Senior Projects

My wife and I went over to the high school this evening to see our senior's project and the senior slide show. Evidently every senior is required to complete a project in order to graduate, and this evening is when they present their work to the public. It's kind of like a science fair. They each get a half of a folding table to put up their display board and whatever else they wanted to show. Some of them were pretty straight forward, some were a little edgy (for me), but most of all, we had a couple of hundred seniors in their graduation gowns standing around being bored waiting for the judges.

I did talk to one young woman about her project which was about personality traits and poverty. She had interviewed a bunch of kids at one of the local elementary schools and the answers she elicited she was able to make some generalizations. She did not have enough information to draw any conclusions about causation. So I'm thinking what we have here is a budding psychologist, but no, she wants to become a flight attendant. She tells me she likes serving other people and likes being told what to do.

This brought to mind my father who didn't really want much and I think even prided himself on being able to get by on very little, but who was happiest when he was able to do something for someone else. It's nice to be needed. I look at myself, and I see some of the same traits. I don't think I would have admitted to anything of the sort when I was younger. Back then it was all about what I wanted, or least I thought it was. Curious business, this.

All these displays filled both gymnasiums and the music room, but unless you knew about the music room, you would be hard pressed to find it. There were some art projects on display down one vacant hall way. I only knew about it because that's where my son's project was two years ago.

Then we had the slide show in the auditorium. Pictures of the seniors when they were babies, little kids, growing up, in high school. For some reason when they started the show, they brought up the lights over the audience, which I found really annoying. I almost shouted "lights", but I would have gotten grief from my wife, and I don't know if it would have done any good. This is a difference I have noticed between my wife and I. When I am watching television, I want the room to be completely dark. It doesn't matter to my wife, she can watch the tube with all the lights in the room turned on and it doesn't bother her. It is something else I do not understand.

Almost all of the pictures were of white kids. The majority of the students are white, but there is a sizeable contingent of Mexicans (Latinos?). There were a few photos of Latino girls, but I did not see a single picture of a Latino boy.

Update November 2015. Replaced missing picture.