| Graduates Leave to Pursue Dreams By Jim Correale (Published in the East Boston Sun Transcript on June 1, 2001.) In maroon and gold gowns, with family members looking on, the Savio High School class of 2001 will have graduated by the time this is published. Students and parents will pose for photographs and comment on the quickness with which four years have passed. Some will shed tears. The same ritual will take place at East Boston High School on June 8.Though the gowns will be blue and gold, the parents will be just as proud and the graduates will beam just as broadly. Graduation is a bittersweet moment for many high school students. The thrill of reaching this milestone -- the threshold of American adulthood -- is tempered by the departure from a place that has become, for some, a snug second home, filled with people who are good friends. While some declare that they don't want to leave, there are those who go through senior year griping that they can't wait to be rid of the place. High school can be a vastly different experience, even for those attending the same institution at the same time. Teachers, too, have differing views. The student who is hard working and quiet in one class is sometimes lazy and irritable in another. The educator/pupil dynamic can be as unpredictable as New England weather. Faculty members, sitting off to the side in black gowns during the ceremony, look on as students receive their diplomas. Wearing wide smiles, the teenagers shake hands with the principal as a proud parent maneuvers to get the best angle with the camera or video recorder. In four years of teaching at Savio, many bright and sincere young people have sat in my classroom. Getting to know those teenagers has been one of the joys of teaching. As my fourth group of seniors heads off to further challenges and accomplishments, I find emotion sneaking up on me a bit more earnestly than in the past. Science teacher Naida Snipas began teaching at Savio at the same time that I did. She taught this year's graduates when they were freshmen. "They came in as babies, honestly," Snipas said, "and [I've] watched them evolve into capable young adults." Snipas said that she feels somewhat like a parent, "watching them grow. Their successes are your successes." Like my colleague, I have seen these students develop from awkward, shy youngsters to confident, mature young men and young women. I have had the opportunity to get to know them as individuals. Though I didn't always succeed in inspiring these seniors toward a love of literature, I am buoyed by the knowledge that this graduating class contains a collection of good people. Each of them leaves Savio now, off to pursue whatever dreams and goals swim around in their heads. Some will attain those aims directly, while others will find themselves on totally different roads to totally different destinations. Wherever they go and whatever they do, I have a single wish for every one of them: happiness. |