Thoughts from Dr. Joe: Academic alchemy at the assembly

I’m not sure if many saw what I saw at last Friday’s school assembly at La Cañada High School. It was homecoming, but that’s beside the point. Typically, I’m slouched in a corner with a book in my hand. But don’t let that fool you. I can see a gnat at 100 yards.

This is what I saw during the gathering: Jess Landsmen, Mikey Seltzer and Lauren Schilling, the assembly leaders, introduced the student body, beginning with the freshmen. Each class subsequently cheered to claim their place in the stratosphere of high school. I could hardly hear the freshmen, but their time will come. However, the cheers became progressively louder. Jess finally called out: “Seniors!” The gym exploded with a deafening roar. With the magnificence of heralding trumpets, the seniors stood, waved their arms and chanted “Seniors! Seniors! Seniors!”

We were witnessing a rite of passage. It’s metamorphosis, an alchemy of sorts where children evolve outside the puzzle.

Over the last five years, I’ve watched my daughters and many other children transition through the stages of high school. The inevitability of moving from one corner of the gym to the sacristy proves the validity of the ancient proverb that time waits for no man. As a parent, I anticipated this transition of movement, going from one grade to the next. But the novelty ceased when my daughters became seniors. During the assembly, the exaltations of the seniors are the beginning of separation. It is the transformation of the intellect where, instinctively, the class of 2016 will shed their crayons for perfume and these kids will no longer be kids. We’ll never see them as children again.

Decades ago I also sat in a high school gym where the class of 1965 was just as boisterous as the class of 2016. Kids are basically the same — the only difference is the circumstance. I watched the seniors with their red crowns and I saw my class. It was a bittersweet moment. I recall four of my buddies, McCauley, Cestone, Feldman and Cunnion; they would be killed in Vietnam within a year. Those boys weren’t any different than the La Cañada seniors. They just followed a different path. That’s my point. Within months, the class of 2016 will embark on their journey. Where will they go? I think about things like that.

I hope the seniors will read this next paragraph because I’m writing it for them.

The rite of passage is to grow. But you don’t grow chronologically. Sometimes you grow in one dimension and then in another that is unrelated. Sometimes growth is limited. Sometimes you are mature in one aspect and childlike in another. The past, the present and the future are indistinguishable. You are complex beings and yet you are surprisingly simple. You’ll move sideways, forward, backward and, at times, not at all. You will not be immune to scars and lines on your perfect faces are battle ribbons that signify what you’ll go through to become who you want to be. Growing up is never easy, but I could tell that you haven’t yet let go. But soon, time will summon you to look ahead to other days.

The assembly waned. I thought I’d sneak out through the side door and head back to Starbucks to work on the ninth rewrite of my book. Maybe I shouldn’t feel so bad, since Hemingway had 80 rewrites on “The Sun Also Rises.”

On the way out of the gym, I bumped into Brent Beaty, who teaches advanced placement government and economics. He spoke briefly and said, “I’ve known the seniors since they were freshman.” Not an unusual comment in itself. But it was the way he said it, which told me that he had seen what I had seen: the rite of passage.

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JOE PUGLIA is a practicing counselor, a retired professor of education and a former officer in the Marines. Reach him at doctorjoe@ymail.com. Visit his website at doctorjoe.us.