The year 12s...

Last night I went to the ICS Year 12 graduation night. It was a bit funny being back at a school thing after all these years, but it was also really special to be there with so many of the year 12 church youth crew that I'd come to know and love over the past couple of years. ICS just has a small Year 12 class, and I reckon I knew about a third of them well, so it wasn't one of those ceremonies where you sit through hours of a stranger calling out other stranger's names. Also, because there is so few of them, they could do a nice blurb about each student as they came up to receive their portfolios. This was my favouriate part of the night. I really enjoyed hearing the teacher's perspectves on these kids. For some it was quite apparent that they are quite different people at school to what they are when they walk into church. For others, I thought yeah, that's exactly what I would say about him/her!

Being a Christian school, there was a lot of reflection on how this cohort of students have grown in their faith and to what extent they have embraced a personal faith in Jesus for themselves. But there was also quite a lot of talk of "career", in a way that made it seem like the only post-school option. I know this is probably fairly common for school graduation ceremonies, but I think it's quite misleading. Very few people I know in their mid twenties have a "career" as such. Generally, our paths have been non-linear. And sometimes we do meaningful things for a few years that may not contribute to the overall desired direction of our lives. I think that's ok too. I think it's too much pressure to put on 17 and 18 year olds to start carving out a "career path", where every decision has to contribute to some kind of long term goal. I think year 12 graduation ceremonies need to find a new language. I've been quite conscious this year with the Year 12s of NOT talking like this to them...well at least their input has been balanced I guess.

I really love this crew, and I'm excited to see who they will become outside the confines of school. It was a priviledge to be part of a special night for them.

TIGS grad ceremony on Fri morning...