Elementary Graduation

Today I attended my elementary school's graduation ceremony. Being one of the few ALTs that gets to experience teaching at both Senior High and Elementary schools, I gave up my saturday morning to see how the two ceremonies differed. Senior High's cermony is extremely formal, boring and long. I was expecting the same to be true with Elementary but I was pleasantly surprised. There was a lot of standing, bowing, sitting, standing bowing, sitting, standing and some more bowing but once you looked past these formalities there was a glimmer of celebration, nostalgia and emotion. All students took part, not just those who were graduating. They made a arches for the 6th grade to enter the hall through, they sang, they played musical instruments, they made speeches to say thank you and there was a slide show of photographs of their entire time at elementary school. Another thing that impressed me was that they didn't use the stage and everyone sat in a square facing eachother. This made it a lot more informal and intimate. It also eliminated any signs of hierarchy as the parents, the teachers and officials, the students and the graduates each formed a side of the square. The only thing that I found slightly weird was the students marching in to 'Land of Hope and Glory'. It felt like the last night of the proms.