By Amina Blackwood Meeks, Contributor 
YOU KNOW, it is very challenging trying to figure out what to say to a graduating class. In fact, the younger they are, the greater the challenge.
Somewhere round about age 10, all these little ones who were born inside the computer resolve that everything they need to know about life and the world is available at the click of a mouse. Though if a real mouse should ever chance in the vicinity of their clicking they would reach for some real old-fashioned screaming and pelting of broom-sticks. Be that as it may, graduation is in vogue. And how:
Not so in the once upon a time BC, Before Computer. In those days there was no graduation. You simply left Miss Maisie basic school on her verandah and went to big school. Later on you would discover that your "age up" out of Big School. At such a happening the fortunate ones would go on to higher learning and the not so fortunate ones would catch as catch can at lower earning. That part of the exercise hasn't really changed much and there is still too much of shameful emphasis on producing "functionally literate" human beings even as there is boastful talk of living in the age of computer technology.
BREAKING UP
Before any of those options could be exercised there was a fun thing called "breaking up". Yes, it was closely related to the state of some hearts at the thought of never seeing their favourite boy or girl friend again, for it was days of yore when emails and cellphones were not invented.
And no, it had nothing to do with unscrupulous persons who swear vengeance against books and all institutions of learning and who would exact their revenge by breaking in and breaking up any and everything that could not be carted away.
And it had nothing to do with what probably happens between some parents and their children when the millennium dollars are not forthcoming for the bawl gowns and tuxedos and limousine. All this done to ensure that they arrive in the style to which they become accustomed to seeing on the Young and Reckless, or the Bold and Not-so-Beautiful or whichever American soap opera educates them into the notion that unless they are graduating a la the stars and stripes, they are somehow children of a lesser god and that nobody will employ them.
And if they had only been given the opportunity to enjoy the bawl the subsequent exam results would have been more positive. Truth is, many enjoy the ball and have a colossal breakdown when the results eventually appear. And some get a brukking up anyway long before that time comes.
I was at a graduation ceremony recently where one parent threatened to mash up the whole thing because her child had not received any of the prizes and certificates that had been awarded. Fortunately, it was near the end of the proceedings and the chairman wisely called for the singing of the National Anthem. Wonder what happened when they got home.
Never mind, this is about the real breaking up. The one where every jackman, and woman too, turned up on the last day of the term with scouring pad, scrub brush, broom, sand paper and whatever else was needed to clean every wall, blackboard and floor in the school.
To polish every desk and chair and pack them way neatly as insurance that when September dawned nobody marching to the nearest television station or newspaper house in protest at the condition of the school which is not conducive to receiving the students back into the fold.
The picnic would follow after the work was done. Some treat was provided by the school or supplemented by whatever the children brought to share with each other.
Those were the days when education was about producing socially responsible human beings. When graduation, though the term was never used, was about taking the next step, not ending a journey. You think this crop of modern day graduates need to be told anything about that? Do you think they want to hear? Maybe not.
Maybe they attend one of those schools where they have learnt by example that the powers that be care very little about what happens in their little school in the bush and they and their parents can ill-afford the cost of their basic education anyway.
I mean, do you know of any school that has been appealing to the authorities for more than 10 years to be supplied with electricity? How about one that has been begging for longer than that for the roof to be fixed?
Both are critical to taking the students into the computer age. Computers cannot run without electricity and there is no point locating them in a room that gives unhindered passage to the sun and the rain.
And suppose your child went to a school where the official allocation for water was a little more than an insult and a great deal of the principal's time was consumed finding "creative ways" to keep the water running? And plus, the whole community knew that a certain water amnesty was extended to varied and sundry institutions, not one of them having anything to do with education.
CREATING PARTNERSHIPS
So what do you say to these graduating classes? Maybe the outrageously high-priced graduating outfits and balls is their way of rewarding themselves for having come through the unnecessary hardships. So who wants to hear about horse-and-buggy-wattle-and-daub-kerosene-lamp foolishness after that?
Maybe the entire society needs to graduate to a fuller understanding of what it means to be "partners" in the total education of our children. In addition, we need to get rid of the incidental learning which takes place beyond page number, how much of whatever text which breeds the socially unresponsive, self-centred individuals we too often decry. Much like the crab who criticised her child for its inability to walk straight but who failed to honour the child's request to teach it another way.
And by the way, nuff big ups to the schools that still have their school-leaving ceremonies on the school compound or in the neighbourhood churches and at which the graduands are immaculately attired in their school uniforms.
Now on to the next step.
