Pin the Flower on the Student

My favorite senior (Yes, I have favorites. Get over it.)

Graduation day at Sansai. My first semester teaching English in Thailand is over and some of my students are leaving school. Unfortunately, due to the absurd amount of holidays and class cancellations, my senior class was the group I saw the least. 

Sansai Wittayakom School educates 7^th-12^th grade students. Even though they stay in the same school, we graduate the 9^th graders as well as our seniors. I’ve asked a lot of questions about this and can’t figure it out. It is some sort of coming-of-age or right-of-passage to “graduate” from 8^th to 9^th grade, but those students will be right back at Sansai Wittayakom come May. It’s not like the US and many other countries where many students attend separate schools for middle school and high school, so a graduation ceremony is justified, albeit a bit ridiculous. Then again we hold full-fledged ceremonies for graduating kindergartners now…

Helping  a buddy out and pinning his cards on to his shirt.

The Mama noodles necklace.

Thai secondary school graduation is for the school and the students, not the family. The underclassmen (11^th, 10^th, 8^th, and 7^th graders) will decorate the school (missing half-a-days class for it) and often bring in small gifts for their upperclassmen friends. They proudly adorn their gifts on their bodies: pinning cards to their blouses and hanging pictures around their necks. They may be the most unique graduation gifts I have ever seen. They remind me of Valentine’s Day cards from elementary school when you made 30 of the same card with a small candy attached to distribute among your classmates. Some were even more unique, my favorite was a Mama scarf with two bowls of instant noodles hanging around the boy’s neck. By the end of the day some students couldn’t even carry all of their goodies: candies, flowers, fake flowers, stuffed animals, and who knows what else.

So many goodies.

Many of the teachers laugh at the students’ costly and flashy forms of celebration but also remark that they are modeling themselves after college graduations. Although the colleges do the classic diploma ceremony with robes and a cap as we do, though the princess hands them their diploma, they also have these very social-orientated practices as their expression of friendship, and congratulations.

Thailand values aesthetics. It's a theme I've noted across many fronts: first priority is appearence. There were several areas set up, and broken down within the day, for the sole purpose taking pictures: more specifically selfies.

Some photo-opt scenes set up at the school.

The graduation itself was kicked off at morning assembly when I had the nice opportunity to participate in part of the ceremony. Every teacher lined up in front of the students and all of our 9^th and 12^th grade students filed through to receive a flower pin from one of the teachers.  Only thought on my mind: I’m most definitely going to stick one of these children with the pin. I had to repeat it with four or five students so chances were high, but I pulled through. I was proud that these students at least had the sense to say “Thank you” in English to the foreign teacher (who was holding a giant pin to their chest).

Sitting outside the spirit house.

Graduates parading into the school receiving gifts from friends in the crowd.

Following the flower-pinning ceremony, all the graduating students proceeded to the front gate of the school to pay respect to the Buddha at the spirit house. They then paraded in, stopping along the way to be decorated with cards and candy from their friends who lined the driveway. At the end of the parade, in small groups they were honored by the underclassmen in a unique way which you can see in the video below.

A special way of saying thank you and congratulations to the graduates.

The teachers tying a string around students' wrists for luck.

After taking a moment to have a snack and deposit their treasures at a table in the canteen, the teachers, myself included, led the graduating students upstairs to the auditorium. There were many songs, prayers, pictures, speeches from both faculty and students, and emotion to fill the morning. We held one more ceremony where the teachers tied a string around the students’ wrists for good luck. As we filled out of the auditorium the teachers lined the exit to salute each student as they exited and “Wai”-ed the teachers as an expression of gratitude and respect. The ceremony was very symbolic as an educator: leading my students, wishing them luck, and letting them leave no longer under our guard.

We joined the students for a special lunch accompanied by the school’s band but the afternoon was left to the students to socialize and celebrate. Many of the teachers retreated to their offices to finish grading and let the students enjoy their party. Early that evening both the students and teachers had cleared out early to leave a quiet Sansai….until Monday morning when the unhappy children have return for final exams!