High School Graduation: Discussion Of Rites Of Passage Like Graduation Ceremonies

Shankar Vedantam’s friend who produced a discussion about rites of passage. He asked Vedantam to bring those remarks to all students, parents and caregivers who are marking this most extraordinary of moments for unusual of Commencement ceremonies.

Hi class 2020, to the faculty, parents and friends joining us today. It’s great to be with you in this most extraordinary of moments for this most unusual of commencement ceremonies. Now, extraordinary and unusual may not be the first words come to mind and your pain isn’t imagined it when you, your family and others people worked hard to get, to bear witness to this moment. All their year of hard work and sacrifice were worth it. But now giving up these rites of passage is very difficult and it comes at a time when many others are going through much worse because of COVID -19 pandemic. Millions of people out of work, many of you lose out on a graduation ceremony; you feel sad, feel grief. But your pain doesn’t go away because someone else’s suffers more than you.

This is an example that shows why this moments of chaos and disruption, allow us to discover things about ourselves. Maya Shankar, when she was a girl, she was a student in Juilliard, the famous music school in New York City and then she became a student of the great violin Itzhak Perlman. She was well on her way to becoming a professional musician like as her plan. Unfortunately, she overstretched a finger and felt a pop as she was practicing. She had injured a tendon. After a few months, her hand never healed and doctor told her, she had to giving up violin. She felt so sad because of her planed for her like very identity and wrapped around music. One day, she stumbled on one of her sister’s course books while she was help her mom to clean out basement. It was ‘The Language Instinct”, and then she read the book. After that she realized and wants to learn about the brain, she wanted to know how it works. She decided to study acknowledge science. Sooner later, Maya had completed a Rhodes scholarship and a stint in the Obama White House. When COVID-19 pandemic happened, it’s usually the time allow us to determine a new things about ourselves.

Periods of disruption invariably lead to invention and reinvention. Another example is a few years ago, a strike happen in London commuters. Many subway stations were closed and people had to find a new way to get around. It was stressful, annoying. Even though the strike was done but thousands of people stuck with novel routines that they had invented during the strike. The chaos help many Londoners identify new and better ways of moving about the world. Now you are grappling with a change to the normal rhythms and routines of life like Maya Shankar, your plan for your life will be unclear, but what lies before you is a chance to look at the world with optimistically. In fact, this is why we have rites of passage like graduation ceremonies. They are designed to give us a chance to stop, to take stock, to look back and say, looking how far we come and try to find the way where we will begin from here? You might not get the ceremony, but you can take a moment to stop, do those things anyway, and ask how you fit into a changed world. Congratulation and good luck.