At their graduation on June 22, seniors at Princeton High School spent their final hours as classmates looking to the past and to the future, saw their principal do a little dance and heard words meant to inspire them for the journey that lies ahead.
Dressed in blue caps and gowns, the seniors made the traditional walk out of the school and onto the lawn in front of the building. In all, there were 418 newly minted graduates of a high school that U.S. News & World Report ranks as one of the best in America, but one where many students have reported being overworked and where student absenteeism has been chronic.
Princeton Public Schools Superintendent of Schools Stephen C. Cochrane, who has sought to promote student wellness and redefine what success means in a high-performing school district he has led since 2014, told graduates of the value of treating others as “significant.” He shared how his struggles as a freshman at Princeton University in the 1970s nearly led him to tell his parents in Seattle, Wash., that he wanted to come home.
But as he left a seminar, an upperclassman offered him a few words of encouragement — a “seven-second encounter” Cochrane said he has never forgotten.
“We live in a fast-paced, overly competitive world in which kindness and compassion often take a backseat to selfies, self-interest and superficial human interactions,” he said. “We live in a world in which we are chasing success as defined by grades or income, prestige or perfect performance. And yet our planet doesn’t need more perfect performances. What it needs are peacemakers, healers, restorers and risk-takers.”
The graduation ceremony took place under gray, cloudy skies, as some rain came through the area earlier, but not enough to force graduation indoors or delay its start.
In a series of speeches, student speakers sought to inspire and even humor their classmates and the crowd of family members sitting in the audience.
“Whenever you return to Princeton, scan through your senior collages and reach out to your old friends,” class President Hamza Nishtar said.
Senior Diane Li shared the lesson she learned from reading a children’s story in elementary school. The moral of the story was that “becoming an adult is realizing the world is bigger than yourself, that other people have thoughts and feelings different from your own and that they are significant,” she said.
Senior Cole Toto tried to add some humor to the moment. In his remarks, he said he was asked to talk about the future.
“As an 18-year-old boy,” he said, “I think this was a good idea seeing as I’ve barely lived enough to understand the present.”
Principal Gary R. Snyder, who last year read a poem during his commencement address, got into the act. As “Don’t Stop Believin’ ” started to play over the loudspeakers, he danced a little, or what was his best try at it.
“I can’t dance,” said Snyder, who later called up a student to beatbox for him as he read some of his speech.
He told seniors they had “lived and learned.”
“You have endured tragedies and triumphed in your success,” Snyder said. “The words, the art, the legacy of those who came before us might fade over time. We look to the next generation to pick up the brush to add color to the murals of our lives.”