New at Reason

June 7, 2007

Steve Chapman reports from the front lines of the War on Cheering.

Comments

tomwright|6.7.07 @ 7:55AM|#

So does this mean if I shout hooray for decorum I will be banned from H&R?

/(yay)

The Frith™|6.7.07 @ 8:04AM|#

This was a potential problem in my high school days at Westside HS in Anderson, SC back in 19mumblemumble. I say potential because I feel our principal handled it pretty well. He read the riot act to the audience concerning decorum before starting to call out names of graduates.

During the reading, if anyone in the audience clapped or yelled excessively, he would wait with zen-like patience for the room to settle down, give the offending party the DeathStare™, and then continue.

After the audience realized that he was super serial, and their collective over-exuberance would cause them to sit in those uncomfortable bleachers for a long loooooong time, they gained control their behavior very quickly.

Hopefully principals who have stuck to their guns in the past will continue to do so. It's also promising to see that many principals and officials are rediscovering that they have some power to educate our yutes in the ways of decorum.

"To tolerate everything is to teach nothing"
- F. J. Kinsman

ed|6.7.07 @ 8:06AM|#

This is the most unH&Rlike article I've read in some time. Have I stumbled upon a spoof site? Is Reason mocking one of their own? Me confused, but me likee.

edna|6.7.07 @ 8:06AM|#

steve, meet brickbats.

Grotius|6.7.07 @ 8:35AM|#

By that logic, wedding guests should be blowing noisemakers during the recitation of vows.

Well, if that is what the groom and bride, or groom and groom, etc. want, I've got no problem with it.

They understand that a society which treats every happy occasion as a frolic is a society in danger of forgetting that some moments are worthy of dignity, respect and even awe.

Why? Social control?

|6.7.07 @ 8:41AM|#

So, um, punishing graduates because someone else in the audience cheered is a good thing? That's the sort of logic I'd expect of Little Green Footballs, not Reason. Save collective punishment for the fascists, please, Steve.

|6.7.07 @ 8:43AM|#

Why do half of Steve Chapman's articles make me want to run outside with my pants halfway down my ass and my hat on sideways and drive around town playing the thump-thump song?

|6.7.07 @ 8:43AM|#

This article is a crucial reminder that liberty depends on the norms and habits that support decency--so that we can avoid the necessity of morals legislation and ham-handed government fiat.

What creates a decent and respectable culture? Ultimately the structure of incentives and sanctions gives rise to our customs and folkways. A decent culture is one that emphasizes the mutual respect between all individuals and reserves ostracism and punishment for those who do not take care to respect the rights of others. Reasonableness, common-sense understandings of tolerance, and deference/forgiveness are core values of civilization.

Unstated codes of behavior may be better--since they promote less division--or they may be worse--because they do not admit of reasonable dissent. But in our modern, wildly pluralistic culture, explicit rules seem to be required.

Grotius|6.7.07 @ 8:45AM|#

Grant Gould,

This from that CNN article you linked to:

The students denied the diplomas say school officials wanted them to track down the cheering culprits.

herodotus|6.7.07 @ 8:47AM|#

"They understand that a society which treats every happy occasion as a frolic is a society in danger of forgetting that some moments are worthy of dignity, respect and even awe."


Graduating from a state monopoly run educational institution is a moment worthy of 'dignity respect and even awe'?

Is this still a libertarian website? Have anti-war democrats taken over while I was sleeping?

Gosh I miss Virginia Postrel.

Grotius|6.7.07 @ 8:49AM|#

bizzle,

The U.S. has been widly pluralistic for a long time. It has also been a place where boisterous behavior is commonplace.

Jennifer|6.7.07 @ 8:52AM|#

The Frith's principal had the right idea. This guy in Galesburg had the wrong one: punishing students for the behavior of somebody else? When I read the initial news story I immediately thought, "Great, so if I dislike some kid I can go to his graduation, make a ruckus when his name is called and make sure he won't get his diploma unless he does community service first."

Grotius|6.7.07 @ 9:00AM|#

I'd be curious to know what a "typical graduation" has been like over time and how the current notions of what a graduation should look like got started. I can't imagine that it is a terribly new tradition.

|6.7.07 @ 9:06AM|#

Grotius,

I like pluralism; I think it's a net positive.

But to claim that the combination of different cultures with divergent norms doesn't create thorny issues seems to stretch credulity beyond its breaking point.

Along with our tradition of immigration, we also have a dark history of nativism which has, in not a few cases, turned violent. Ethnic strife is no foreigner to these shores.

Perhaps partial, voluntary self-segregation (e.g. ethnic neighborhoods, Catholic schools) is the answer; the process of assimilation would be slower but less turbulent.

As for your point on boisterous celebration: you're exactly right and I'm wrong. Who can forget the inauguration of Andrew Jackson, when some Ya-hoo rode his horse through the White House window? You can look it up.

|6.7.07 @ 9:11AM|#

Nowhere near as annoying as the parents who have to stand up front and video their Little Precious's entire performance at the Dance Recital while the rest of us crane our necks to see the stage.

|6.7.07 @ 9:13AM|#

Here's a good account of that first AJ inauguration, although lacking mention of the incident I recalled.

http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/jacksoninauguration.htm

Grotius|6.7.07 @ 9:16AM|#

bizzle,

But to claim that the combination of different cultures with divergent norms doesn't create thorny issues seems to stretch credulity beyond its breaking point.

Well, (A) I didn't make such a claim. (B) Much of the claimed thorniness doesn't seem particularly thorny to me.

Grotius|6.7.07 @ 9:18AM|#

You know, I wonder who wrote the write-up.

|6.7.07 @ 9:24AM|#

It's asinine to punish someone for someone else's bahavior. If that was the final lesson my high school or college delivered to me, they'd get no support in the future.

Here in Tucson, graduates often throw tortillas. It's an idiotic tradition dating back to the 1920s or 30s, but it really came to the fore when some University of Arizona muckety muck decided that it was potentally offensive to Hispanics. The riot act was read, the enforcement procedures were in place, and everything was set up for some stupid First Amendment challenge that would bore even Aztlan's and the Ku Klux Klinitemen's most rabid lawyers. Luckily, cooler heads prevailed, the message that throwing tortillas was unacceptable got out, some tortillas were thrown, and I don't believe a single injury was reported. Lute Olson was nearly decapitated by a Mexican Frisbee, but it wasn't fried so it was harmless. And to future graduates: use flour, not corn, tortillas. And be sure they come from a local producer. If you're going to potentially offend Hispanics, pay them for the privilege.

As for hooting and hollering, I think it's obnoxious. Actionable? Only if some grown up on stage is actually willing to call them on it. And that should be done at the time of the infraction, not after, and not to an innocent party.

|6.7.07 @ 9:29AM|#

What is wrong with what happened at that graduation is not the fact that the administration made rules for the ceremony, but that it punished people for something other people did. That is totally contrary to individual liberty and freedom.

Grotius|6.7.07 @ 9:34AM|#

This sort of reminds of the penalties assessed to teams due to the behavior of the crowd.

VM|6.7.07 @ 9:42AM|#

tweet:

Kerry Sue's peeps. Unnecessary loudness. Five yards and loss of down.

Bob's peeps. Premature adulation. Loss of down. Has to sit in on Mrs. McClendon's Practical Math again.

TWEET! Bizzle.

use of DRINKING clause 503.5(b): "I like [x], BUT..."

Mr. Steven Crane will be by shortly to administer punishment, which, per the "double dumb ass Gitmo increasment (sic) law" is allowed to be kept secret.

|6.7.07 @ 9:55AM|#

As a fellow curmudgeon, I am in accord with this article. However, it doesn't strike me as being in accord with the "Free minds, Free markets" Reason vision.

[long when-I-was-a-kid ramblings]
At my HS graduation, I participated in two born-to-be-mild unapproved activities. We didn't have assigned seating. As we ascended the stage, we handed the VP a card with our name on it so he could read it. One of my classmates handed out beer bottle caps to all of us with the instructions "hand this to Dick with your name card". It was mildly amusing. He handled it well, there was no interruption of the ceremony, by the time we all walked across his pockets were bulging.

The other thing I (and about a third of my class) did was to throw my hat into the air at the end. I know! It's hard to believe I was ever so young. You might think this was back in Leave It To Beaver days. But no, this was the beginning of seatbelt laws and child safety seats. The school officials were afraid, wait for it.... We'd poke our eyes out, with those square beanies.

Since then I've been to a few college grad ceremonies. We're always instructed to "save applause till the end for all the grads" but I flagrantly flaunt that instruction and give a big WHOOP when the person I came to see has his name called.

ron|6.7.07 @ 9:57AM|#

more like steve crapman. BOOYAH!

|6.7.07 @ 10:03AM|#

This article was reasonably well-written and had an interesting point of view, but I was surprised to find it here; it seems like it would fit in better at National Review. (I like National Review, so that's not a dig, just an observation.)

|6.7.07 @ 10:06AM|#

Dumbest

Article

Ever

Daniel|6.7.07 @ 10:08AM|#

Maybe there's something I don't know about Galesburg, but why not just kick the offending party out? Or since it's public school, put them in temporary graduation detention.

|6.7.07 @ 10:11AM|#

Yanno, as I recall students had to pay for their diplomas in advance. Withholding them might be considered theft.

Rob|6.7.07 @ 10:27AM|#

Things got a little rowdy during my high school commencement ceremony. My principal asked the audience quite sternly several times to quiet down. I remember being annoyed with the audience but also being annoyed with the principal's reaction. To me, the audience was behaving quite rudely but it also seemed rude to chastise and audience of mostly adult like they were a rebellious teenagers. That may have added to the situation. I somewhat admired some parent's enthusiasm for their sons and daughters, but I only wished that they would save it for the graduation party. Some people in the crowd were yelling so loud that you couldn't hear the sames being called. Frankly, the students couldn't care less, but I felt sorry for the proud parents who got dressed up in their Sunday best but couldn't even hear their kid's name being called. Yeah, it's rude, but should it cost someone their diploma? I don't think so.

I'm going to a college commencement this weekend. I wonder if those are beginning to look like HS graduations.

To be honest, I didn't expect to see an article like this on Reason.

VM|6.7.07 @ 11:07AM|#

DRINK!!!!

Chuck|6.7.07 @ 11:16AM|#

Rob--

Speaking as someone who has been to two college graduations per year for the past 15+ years: yes, they are.

VF|6.7.07 @ 11:18AM|#

Where'd Reason go?

|6.7.07 @ 11:26AM|#

"In the enforcement phase, the students perceived racial bias, noting that four of them are black and the other is Hispanic. At other schools, there have been complaints that imposing commencement decorum amounts to forcing nonwhites to abide by stuffy white conventions."

I have heard that it's racist to suggest that racial groups have different average IQs. Is it also racist to suggest that different racists have different average decibel levels?

wsdave|6.7.07 @ 11:57AM|#

"Yanno, as I recall students had to pay for their diplomas in advance. Withholding them might be considered theft."

My tax dollars paid for these kids' education. The administration needs fuck itself and cough up the diplomas.

lurker|6.7.07 @ 12:09PM|#

this article sucks.

moonunit|6.7.07 @ 12:18PM|#

Who decided that the commencement should be stuffy? The students via democratic decision? I think not.

|6.7.07 @ 1:03PM|#

I have no use for zoo-like behavior at a graduation but why punish kids for the boorishness of others.

Give 'em the parents the "death stare"

|6.7.07 @ 2:27PM|#

I read the Brickbat, and thought 'I guess the article will go into more detail about this idiocy.'

And then I read the article, and spent the whole time trying to convince myself it was actually a parody.

So I ask you, Reason staff: What the *fuck*?

|6.7.07 @ 3:05PM|#

Well you know, if we really lived in a free society, then there would be no public high school principals and we wouldn't have these fights about who gets to impose their top-down control structure on the captives, er, students, because damnit, parents would be free to decide whether the school their kids attend would allow cheering or not!

Dave B.|6.7.07 @ 4:03PM|#

a society which treats every happy occasion as a frolic is a society in danger of forgetting that some moments are worthy of dignity, respect and even awe.

How is a graduation more worthy of dignity, respect and awe than, say, a sweet 16 party? High school graduation requires little more than attendance. Even districts that require graduation exams don't tend to test past middle school material. What's so awe-inspiring about having attended school for 12 years?

|6.7.07 @ 4:10PM|#

I have personally graduated from high school, college, and an advanced degree. My child had ceremonies for all those plus kindergarden, grade school, karate class, etc.
How about getting rid of graduation ceremonies? They're boring. It is usually hot. I don't care to see some kid get a certificate. I never look at photos that people ( including me ) have taken.
Maybe have a voluntary ritual where achievements are acknowledged like trophies awarded to all entrants who want one.

cgee|6.7.07 @ 4:42PM|#

High school graduation requires little more than attendance. Even districts that require graduation exams don't tend to test past middle school material. What's so awe-inspiring about having attended school for 12 years?

I don't know where you attended school, but my high school was highly competitive. Given how hard my classmates and I worked over four years, the celebration at the end was especially sweet. Of course, no one at my graduation would have ever considered causing a disturbance or making himself the center of attention.

T\'Surakmaat|6.7.07 @ 5:36PM|#

this is nothing more than yet another attempt to enforce someone else's value system (or lack thereof). one last chance at "making kids do what we say". how illogical.

when i was in high school they tried to ban "blue jeans". so we all dyed our jeans red. then we had "purple jeans", which weren't covered under the "ban". this was an excellent training course in "circumventing bureaucracy".

i say do what you want. if the choice is chaos or ridiculously-rigid order, i'll go with chaos for $1000, Alex.

live long and prosper
T'Surakmaat

|6.7.07 @ 7:31PM|#

What is wrong with what happened at that graduation is not the fact that the administration made rules for the ceremony, but that it punished people for something other people did. That is totally contrary to individual liberty and freedom.

I never went to public schools, but I still get 'punished' every year(I get to pay for it...).

IMO, if you take money from the State, you're not allowed to cry when the State smacks you like the little bitch that you are.

|6.7.07 @ 8:19PM|#

"They understand that a society which treats every happy occasion as a frolic is a society in danger of forgetting that some moments are worthy of dignity, respect and even awe."


"Graduating from a state monopoly run educational institution is a moment worthy of 'dignity respect and even awe'?

Is this still a libertarian website? Have anti-war democrats taken over while I was sleeping?"

I made roughly the same point, plus a few more ("so we're teaching our son that he deserves praise and self-esteem, even unmemorable accomplishments?"), to my unlibertarian wife this morning in refusing to attend my son's fricking sixth grade graduation ceremony, and got the DeathStare TM.

|6.8.07 @ 12:00PM|#

What is wrong with what happened at that graduation is not the fact that the administration made rules for the ceremony, but that it punished people for something other people did. That is totally contrary to individual liberty and freedom.

Damn straight!

I never went to public schools, but I still get 'punished' every year(I get to pay for it...).

IMO, if you take money from the State, you're not allowed to cry when the State smacks you like the little bitch that you are.

How far would you extend this principal?

If a college student at a public college vandalizes school property, would you be ok with the school expelling the students' friends as well?

If a cop engages in police brutality, would you be ok with putting other members of his or her unit who had nothing to do with it in jail as well? How about just taking away the persions of those other members?

If you are arguing that you should get a special tax deduction on grounds that you never went to public school, I would be willing to agree to that or at least consider it. However, I definitely would not agree to allowing the state to engage in arbitrary bullshit towards anyone who accepts state money.

ac|6.8.07 @ 5:18PM|#

I graduated again recently and when my cohort left the stage just about any sense of decorum left the stage with us. Girls with florescent pink wigs, families and friends whooping and hollering -- "you GO GIRLLL!"; it was a mess.

I'm also the guy who gets visibly upset when fans of a certain regional baseball team yell "OOOHHH!" obnoxiously during the last stanza of the national anthem (a tribute to the Orioles, the "O's"). When you're at Camden Yards, I kind of understand. When you're at a hockey game at Verizon Center (home of the Caps), I mean come on, grow up.

|6.8.07 @ 7:33PM|#

Amendment to my previous post:

"principal" should be "principle"

If I were Steve Cobert I would put homophones on notice right now.

|6.10.07 @ 10:13PM|#

Sounds like the principal wanted one last chance to be a dictator. If I were there to get my diploma, and some other student didn't get his because of a cheer, I would stand up and leave. And I probably wouldn't have been the only one.

Bet if that happened, next year there would be a new protocol.

What sort of idiot schedules the final ceremony, marking the end of 12 (or more) years of school, so tightly that there isn't time time to give each escaping graduate a few seconds of personal congratulation?

|6.11.07 @ 4:23PM|#

These ridiculously raucous celebrations were the norm at my high school. I always understood them to be a recognition on the part of certain graduates'families and friends that a high school diploma represented the pinnacle of their life's achievements.