There has recently been significant backlash from the senior class regarding the potential elimination of walking partners at graduation. Although this proposed change from last year would break us up from our friends, everyone needs to realize why the change is on the table and fully comprehend what walking partners really are.
Every year prior, students have had the chance to choose their walking partners. However, walking partners are a bit misleading in name. A walking partner simply walks in a single file line with you and then sits silently next to you for the rest of the presentation.
The glaring problem with walking partners is that, inevitably, someone with be left out. Our senior class has an odd number of students. The system of walking partners is setting us up for failure and embarrassment. Painful feelings of exclusiveness don’t affect the majority of us, so most of us don’t know what it feels like to get left out. However, in a school full of egotistical students, it is important not to let the wolves of the class bully the rest of sheep.
It is incredible to see how a few predators can control a whole flock of students, brainwashing them to agree with whatever topical problem arises. The painful irony is that many of these mindless students know exactly what it feels like to be left out but still advocate a system that encourages exclusivity.
The orderliness of moving alphabetically is much more sensible. Now the parents can predict when their spawn is walking across the stage – something previously impossible! Now seniors can walk hand in hand, united and connected. No more leaving out kids with special needs, or with social anxiety or who don’t have anyone to walk with because they came to Laguna after cliques had already been formed.
Essentially, walking partners are nothing more than a symbol, but I’m not quite sure what of.
What is really going on is that kids do not want change. Seniors want what seniors got last year, even if it doesn’t make any sense. Furthermore, the current system is incredibly hard to organize and makes about a quarter of the student body feel left out.
Despite the clear rationale for eliminating student choice, what always happens around the school has happened again: The administration has attempted to tune up a machine with pieces missing. Instead of us embracing an ever changing world, we as a class have thrown ourselves on the gears of the machine. Instead of filling in the missing cog to fix the great machine, we’ve scattered the other pieces, forever sealing our fate of disconnection and disillusion.
Now the administration has had to create some sort of compromise that doesn’t fix anything for our graduating class; the new system will go into effect for next year’s seniors. All this compromise has done is appease the wolves of the graduating class of 2016. This is not only dangerous, but it shows us that if we make a fuss, we can get what we want. This is not preparing us for the real world. The senior class as a whole needs to realize that being catered is not the best for the real world.