Graduations can be the most emotional events in a parent's life. How could I forget my youngest daughter's graduation ceremony in May 1987 from Syracuse University, upstate New York. I cried from the opening bars of the American National Anthem to the closing moment when mortar boards which the graduates had thrown in the air rained inside of The Carrier Dome. Believe me, there is not one drop of Chinese blood in my bones, but by the end of four hours of non-stop tears, my eyes were like slits when we emerged from the hall. In the past month I have attended three ceremonies. The grandchildren were graduating, and needless to say, I was on the emotional roller coaster.
The first was solemn as it was the Recognition Service 2000 for the Pupils of Form V of Bishop Anstey Junior School. Not too much pomp and ceremony as these youngsters were, and are at the time of writing still, waiting on the common entrance results, so there was more of a very subdued air. Canon Christopher St Clair Drakes was celebrant for the simple but inspiring one hour service at Christ Church in Cascade. The graduating class wore neither expensive dresses, gowns or mortar boards. The school uniform of navy skirt or short pants, white blouse or shirt, and red and black tie sufficed, and a be-ferned red carnation was the solitary adornment to their white tops. The school choir sang for their peers, and alumni, Sonja Dumas, gave short, simple and adequate words of advice.
The mood changed to an extremely happy and celebratory one when nine youngsters, ages four and five, graduated from Nancy Elias' Children's House Montessori at La Boucan in the Trinidad Hilton, after a tea service.
Each child dressed in special white outfits with black gowns and mortar boards with red tassels, were adoringly watched by parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins as they processed through La Boucan onto the stage to receive their certificates from Auntie Nancy, who had fully prepared them for the next step of their junior school education. Three would go to St Andrews, one each to Holy Name, Bishop's Junior, St Monica's and Maria Regina. What a happy afternoon it was with tea, laughter, and floral presentations from each graduate to their mothers and also to Auntie Nancy and her assistant Auntie Luanna, who had diligently looked after them on a daily basis.
But the one which brought lumps to throats and tears to many eyes took place last Wednesday at the Tranquillity Methodist Church on Tragarete Road, where the ages of the graduating class from Eshe's Learning Centre ranged from seven to sixteen.
There was a mixture of happiness and sadness at the graduation ceremony of Dr Esla Lynch's school for children aged five upwards who have a need for special education. I looked at these youngsters, some of whom had been in Dr Lynch's care for most of their school lives, and wondered what now for the older ones who would never make it through either O or A level examinations, far less tertiary education. And thanked God for the luckier ones who like my nine year old Megan, according to Dr Lynch "was one of the 50% who after two years of learning coping strategies are able to be main-streamed, and many of them do well in the common entrance, go to seven year schools and graduate with from two to three O levels up to as high as nine."
But Dr Lynch, whose doctorate is in special education, is very positive about her older charges. "One teen is doing upholstery in a job placement and will stay there; and two of yesterday's graduates, aged 16, are going into a programme of ceramics two days a week and sewing two days. We have job placement for them in some kind of apprenticed environment to learn a skill if the child is never going to make it back to secondary school."
There is yet another for whom Dr Lynch is knocking on every door in the Ministry of Education for a secondary school place. "There is just no money whatsoever, and if we do not get him in to a school and there is no school for him to go to, by the time I come back from my vacation in August, I am going to the Minister. If I have to I will, this child comes out of Laventille, a number of corporate sponsors gave him his schooling with us for two years and I am not going to see him go to no man's land, he has to go somewhere."
Dr Lynch personally gives about five scholarships annually, and some discounted fees to children who need her school, which looks after those with learning disabilities and developmental delays, and the slow learners.