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Graduation ceremonies send friends to far corners of the world
Submitted by Ellen Wallace on June 5, 2006 - 07:52.Community :: Lake Geneva Region :: Education :: Founex, VD, Switzerland :: Society
This has been a weekend of happy partying and tearful farewells for students at the International School of Geneva's La Châtaigneraie campus.
It's the end of secondary school and the beginning of university or training programmes and for a few, work. More than this, it is the start of adulthood. Children leave home and lose or transform forever their "student" and "child" labels because they can now shed these skins whenever they feel like it.
The same process happens during June at several other Lake Geneva region schools and is repeated at schools around the world.
The end of school for many English-speaking families in this region holds a lovely but sharp note. For years the children have carried their backgrounds into the classroom every morning, gradually growing together until they sound and dress more or less alike. The parents get used to this. And suddenly, the group breaks up and their main identification is no longer as a member of this group. The background and the family are once again a big part of who these new adults are.
Some but not all of the students attend international schools. All have spent their school years dancing around words and ideas from at least two cultures and two languages and for many it is more. They become used to the idea that their friends come from several countries. When they visit these friends' homes the parents speak to their buddies in Spanish or Swedish or Urdu.
They grow up with little room or need for political correctness because there is no dominant culture. They rub elbows for 13 or 14 years with people who like fast food lunches, too, but who happily return home to spicy Indian or Thai food. They swap Peruvian chicken and rice in a thermos at noon for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. They begin to go clubbing at night, and compare the price of drinks in Geneva (high, too high!) with the prices in Sydney and Beijing and Toronto and Warsaw and Buenos Aires, where they have visited grandparents during school vacations.
At the end of these years the families and students come together for a graduation ceremony, then make the rounds of weekend lunches and open houses or parties. And suddenly, the veneer of a common language, English, that has been laid over them because of the children's schooling, is seen to be just that. Out come the white caps worn by the Swedes and Finns, so that young men who normally all dress alike proudly sport this sign of their difference. There is the Indian in his long silk jacket standing next to a young woman in brilliantly coloured Ghanaian dress.
A small group of older brothers and sisters who are studying at universities around the world have made it home for this and they shake their heads. These guys don't know yet how much they will miss having a group of international friends like this, the young elders agree. Sure, we've all stayed in touch, maybe not right away but a year or two later, when we began to really miss it, says one.
A father from Korea confesses that his wife is already having a hard time with the idea that her son is leaving for England and he wonders when Westerners think it is normal for a first son to leave home. He himself left home only when he was getting married, which is normal.
A mother from Peru says that of course she will spend time in New York helping her son settle in there, and that his little brother is already suffering from the idea that his big brother will be so far away. Across the room the big brother is laughing as someone asks him how he'll like being the next Latino in Harlem - will he join a gang? He says, standing in his suit and tie, that he kind of likes the idea of dressing that way. Fortunately, his mother does not hear this.
The students seemed to be simply a group leaving their school until the end of the graduation ceremony Friday in Founex. One by one at least a fifth of the class stood up and said goodbye in a language their family speaks. The crowd went silent, listening intently. We remembered what we had nearly forgotten by the end of 14 years: the education is in English, but the fabric of it has been woven with threads from many cultures, from so many countries.
Tolerance is a word that gets well worn at this time of year. It's the great thing, teachers and parents say, that the children learned by going to school in this internationally-minded corner of the world. Listening to the joking and watching the way this new generation of adults push and hug each other, tolerance seems almost a pejorative term, I thought.
They have learned to accept each other. They have something to teach the rest of us now.
(continue reading)→
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Graduation ceremonies send friends to far corners of the world
This has been a weekend of happy partying and tearful farewells for students at the International School of Geneva's La Châtaigneraie campus.
It's the end of secondary school and the beginning of university or training programmes and for a few, work. More than this, it is the start of adulthood. Children leave home and lose or transform forever their "student" and "child" labels because they can now shed these skins whenever they feel like it.
The same process happens during June at several other Lake Geneva region schools and is repeated at schools around the world.
The end of school for many English-speaking families in this region holds a lovely but sharp note. For years the children have carried their backgrounds into the classroom every morning, gradually growing together until they sound and dress more or less alike. The parents get used to this. And suddenly, the group breaks up and their main identification is no longer as a member of this group. The background and the family are once again a big part of who these new adults are.
Some but not all of the students attend international schools. All have spent their school years dancing around words and ideas from at least two cultures and two languages and for many it is more. They become used to the idea that their friends come from several countries. When they visit these friends' homes the parents speak to their buddies in Spanish or Swedish or Urdu.
They grow up with little room or need for political correctness because there is no dominant culture. They rub elbows for 13 or 14 years with people who like fast food lunches, too, but who happily return home to spicy Indian or Thai food. They swap Peruvian chicken and rice in a thermos at noon for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. They begin to go clubbing at night, and compare the price of drinks in Geneva (high, too high!) with the prices in Sydney and Beijing and Toronto and Warsaw and Buenos Aires, where they have visited grandparents during school vacations.
At the end of these years the families and students come together for a graduation ceremony, then make the rounds of weekend lunches and open houses or parties. And suddenly, the veneer of a common language, English, that has been laid over them because of the children's schooling, is seen to be just that. Out come the white caps worn by the Swedes and Finns, so that young men who normally all dress alike proudly sport this sign of their difference. There is the Indian in his long silk jacket standing next to a young woman in brilliantly coloured Ghanaian dress.
A small group of older brothers and sisters who are studying at universities around the world have made it home for this and they shake their heads. These guys don't know yet how much they will miss having a group of international friends like this, the young elders agree. Sure, we've all stayed in touch, maybe not right away but a year or two later, when we began to really miss it, says one.
A father from Korea confesses that his wife is already having a hard time with the idea that her son is leaving for England and he wonders when Westerners think it is normal for a first son to leave home. He himself left home only when he was getting married, which is normal.
A mother from Peru says that of course she will spend time in New York helping her son settle in there, and that his little brother is already suffering from the idea that his big brother will be so far away. Across the room the big brother is laughing as someone asks him how he'll like being the next Latino in Harlem - will he join a gang? He says, standing in his suit and tie, that he kind of likes the idea of dressing that way. Fortunately, his mother does not hear this.
The students seemed to be simply a group leaving their school until the end of the graduation ceremony Friday in Founex. One by one at least a fifth of the class stood up and said goodbye in a language their family speaks. The crowd went silent, listening intently. We remembered what we had nearly forgotten by the end of 14 years: the education is in English, but the fabric of it has been woven with threads from many cultures, from so many countries.
Tolerance is a word that gets well worn at this time of year. It's the great thing, teachers and parents say, that the children learned by going to school in this internationally-minded corner of the world. Listening to the joking and watching the way this new generation of adults push and hug each other, tolerance seems almost a pejorative term, I thought.
They have learned to accept each other. They have something to teach the rest of us now. (continue reading)→