Regular readers here know that I regard laws signs of all stripes obnoxious and borderline unethical. EA has discussed the dumb “In this house…” virtue-signaling signs, and I have mentioned several times the huge “Black Lives Matter” display another lawyer inflicted on the neighborhood for nearly three years (despite the several notes and news items I taped to it.)
Now, however, the current rage is graduation signs. It is hard to describe how much this increasingly popular practice makes me wince. The last thing in the world my parents would ever have considered doing was to put up signs announcing that my sister or I had graduated from high school, made the honor roll, or been admitted to college, in the case of both of us the Institution That Must Not Be Named on the banks of the Charles River.
In all cases, such signs breach the ethics values of self-restraint, dignity and humility. What are the parents in these homes teaching their children? Presumably, the lesson is to boast whenever possible. This is what social media is for: to publicize good news to friends and colleagues who have a reason to give a damn. Frankly, I don’t see graduating from high school in a middle-to-upper middle class neighborhood like Alexandria, Virginia as that big a deal. Are we seeing the sign because there was some doubt whether Kathleen would make it, considering her drug addiction, promiscuity and drinking problem? Are Kathleen’s parents trying to show-up the family next door, whose ne’er do well son dropped out of high school to become a pimp?
Whatever the reasons for these signs, they aren’t good enough. A family should encourage and reward accomplishments by family members privately unless they are trying to raise creeps who will run screaming through the streets, “I just got a job paying six figures! Suck it, losers!”
I don’t care that your kid graduated from high school or where he’s going to college.
I cannot close this chapter without expressing my disgust with three neighbors who still have their Harris-Walz signs out. It’s not exactly unethical, but it definitely is “Ick!” What are these people so proud of? Aren’t they embarrassed?
Ethics Alarms 
IN OUR HOUSE WE SUPPORT:
plumbers, electricians,
welders, carpenters,
steel workers, stonemasons,
draftsman, mechanics, et al.
Have a great weekend and keep the faith…🤠
is that a picture of the actual sign? I ask because it misspells the word “High” as “Hight”. So that would be the “height” of irony to celebrate HS graduation while the sign maker lacks the basic skill of spell-checking. (Even if the sign shop messed up, what kind of parent would fail to notice and put it up anyway, exposing themselves and the child to ridicule?)
No, it’s a ad for such signs. We had a minister who was named “Hight” once. I am assuming this was a private school, giving it the benefit of the doubt since I’m a nice guy.
To paraphrase Col. Jessup (Jack Nicholson) in “A Few Good Men”…don’t I feel like an idiot! (He used saucier language!). I didn’t consider that it was a last name. Thanks!
I’m afraid I have to disagree with you on this one, Jack. Why do they do it? To celebrate the accomplishment of a young person passing a major milestone in their life. Even if academic integrity isn’t what it once was – and it isn’t- the fact remains that graduation from high school is a major cultural turning point to mark the difference between a child and an adult. And our society doesn’t have many of those remaining, either.
As for the public declaration, I’d love to think that as a young person, my parents would rejoice in an opportunity to celebrate my achievements. Shouting their praise from the rooftops, as it were. You make an interesting point that it is perhaps best shared on social media, amongst friends and family, and I think it ought to be shared, there, as well. But here, it is being shared with their neighbors. A far older and more concrete form of society than mere names on a screen.
I think it’s easy to roll my eyes and dismiss this as another example of raging social narcissism. In some cases, it may be. However, there’s also something good and pure about a proud parent displaying love and inviting the neighborhood to celebrate with the family. Young adults don’t have many actual accomplishments to their name so young in life, and it seems a grand thing to me to be able to bolster community while offering praise and encouragement.
1. Well remember, this series is called “Confronting my biases.” That implies that I recognize that my distaste for conduct may well be emotional or irrational, and I feel badly that the fact that someone who engages in it may make me leap to the perhaps unfair conclusion that something is wrong with them.
2. It still strikes me as the equivalent of posting a kid’s “A” test on the front door rather than the refrigerator.
“1. Well remember, this series is called “Confronting my biases.” That implies that I recognize that my distaste for conduct may well be emotional or irrational, and I feel badly that the fact that someone who engages in it may make me leap to the perhaps unfair conclusion that something is wrong with them.”
This is an interesting comment. Should another’s act that makes you react in an emotional and perhaps irrational unfair negative way make the other’s act unethical and the object of derision? If you feel badly about your own reaction and you want to change why write a post that paints the other’s behavior as unethical or narcissistic? What exactly is that which causes the emotional response? Is it the fact that graduation from high school is like getting a trophy for just showing up or is it because it makes you feel better to undermine the perceived joy of another which is an attempt to equilibrate the sense of pride and joy among neighbors. In other words, am I upset at the sign because I don’t have that sense of pride and joy in my own life so it is unfair for them to have more than me.
I recall a number of times when you spoke highly about Grant’s abilities to fix things. Is it possible that all of us who did not know Grant personally might gain some joy from knowing you were proud of him? The same could be true about these signs. Graduations are a big deal for parents otherwise all the pomp and circumstance would not be necessary. I find graduation exercises unnecessary and only seem to be used by academics to showcase their credentials and importance with their robes and colors but that is just my opinion. Others think exactly the opposite, but why should I get upset at what others find joy in? Do I want them to tell me to stop doing that in which I find happiness because someone feels like it is improper? The golden rule seems to be relevant here.
On the other hand, does this post reflect a true desire to confront biases for the purpose of making positive changes or at least to see another perspective?
The point of every chapter on the series is to write about conduct that makes me recoil, think “yuck, pooie!” and think less of those engaging in it, and decide whether the problem is me (bias makes me stupid) or the conduct itself, meaning that the bias is well-founded and that the conduct is objectively anti-social, wrong, destructive, dumb, offensive and irredeemable. As with the ethics quizzes, a predicate to writing the posts is: “Gee, can I justify this, or am I just being like Clarence Darrow when he said, “I don’t like shredded wheat, and I don’t like anyone who does!”
So your last sentence indeed expresses my motive.
The issue, ultimately, is whether particular conduct should be elevated to a societal norm. What if “everybody does it!”? Competing houses with signs and eventually billboards, then videos, then loudspeakers, then God knows what, to prove that THIS family is the most proud.
couldn’t agree more. This post is very “Grinchy”
Getting angry with the Whos down in Whoville for being happy and celebratory.
Presumably you comprehend the difference between people being happy and people seeking to broadcast the fact that they are happy to strangers. Or the difference between a community celebration, which is what the Whos did, and a private celebration being treated as a community celebration by the individual without the community’s participation or consent.
But if you do, that comment doesn’t reflect it.
Aaron Paschall worte, “the fact remains that graduation from high school is a major cultural turning point to mark the difference between a child and an adult”
That might be relatively true as a cultural turning point but it’s not true to mark the difference between a child and an adult, in most cases that would be a gross exaggeration. Most adults don’t set aside their childish ways until their early to mid twenties.
Graduating High School isn’t even much of an accomplishment for students that “graduate” as borderline functional illiterates and that number is growing rapidly as the base standards for graduation is continually being reduced to the lowest common rates of failure. Our K-12 public school systems are actively being dumbed down. Graduating High School is not even roughly equivalent to being an adult, simply put, adulting is not that easy, and adulting as a borderline functional illiterate is really hard!
“adulting as a borderline functional illiterate is really hard!”
“Life Is Tough, But It’s Tougher If You’re Stupid” attributed to Marion Morrison
PWS
“You’re not stupid, you just have bad luck when you think.”
This shows both compassion and direct honest realism…🤠
My favorite unscripted quote by Marion.
A good friend and client with a terrific, self-deprecatory sense of humor to help her deal with a challenging life: “I didn’t expect life to be easy, but I didn’t expect it to be this hard.”
I completely agree that the education is in shambles. By virtually every metric, they fail. Getting a diploma in many ways today is as complicated as solving the maze on the back of a cereal box. But it does take 12 years of work to achieve, and even as watered down as we’ve made the honor, it’s still not one every kid makes it to. And it’ll usually be the first one most of them achieve which takes that kind of dedication. I just know that you get more of behavior you reward, and I like the idea of kids learning to strive towards goals. So even if the knowledge they’ve gotten along the way isn’t all that impressive by historical standards, the graduation needs to be a celebration, to encourage more dedication and perseverance in the future.
Aaron Paschall wrote, “I just know that you get more of behavior you reward, and I like the idea of kids learning to strive towards goals. So even if the knowledge they’ve gotten along the way isn’t all that impressive by historical standards, the graduation needs to be a celebration, to encourage more dedication and perseverance in the future.”
Forgive me making this comparison, but, that sounds a whole lot like what someone would say to promote participation trophies and, based on the rest of your comment, I’m really not too sure that was your intent.
Yes, it does, which I dont intend. I suppose the distinction i see is that there is still an accomplishment being achieved. Kids who drop out of school don’t get to graduate, even if it makes them feel bad.
If, in a youths soccer league, they changed the rules so that every time anyone kicked the ball they got a point, the game would much simpler, and pointless. I suspect it would become too simple, and the kids playing it would recoil from the absurdity. However, those who strove to succeed, even under the new rules, ought to be celebrated. The solution to the silliness would be for the authorities to stop bastardizing the game, not to stop celebrating the existant efforts and achievements of those who continued to do well at it.
And Jack, I appreciate you sharing your thoughts on this topic. I hadn’t heard anyone present your point of view before, and hadn’t really thought about it myself. Thank you!
In my hometown, the problem isn’t so much “Congrats, Grad!” yard signs, but the cheering sections for individual students at commencement ceremonies. The audience is always told to hold their applause until all graduating seniors have received their diplomas, but there are always some kids whose relatives can’t restrain themselves from whooping & hollering to celebrate their kid graduating.
“The audience is always told to hold their applause until all graduating seniors have received their diplomas….”
I personally have no problem at all with this rule, and neither does anyone in my family.
–Dwayne Zechman
When I was a kid, my parents EXPECTED me and my siblings to graduate high school. It was the minimum. We were rewarded with an adult-style dinner at a local restaurant (it was Vallee’s Steak House, for those in the Boston area). Going to college, “vocational school” or the military was expected to take place the following September, and my two brothers and I checked each of the three boxes.
Same here. When our son graduated from high school, we asked him if he wanted a party. Nope, he said, high school graduation was expected.
jvb