Ready or not, it’s time to leap into adulthood

There’s a time for joy, a time for tears, A time we’ll treasure through the years. We’ll remember always, Graduation day.*

Each year, from the middle of May and extending into the first few weeks of June, the American adult population gets a shot of adrenalin. This is when more than 3.5 million American teenagers donning caps and gowns walk across stages decorated in their honor to receive a ticket, a passageway into adulthood—their diploma. From that moment on they will be looked at differently, for they will have crossed that great divide separating childhood from the world of grown-up freedoms, privileges, responsibilities and expectations. 

Now I don’t mean to suggest that these hordes of young people will be magically transformed in that instant. They won’t instantaneously change from exuberant, carefree and careless, naïve and immature teenagers into staid, cautious and careful, wise and mature adults. Truth be told, some of them made that leap years before leaving high school, apparently older souls who didn’t tarry long in the limbo of adolescence. Others, perhaps most of our nation’s graduates, are not so eager to make the jump from the comfortable environs of their schools, friends, clubs, sports teams, and top-of-the pecking order status as seniors. End-of-year chants of “no more pencils, no more books, no more teachers’ dirty looks” belie a deeper sentiment that twelfth graders often display but rarely admit: graduation is unsettling, even a bit scary. Life as they have known it, for better or for worse, is about to change. Like Wendy on her last visit to Never Land, they know they will never be the same, they will never be able to return to the bliss of childhood that will soon be locked up in treasure chests that memory alone will be able to open.

As they process to Pomp and Circumstance, with more of both than is normal for their teenage routines, their minds have to be straddling the life they have known and the life they now imagine is about to unfold. It is therefore fitting that their culminating high school moment is described in two very different words that both capture what they are about to experience. One has a backward tilt, the other leans them toward the unknowns of tomorrow:  graduation and commencement. Applying both terms to the same rite of passage captures their two diametrically opposite perspectives.

Graduations are commemorations of yesterday:  achievements attained, honors conferred, letters and awards won, games played, music and theater pieces performed, essays written, tests taken, trophies presented, and commendations acknowledged. Every member of each Class of 2021 leaves a legacy for others to note, emulate and possibly surpass. It is comprised of paper trails that have measured their aptitudes on test scores and report cards. It is also memorialized in the artifacts of wood, brass and ribbon that permanently adorn school hallways and trophy cases, reminders of the large and distinctive footprints in which their successors will be inspired to walk. All of these emblems, from grades to championship pennants, represent the credentials, the “believables” that give both the students and their school a claim to credibility, a tangible record of their knowledge, know how, and competitive success. 

The most important of all student credentials is the diploma they will be handed, confirming what the educators of that school want the world to think of them. Being a symbol of the school’s reputation and strength of curriculum, it serves as an endorsement of each student worthy to receive it, thus making him or her a believable candidate for a college acceptance or for future employment. But like graduation itself, all of these credentials are, at best, promissory notes. They reveal what once was, but now must be held in abeyance until confirmed in the many tests and trials of life yet to come. It is precisely in this moment—when diplomas are conferred—that the praises of graduation morph into to the expectations of commencement. The memorial celebration is suddenly transformed into a commissioning send-off for those children, tickets in hand, who are about to take their first tentative steps into adulthood.

As you might surmise, I’ve given this a lot thought over the years. Walking in procession with my classmates in four such graduations and helping preside at 34 of them as an independent school educator has provided me with many occasions to ponder what it all means. And I’ve come to the conclusion that, as wonderful as these opportunities are to fete the accomplishments of youth, it is more crucial that we focus our attention, not on caps and gowns, but on the mantles of adulthood they will quickly have to wear.

In that respect I believe the most important asset our seniors take with them is something more than their particular credentials, no matter how impressive they may be. Far more telling for their future success and civic contributions will be their qualifications—what they actually can be counted on to do and what qualities they can bring to the company of adults they will be joining. It is by such things that they will be evaluated and measured by the older adults with whom they will be working. I’m talking about their professors, their coaches, their colleagues, and their bosses. It is these people whose opinions and judgments will determine the course of their future—much more so than those who have called them son, daughter, student and friend during the years of their upbringing.

So what qualifications do I think our graduates must have or be actively cultivating as prerequisites for entrance into adulthood? Six stand out to me as attributes I believe grownups expect of each other, six qualities they will want to see (or “C” as my alliterative sequence suggests) in those entering the adult universe from the Class of 2021. I’ve put these into questions that I would address to seniors who will, sooner than they think, be judged accordingly.  Some they may read in institutional handbooks but, more likely they will be made aware of them in “after the fact” talks with a supervisor or, worse yet, by peers whose grimaces or snarky comments will drive home the point that some things just go without saying.

So, I put to the Class of 2021 these questions:

·      Are you competent?  What do you know how to do; what can you do, without direction or assistance?  How much do you know when Siri isn’t on hand?

·      Are you consistent? Can people expect you to work at a high level of effort and competency every day? Can others count on you being an emotionally stable and mature roommate, colleague or friend?

·      Are you cooperative?  Do others find you willing and able to work with them in a spirit that is positive and agreeable?  Do they see in you a constructive, helpful, and participatory member of their team?

·      Are you considerate?  Do people find you to be patient, kind, courteous and as open to listening to them as you are eager to talk about yourself?  Do you value the needs and interests of others as much as your own?

·      Do you communicate effectively?  Is there a correlation between what you think and what you say, and between what you say and what you actually demonstrate in your actions? Is your word actually a bond that people can trust and accept as authentic?

·      Do you care?  Do you invest your heart and soul in what you are doing and show it in your passions and commitments?  Do you express genuine empathy for the well being of others?  Are you able to postpone or set aside what you want to help others in their need?

My list of questions is by no means definitive or exhaustive.  Yet I believe it covers many of the touch points, indeed pressure points that define whether our relationships with adult friends, spouses, and colleagues are harmonious and constructive or acrimonious and dysfunctional. This next wave of seniors graduating into adulthood, credentials notwithstanding, will do well to embrace and develop much of this “C” list if they hope to fulfill what will be expected of them by those with whom they will be shaping life in this country for decades to come.

In these weeks when diplomas are being conferred at more than 35,000 public and private high schools across our land, not to mention the 5,000 colleges and universities who have enjoyed additional years to produce life-ready adults, the spotlight should be on their qualifications even more than on their credentials.  The latter are past-tense valuations, which in the current climate of American secondary and collegiate education can be far from dependable indicators of knowledge or ability. But when credentials are affirmed by graduates who are, in fact, qualified to enter adulthood: graduates who are competent, who can communicate, who are consistent, considerate, cooperative, and who care-- then all of us have reason to celebrate, for our future will be in the good hands of those worthy not only of our praise, but more importantly, of our trust.

Congratulations Class of 2021 as you enter an adult world that needs you, wants you, and expects so very much of you.

When the ivy walls are far behind, No matter where our paths may wind; We’ll remember always, Graduation day.*

* Graduation Day, by Joe and Noel Sherman of The Four Freshmen, 1956