The following is the text of my Principal’s Address to the High School Graduates of 2015.

To receive a high school diploma in this province, a student must complete a minimum of 30 credits and meet the graduation requirements in one of the four recognized programs. That means the student must have successfully completed a certain number of credits in English, Math, History and so on.

That’s it.  That is the basis on which a high school diploma is awarded.

For various and largely historical reasons, our society has structured the educational system in such a way that one is expected to start school at a certain age, develop abilities to read, to write, to understand Mathematics and have some knowledge of Geography and History and various other subjects. One generally completes the public education program within a prescribed number of years, at the conclusion of which a high school diploma is presented.

So what does it mean to have a high school diploma?  Does it mean that the recipient would be a good employee? No, not necessarily.  Does it mean that the person is likely to be successful in post-secondary study? No, it is no guarantee of that.  Does it mean that he or she is dependable, hard-working, responsible, or possesses the characteristics of a good and compassionate friend? No, it doesn’t directly mean any of those things.

Of course, the habits and personal attributes that help a person successfully navigate through high school may very well transfer over into helping achieve success in whatever the next stage of life might bring. That much is true.

But make no mistake; a high school diploma, by our own Department of Education’s definition, simply represents that the recipient has demonstrated knowledge of particular learning outcomes, and earned the prescribed number of credits.

That’s all.

The reality however is that the educational process is a lot messier, and far richer, than that.

Later in this event, we will be distributing high school diplomas. That has traditionally been the high point of our graduation event. Like an exclamation point at the end of a sentence, it punctuates the graduation ceremony with a crescendo like ending. Understand however that the diplomas we hand out are really not the focus of this event. I say that because high school graduation is less about the paper and more about the person.

When guests walked into this banquet hall today, they may have noticed the names and pictures of each individual graduate posted on the wall. The name of every student is prominently listed in the graduation program. When the Valedictory address is given later in the program, I suspect it will reference the unique characteristics of each student, and how those people enriched the social fabric of the school.

Therein lies the shortcoming of high school diplomas. They fail to tell the stories of how they were achieved. It is those stories and each person’s experience that brought them to this point that is really the focus of this celebration.

In this province, high school diplomas are created and distributed by the Department of Education, and each school in turn prepares them for their graduates. This gives us a little bit of control over how they look, and I want you to know that I consciously chose to have them prepared so that the item in the largest font – the one thing that stands out above everything else – is not my signature, not the name of the province, and not the name of the school. It is not even the words “high school diploma”.  It is the name of the graduate.

Your name is the most import thing on the diploma, and your individual stories are what we are celebrating here today.  That is what graduation is all about.

It’s not about the paper.

It’s about you.