My high school had a few unusual traditions around graduation time.
The first related to our director, a man who gave his 100% on official school business and then gave another 100% on all of his hobby projects around the school. It wasn’t that we had something like an apiary or a pond biotope. We had an apiary and a pond biotope and a herd of goats and a tiny vineyard (in an area mostly unsuitable for wine) and a shelter for emotionally disturbed aras. In a public school. And all that besides him being a highly respected director and teacher who epitomized the definition of “strict but fair”.
So at some point the students started to express their gratitude by giving the school presents upon graduation, usually themed around the director. The gym sported a Jurassic Park sign, except with the name of the school and with the profile of the T-Rex replaced with that of the director. In another year someone had contacts with the roads office and got something that looked like an official city limits sign made, except that it identified the school along with “administrative region <director’s name>”. Very cool; he took that one with him when he retired.
Another tradition is somewhat common in the region: The “chaos day”, effectively a formalized graduation prank. At my school, it worked like this: The evening before, the students were given a copy of the keys to the school and free access to the school grounds to prepare. The next day they had to prevent the teachers from entering the building; if a teacher got in, school would resume as per normal. The teachers had a fairly good track record. Many graduating classes failed to account for the fact that the teachers had bolt cutters. One time they didn’t account for an obscure window at the back of the school, which happened to be an emergency exit and had an external lock.
My year didn’t take any chances. I come from a fairly rural area so we had farmers in class and those farmers had forklifts and hay bales. By the time school was supposed to start, all entrances to the building had solid walls of hay in front of them. We also immediately cashiered any teacher who entered the school grounds and forced them into party activities. I have fond memories of hearing my class teacher horribly butcher Oh my darling, Clementine before wandering off to listen to the school band play Hurra, hurra, die Schule brennt.
My high school had a few unusual traditions around graduation time.
The first related to our director, a man who gave his 100% on official school business and then gave another 100% on all of his hobby projects around the school. It wasn’t that we had something like an apiary or a pond biotope. We had an apiary and a pond biotope and a herd of goats and a tiny vineyard (in an area mostly unsuitable for wine) and a shelter for emotionally disturbed aras. In a public school. And all that besides him being a highly respected director and teacher who epitomized the definition of “strict but fair”.
So at some point the students started to express their gratitude by giving the school presents upon graduation, usually themed around the director. The gym sported a Jurassic Park sign, except with the name of the school and with the profile of the T-Rex replaced with that of the director. In another year someone had contacts with the roads office and got something that looked like an official city limits sign made, except that it identified the school along with “administrative region <director’s name>”. Very cool; he took that one with him when he retired.
Another tradition is somewhat common in the region: The “chaos day”, effectively a formalized graduation prank. At my school, it worked like this: The evening before, the students were given a copy of the keys to the school and free access to the school grounds to prepare. The next day they had to prevent the teachers from entering the building; if a teacher got in, school would resume as per normal. The teachers had a fairly good track record. Many graduating classes failed to account for the fact that the teachers had bolt cutters. One time they didn’t account for an obscure window at the back of the school, which happened to be an emergency exit and had an external lock.
My year didn’t take any chances. I come from a fairly rural area so we had farmers in class and those farmers had forklifts and hay bales. By the time school was supposed to start, all entrances to the building had solid walls of hay in front of them. We also immediately cashiered any teacher who entered the school grounds and forced them into party activities. I have fond memories of hearing my class teacher horribly butcher Oh my darling, Clementine before wandering off to listen to the school band play Hurra, hurra, die Schule brennt.
That sounds like a really great school.