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closeLate spring is always full of promise. Days stretch to the longest of the year. Flowers bloom, adding color to our neighborhoods. And at our schools a new generation of students say goodbye and get ready to take on the world.
From the valley between Nooksack and Sumas where seniors at Nooksack Valley High School graduated June 6 to Western Washington University, where thousands of college students get their diplomas June 14, students throughout our community are celebrating.
We congratulate all of the graduates. We are proud of them, and, as important, we hold out hope that these young adults will make great contributions to society.
It’s hard to stereotype a whole group of students, of course, but what we know about the high school and college graduates of today makes us positive about the future.
High school graduates in the class of 2008 were asked to do more to prove they had learned than any students ever. They are the first class that had to pass the Washington Assessment of Student Learning in order to receive a diploma. A recent report from state education officials said that more than 90 percent of high school seniors passed the tests on reading and writing.
Seniors are also required to do “culminating projects” and present them in public forums. At their best, the projects are amazing examples of volunteerism and thinking about the public good. Students have done everything from arranging public events to raising money for cancer research to building a model for cleaner burning fuels.
Did any of us in the generations preceding this group ever have to do such ambitious things to receive a high school diploma?
Our faith in graduates also comes from those at our community’s four great institutions of higher education — Western Washington University, Northwest Indian College, Whatcom Community College and Bellingham Technical College.
Whether graduating from BTC or WCC with a nursing degree, or from Western with a master’s degree in business, the current generation of graduates seems to have a balance in their approach to life.
Most truly believe they can take on the world and make a difference — witness the massive amounts of volunteering that our students do even before they graduate. But they also have a healthy skepticism about the world and who is watching out for them.
Yes, they are proficient in text messaging and blogging on Facebook and MySpace. But the graduates around here also seem to know the value of a hike in the woods.
We just want to say how happy we are for them. Graduating from high school and college are huge events in a person’s life.
We are excited for the graduates of 2008. They worked harder than ever to earn their degrees and they earned them beyond the expectations of our society, which saw disaster in the face of WASL.
That bodes well for the future of this community and this nation.
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