Graduation

Last night was the graduation ceremony for the eighth graders at my school. I presented an award to one of my students for academic achievment. I would have attended anyway, because this was the first group of students that I've had for a whole year to graduate. Most of my students did graduate. From my regular Language Arts classes, about 80% walked in the ceremony. From my Reading Improvement class, it was only one out of four.

The ceremony was nice, and it was probably the shortest graduation ceremony I've ever been to. It was an hour and five minutes, which is pretty good for a class of 150+ students. There were many awards to give out, but each presenter spoke for less than a minute. There were four speeches, and they were fairly short also. The students were really well behaved too.

This morning, we had a minimum day of school. The actual diplomas were passed out today, so the students all showed up. But we had to submit grades yesterday to verify who had met graduation requirements. So, I had all my students with nothing to teach. I brought a couple of videos and let them pick. It felt like a wasted day, but I had some entertainment.