faculty statements
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Newton North, Newtonite ◆ 17
Graduation is rite of passage to promising futures
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Michael Fieleke
High school graduation is just one of a myriad of “coming-of-age” rituals practiced around the world to mark the rite of passage of young people into adulthood. Some of these rituals might strike us as strange at first. In some areas of Nigeria, girls, rather than slimming down for the prom, spend weeks in “fattening rooms” being fed and wearing copper coils around their legs to restrict movement as part of a ritual marking their official transition into womanhood. In the Amazon’s Satere Mawe tribe, young men, rather than spending exhilarating hours of focused classroom study, are
forced to experience pain and numbness by wearing gloves filled with angry, stinging bullet ants for eleven hours. Steven Backshall, writing for the New York Times, described trying this ritual this way: “First, I started wailing, then, once that had passed, the floodgates opened—deep, gutteral sobbing, uncontrollable shaking, writhing, convulsing...if there’d been a machete to hand, I’d have chopped off my arms to escape the pain.” The young men of the Mawe tribe have to endure this ritual 20 times in order to “graduate.” And one of my favorite rituals marking the transition into
adulthood was performed by certain Native American tribes, a kind of senior-year project with a dash of teacher fantasy. Young people out for their first hunt would cut out the heart of the first buffalo they killed and eat it while it was still beating. Yum. Of course, we would never consider such bizarre rituals here—too messy to perform and too burdensome to defend legally. But there really is something important about having rituals to mark transitions in our lives. They allow the significance of the transition into adulthood to sink in. In the U.S., we have our own public ritual marking the transi-
tion from naïve and dependent childhood to mature and independent adulthood: high school graduation. For most, graduation is also when you can legally vote and enlist in the military. Our traditional rites might seem tame comparatively; we wear black nightgowns and toss flat top hats into the air. But these rituals are nonetheless meaningful. This is a significant moment in your lives, former seniors. May our strange, albeit tame, rituals help you recognize your newfound independence, and may you use your autonomy wisely, in service of the world. —MICHAEL FIELEKE ENGLISH TEACHER
Imagine your new life, find something you love Here’s what I remember: The sun will be shining, and you will leave, suns yourselves, everything else in shadow. You will spend your summer making trips to Target to plan for your new life, debating which duvet cover best represents this new you. (None of them do, of course, but you don’t quite know this yet.) You will discuss your plans with your friends, while secretly imagining what your new friends will be like. Your old friends will begin to annoy you in little ways, because it’s easier this way. You will feel bad about this. You will make a packing list. You will make another, better packing list. You will lose the packing lists you made, which won’t be important. Lists rarely are. You will spend time study-
ing the paltry evidence you have of what the future will be like: glossy brochures where everyone is racially balanced and smiling. Everyone you know will give you advice. The only advice you will remember will be your grandmother telling you not to let anyone else pour you a drink because she saw a program on television about this. Your grandmother never did what you are doing. Then your new life will be about to begin. You will sense it one evening in a new and immediate way, each day feeling like it is, in fact: shorter than the last. There will start to be boxes. The car will be full of boxes. On the boxes will be pictures of all the appliances your family
owns. (This is the kind of thing your mother saves.) Because of the pictures, it will look like the whole house is moving. When you finally say goodbye, they will cry, even the one who never cries. You will pretend to be sad too, but your excitement will be too big to leave room for anything else. At some point you will have a housemate named Radigan who will listen endlessly to the Smiths and never buy toilet paper. You will meet your first new friend. You will fall in love. You will fall out of love, and you will cry silently about it, wrapped in the duvet cover that isn’t at all you. Then, you will cry about it to your first friend, and your friendship will suddenly become
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Elena Graceffa real, the way that only shared heartbreak can set a friendship.
You will go to your classes, or to your new job. You will forget about the new you that you planned and find that you are still yourself. It will be a disappointment and a relief. You will notice things about the world that are surprising, things that will resemble the lines of advice you have been told, but be nothing at all like them, like the difference between cheese and Cheez Whiz. You will listen to a song you’ve heard a hundred times, and suddenly you will know what it is talking about. Eventually, you will find something worth doing, something you love. This will be the scariest thing of all. Because then all that is left is to do it. —ELENA GRACEFFA MATH TEACHER
Look for happiness, find future success Each day is a new opportunity Dear Seniors, As you have come to the end of your journey through high school and are preparing for the next voyage, I am touched to have been asked to share a few thoughts and words with you. Many of you have journeyed with me through these four years, whether it be the academic journey of learning or the physical journeys of learning experiences around the world. Each journey was as important as the other. Some of you have traveled to France with me. You have seen the D-Day beaches where your grandfathers landed. Others have traveled to Nicaragua with me, while working with and learning from Nicaraguan people who have so much less materially than us. All of these learning experiences have taught you and me compassion. Compassion for each other in difficult moments and compassion for others we have met in our travels is so deeply important. Every moment in life is like a journey. Each day is an opportunity to understand more about each other. Many of you have friends with a background similar to your own, but we can all learn so many new things from different people from different cultures. If you, on your next journey after high school, can take the time to try and understand each traveler that you may meet, you will find a rewarding happiness in all that you do.
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Fiona Blyth I wish every one of you the opportunity to find happiness and success. You can look for this happiness and success from within. Each of you is a blessing, and even on the days when you may feel worthless, you will need to remember that you are indeed a blessing and capable of achieving great things. I have seen during these last few years, you can each become the master of your own self. You will be strong enough to withstand the oncoming storms, and you will build upon your learning experiences at this school. Your future is made from your present. I wish you all BON VOYAGE in your next travels, to where ever they may be. Be safe and realize your potential! —FIONA BLYTH FRENCH TEACHER
Daniel Salvucci Underwood Elementary 2004 Bigelow Middle School 2007
NEWTON NORTH 2011 Next stop... College! We are all beaming with pride. All our love, Mom, Dad, Michael, Juliana, and Diana