Less Pomp, More Circumstance: Words for the Class of 2025

The streets are no longer alive with the sound of clanging late bells and belching yellow buses, which can only mean one thing: School’s out for summer.

Young people get to throw off the itchy cloak of prescribed education for ten to 12 weeks (or four to six if they’re forced to participate in the travesty of year-round school) of free, unstructured time that they will waste scrolling on their phones and sleeping until noon.

Many will attend graduation ceremonies and celebrations this week, then matriculate on to the next phase of their lives, be it college, work, or a lucrative Twitch streaming career playing video games on their parents’ couch.

No one looks good in these, that’s why we throw them

Times have transformed so much since I threw my own mortarboard cap off my four-inch claw bangs sprayed into place with half can of Aquanet, and I don’t feel I have much to offer these new grads in the way of guidance. Honestly, I just became comfortable calling myself an adult yesterday, and besides, no one will ever come up with better advice than the “Wear sunscreen” speech written by Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Mary Schmich. (No, contrary to the internet, it was not penned by Kurt Vonnegut.)

I don’t have any problem presenting myself as a cautionary tale, or perhaps a cautiously fortunate one. I have, after all, been a working writer for 30 years, though as I imparted recently to SCAD professor and former Rolling Stone editor Tish Hamilton and her SCAD Freelance Writing class, if you think I’m bragging, I’d love to take you for a ride in my 1997 Mercedes with the feeble AC and broken taillight. (Nothing more intimidating than explaining to a room full of highly talented MFA candidates how I chose to perfect my latte-making skills instead of going to graduate school.)

I’m far more comfortable in the middle and high school realms, where my gray streaks automatically associate me with wisdom even if I have absolutely no idea what’s going on. Case and point, I spent a few Saturdays ago as a judge at the Gray's Reef 2025 Southeast Regional MATE ROV Competition, sort of an engineering nerd Olympics where smarties design robots to maneuver underwater and solve real world pollution problems. (Good news/bad news: These kids will never be out of a job.)

Applied physics gives me hives, but fortunately my task was to evaluate the marketing presentations of each team according to a specific rubric. I let everyone know I was official by wielding a clipboard; some of the other judges had to wear full scuba gear. Anyway, it didn’t take a genius to see that the WhaleTech Robotics team out of North Paulding High in Dallas, Georgia had the leading edge—they’re the reigning national champions and will go on to defend their title later this year with their futuristic claw-thruster.

Thank you very much, Mr. Roboto

In spite of mixing up my PVC with my PFAS, I had the authority to give out some sad scores to a few local teams for not following the basic directions of the assignment. The mistakes were as simple as not adding their school to their poster, which I bemoaned while eating donuts with the other nerds in the break room. Why make poor decisions when the successful path is laid out plainly?

“That’s what experience is for,” nodded SCAD design student Nico Tamez, who was volunteering for the event with SCAD Serv.

“Sometimes you just have to learn for yourself.”

Sage advice. As someone who has continued to screw up long into adulthood, I can vouch that my own foolishness and forgetfulness have been my greatest teachers. But making mistakes and navelgazing for an entire afternoon can often be useful in the long run, and some educators believe such space can help develop character, empathy and creativity.

In fact, Savannah superstar and 2024 Georgia History Teacher of the Year Amanda Fanelli made that the focus of her dynamic TEDx Savannah talk last week. This energetic mentor is calling for nothing less than the complete reformation of middle school—when kids are at their most vulnerable socially and soulfully—to give more time to explore and play instead of hammering hormone-addled brains with complex assignments and standardized tests.

“Expecting kids to perform at high school levels” isn’t doing them any favors, she warned from the stage, ending with a relatable “no cap, bruh.”

Our society need more innovative experiences like the multiyear, multidisciplinary marine science program at Oglethorpe Middle School, which brings students out of the classroom to teach biology and history in a local context as well as help burn off that babbling hyper energy unique to 12-14 year olds.

For the last three years, local waterways native and veteran public school teacher Ben Wells has led his charges through marshes and media sources to help them understand the 5000-year saga of oystering aquaculture on the Georgia coast. Their explorations have culminated in an impressive collation of interviews, scientific research, photos and videos, far more thorough and interesting than any term paper.

However, when it came to presenting their findings for final approval, it became clear to their teacher that some of them had resorted to plagiarism. More specifically, plagiarizing me.

Ben contacted me a couple of months ago to tell me that a 2019 Savannah magazine article I’d written about generational oyster farmer Earnest McIntosh kept popping up in his students' writing—especially, the first sentence, which I must admit, is pretty great.

Of course, I was horrified, and admittedly, kinda stoked. I mean, if middle schoolers think you’re dope, what other approval do you need?

But obviously, they needed to be set straight.

“I do not want them moving on to high school thinking that this behavior is OK,” wrote Ben, lamenting that his own reprimands had fallen on deaf ears. “Any insight from you that I could share with these young folks would be greatly appreciated. I think it would be meaningful to show them that there is actually a human behind the name on the article.”

So for the kids of OMS Room 267, I found myself writing a 2025 graduation missive after all. It’s not as salient or memorable as “Wear sunscreen,” but maybe it’ll help meld a few minds.

To Mr. Wells' 8th Graders ~

Congratulations on graduating from middle school! Well, almost. You've still got time to mess it up.