138th Morehouse College commencement

 

[VIDEO] I want to share this with you all to celebrate the journey of these young men who will be  joining the ranks of Morehouse College alum around the world. They will walk across the stage to become Morehouse Men. Who knows perhaps a billionaire will allow them a grant to pay off their student loans? It has happened, either way I want to see young Black men take this huge step and move forward successfully in their lives.

The stream of this graduation will begin at 9 AM Eastern time on May 15, 2022. Enjoy! 

Graduation season

Go Badgers...

I've always wanted to tell this story but for most Chicago Public School students not only is the school year over with, graduation season is over with as well. But it's time to write this out before the month of June is out.

My 8th grade teacher at Bennett School was a man I will only refer to as Mr. Z. My experience with him is basically what I'd call one of the first times I really clashed with an authority figure and in life that is a very dangerous thing to do. Especially if one chooses to take on a job and that authority figure is a manager who can decide on a whim that they can take your job away.

I won't talk too much negative about Mr. Z because some of my classmates who graduated with me back in the 1990s probably like him. Over the years I will admit that I used to curse his name. The more years away from his classroom the worse my thoughts about him got. My mother had to tell me that the man may well have been frustrated that for his taste, I just wasn't reaching my full potential.

While possible, I just look at it as a case of he may not have been the one to bring it out. My relationship with him could be similar to how one can't really get along with a boss. You have two choices in a situation like that of course you can start looking for another job elsewhere or you can find a way to make it work and walk on eggshells with that same boss. Though for myself being able to withdraw from such a classroom is only available to college students. In 8th grade that luxury isn't available and the teacher would be the one to withdraw students from their classroom.

All the same what did I get from Mr. Z? Well one credit I would give him is that if I never took his class I would've never been interested in politics. I've occasionally told this story about how he offered his stances on issues involving public education showing his stance against Republicans for example. He also drilled us frequently when it was time for the constitution exam which we had to take to graduate. Of course as per his teaching style he only did this by the book and by the numbers, no frills no creativity. It was all just this will be on the test and this is what you need to know to succeed.

Of course this coincided with by the time I graduated my discovery of C-Span when we got cable. I got the hang of the parliamentary jargon when watching both houses of Congress in session. How our government operates came alive on cable TV for my younger self back in the day. I even began to aspire to be a future senator or even a future President of the United States. Though it's a dream I no longer have today, then again you just never know.

Either way, I would officially like to give Mr. Z credit for something I still follow today. These days I'm more up to speed on local politics, besides this affects us the most more than what happens in Washington. I can believe that we'd be on the opposite ends of the spectrum politically if we ever met again, however, he deserves not my scorn but the recognition of my interest in politics.

He has no idea that once I went to college at Morehouse I majored in political science. If it wasn't for my time in the 8th grade it would never have led me to study pol. sci. I would never have thought to study it or even consider careers in that field. Though I wish I could do more to that end to find a job in that particular area.

What I do remember is once I had graduated and our relationship had effectively ended he did shake my hand and said his door was always open to me. I have little idea if this was just a platitude or if he was serious (and I never really found out if it was either). These days it's just recognized as a classy move as back then we just didn't do very well in our brief teacher-student relationship. However, sometimes I wish there was an answer as far as whether or not his door was open.

Meanwhile, I'm sure these days he's enjoying his retirement with his hard earned pension somewhere out there. Perhaps I'm the last thing he thinks about, but I do hope he realizes that a student from his past as a CPS teacher realizes that he finally appreciates his one major contribution.

#MorehouseGrad2019 Students get a grant to pay off student loans

[VIDEO] Yeah so this happened on Sunday. Morehouse men graduating in the class of 2019 will receive a grant from an entrepreneur named Robert F. Smith will provide grants to the 400 strong graduating class an estimated total of $40 million. The goal is to wipe out the student loan debt of those college graduate men. Where was he just about 10 years ago for me? :(

Reciept for Graduation 94

Wow! I never thought I'd find this around the house. Apparently our then school librarian - Mr. Hackenbrock - was also our school's clerk and provided this reciept for graduation fees. $30 apparently paid for two luncheon tickets which had been held at the old Martinique banquet hall near 95th/Western. Unfortunately that place was demolished and ultimately replaced by a Walmart & Sam's Club that sits on the site today!

It's funny that this reciept was likely made by a facsimile device. Handwritten save for probably the lines where you would fill in the date and the name. Come to think of it this receipt had to have been produced in 1994 because the year was already written on the original sheet and copied.

Quite a throwback!

What if I was a graduation speaker?

The school year is over and the class of 2014 - wherever they went to school - has since graduated. Many have listened to the messages of their commencement speaker. I've always imagined myself as a commencement speaker, but what would I say.

My last semester at Morehouse College I took a public speaking course  and our last assignment was the formal speech. It was in fact written with myself in mind, that is what if someone gave the speech that I gave in class to students such as myself back then.

Well who knows, but a pep-talk is never a bad thing. Indeed that was the basic title of my speech. At this point I'm too lazy to pull it out of my files and recite it for you. What can be done is that the rough speech is about me encouraging students to seek help when possible as to figure out what you can do with your lives. It's something that I've been entirely too proud to do myself too often.

When it was time to graduate high school I wasn't sure what was next. College was the next logical step but I had little idea and wasn't seeking much information on that path. My interest even before graduating 8th grade at Bennett School was the military, however, my parents didn't encourage that path due to my good grades at Harlan High School.

The problem was I was never entirely confident in those grades because I achieved them too easily back then. I was never an honor roll student in elementary school and while fortunes do change if you weren't already a student who often achieved high marks how does one overnight get high marks at the next stage of their educational careers?

All the same, the message to students is always consider the future. Don't freak out, and always remember there are people out there who will help you along the way. The key is to reach out to them if you need a nudge in the right direction. That was a message I figured out late, but no matter where you are in life you will need help along the way.

BTW - Published at exactly 10 AM on June 24th, 2014. According to these graduation tickets the exact 20th anniversary of my 8th grade graduation.

Found my old 8th Grade graduation tickets

I'm so ecstatic right now! I found my two spare tickets from my 8th Grade graduation which was held at the Bennett School auditorium. Alas I have no other photos from this event, but I was glad to have finally completed my time at Bennett-Shedd. It was time for me to get out of there and it was time for the next great unknown - Harlan High School.

Hopefully I have some other memories around the house of that day. Mainly the program for the exercises, but at this point I'd have to search far & wide for it. Hopefully it will be found because I barely remember most of it.

At the same time I still have my tassel, kente scarf, even a medal that we wore during our exercises. That medal is a treasured possession of mine that fell apart in recent years, but had gotten repaired. The ribbon was red, black, and green like the "Black liberation flag". It's probably the only medal I will ever get!

And yes, this means that my 8th Grade graduation took place 20 years ago! That means I have just shown my age, sheesh!

Anyway, in between keynote speakers and other formalities we had to perform songs. One written specifically for our graduation and based on a popular song. And of course the Bennett School hymm. I just need to figure out why our teachers would torture us like that. LOL!

I think our keynote speaker was Bill Campbell who a major figure at WLS-TV channel 7 - our local ABC affiliate. Beyond some of those minor details I no longer remember our commencement. Although surely someone has some memories somewhere, yes?

Bennett School song

If you graduated from Bennett at least within the last 20 years or so if not very recently you may have sung this song. My time in elementary school well when teachers had to make copies they didn't always use a xerox copier they may have used a facsimile device that might give off a strong aroma because of the chemicals used to produce copies. The image I'm going to show you is of the song, however, some parts of it are cut off.

In the fourth line off to the side that should be halls. All other cutoff words should be easily determined.

Also when I graduated from Kindergarten there was a song for Shedd School that we sung. Not sure where to start to even find that. It was TOO long ago and long lost like my KG diploma. :(

What about the 8th graders you may want to know???

Well I wasn't in time to talk about my experience graduating from the 8th grade as I was for my experience in talking about graduation from kindergarten (kgs) yesterday. Yesterday the 8th graders had their commencment and on this day kgs have theirs both Bennett & Shedd at Bennett's auditorium.

Strangely enough my folks didn't have many pictures of the ceremonies. There was a ribbon pinning ceremony where the parents would walk onto the stage to pin a ribbon on me. Then after that the actual graduation which took place just about the last week of June the year I graduated.

In any case one of the many tassles hanging on a pin in my room included one from my 8th Grade commencement. I still have a few artifacts from that time even though I'm closing in on almost two decades since that time. As part of my grad regalia in addition to a cap and gown with an unattached tassle, there was also a kente scarf and a medal.

Not sure where my actual cap and gown is but I still have the medal and it's not particularly fancy but something I still treasure enough to get the medal itself attached to the ribbon again. The ribbon is red, black, and green and most likely to emphasize our African roots. I couldn't possess my kentae scarf because my mom would appropriate it whenever possible.

Somewhere around the house are the tickets from the graduation. I also ran across a program and my certificate. Also I do have a class picture which is really just all the portraits of not only my graduating class, but also the teachers, counselors, and administration at Bennett School.

Unfortunately if I wanted to share that I would have a tough time. The class picture is a little too large to just put on my HP scanner at home. :(

Unfortunately we had to sing at our graduation and when I rehearsed the ceremony some teachers discouraged it. My 8th grade teacher since I didn't get the step right to his satifaction said I had to march by myself when others marched in pair. Unfortunately we also had to sing some knock off songs such as "Kiss 8th Grade Goodbye" based upon the song "What I did for love". That in addition Bennett's school song.

Anyway at some point I was glad it was over and off to bigger and better things. On some level however I'm excited in more ways than one of the current crop of 8th graders.

It's graduation season at Bennett-Shedd...

Today Bennett's 8th graders had their commencement. Tommorrow - June 14th - there will be a ceremony for Bennet-Shedd's Kindergartners (KGs). It was announced at the last LSC meeting that they wanted to bring the KGs from Shedd so that they can also use Bennett's auditorium.

When I graduated from Shedd's KG program years ago, there was a ceremony held at the Shedd's auditorium/gymnasium. We used a stage or platform that could be pulled out for specially occasions such as awards ceremonies.

I unfortunately do not have many reminders of this ceremony except more than likely a cap & gown where the tassle was attached to the cap. Probably because young children tend to lose things. I have no certificate from back then and I no longer have my KG class pic. Also I recall finding a program from that day and didn't have the foresight to hold onto one of those.

There are pics that are in an album around the house with pictures of my and my family on the day of the KG ceremony. Around the time of my KG ceremony my bother graduated from Harlan High School. So there are some pictures in that album of him doing commencement at Third Baptist Church near 95th & Ashland.

Either way Shedd's auditorium/gymnasium also became the schools' lunchroom and computer lab before I moved onto Bennett School for 7th & 8th grade. For the purposes of a computer lab the school librarian - Mr. Hackenbrock - would roll the computers on trolleys in order for us to mainly play various computer games. Some of us would play a version of Prince of Persia but also Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, or even Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?

After many years of either allowing students to leave home to eat lunch or most students bringing a lunch to school with them, Shedd brought in the lunch program. Thus the gym also became a lunchroom and when there was gym classes usually on Thursdays classes would be held with folded lunchtables and platforms for assemblies off to the side. Rarely as obstacles but they were there.

Well this year KGs won't have the experience I had close to a quarter of a century ago. Can't believe it's been that long ago, but this post was allowed to go a little too long this evening. :P

Looking for artifacts from the year I graduated from Bennett School.

Been digging some items out. Even found one artifact, a receipt from my school librarian for some graduation fees. Was really looking for some graduation tickets from the year I graduated. Will look for more and then scan the results for posting onto this blog. Alas, the artifacts will show my age. :(

Bennett School class of 2008

Getting ready for their big day in a video that consists of largely still pictures.