlier than everyone else. I took my exams early because my parents were moving abroad. I do remember feeling rather strange walking out of school for the last time and thinking, wow, I never have to go to school again! Other than that, I don't recall any particular emotions about it, but I think they may have been outclassed by the excitement and strangeness of moving to a different country at the same time.
Graham, that's where old photo albums come in handy... ;-) (Mine have always served me as a kind of diary of important occasions. And of "everyday" life and friends as well.)
Jenny, I don't really recall my emotions either. My three years in secondary school were good ones, but at the same time, after that I was kind of tired of studying, and unsure of my next goal. The year after leaving I worked in an office before I went on to study some more.
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