The graduation was anything but traditional. The Class of 2011 filed onto center stage at Atlanta Symphony Hall breaking ranks to slap high fives, strum air guitars, duel with light sabers and dance the tango. The ceremonial "Pomp and Circumstance" was ditched for a bass-thumping, easy-flowing Southern hip hop hit.
After all, The Paideia School is big on individuality, not tradition. Students are encouraged to march to the beat of a different drummer, even at graduation.
Across metro Atlanta, as thousands of high school students graduate this weekend, some will do it in non-traditional fashion like Paideia. Without caps or gowns. Without valedictorians or salutatorians. Without droning speakers or classical marches to trudge to. They make graduation about the identity of the school and its students, not the ritual.
"In a lot of ways, graduation sort of reminded me of the experience I had at Paideia -- it's unique," said senior Julia Boyd, who bought a pink sequins graduation cap from Party City for the occasion. "They don't focus on one valedictorian, as a lot of schools do. Everyone is important."
Headmaster Paul Bianchi writes a profile of each student that he reads before handing them a diploma. The ceremony lasted nearly four hours.
Metro Atlanta schools bucking graduation trends pick the rituals that suit them.
At The Lovett School in Atlanta, it is the faculty that dons graduation robes, not students.
At Atlanta Girls’ School, seniors wear white dresses and carry bouquets. Each girl records a message to friends and family that plays as she walks on stage. No valedictorian is named. The speaker is voted on democratically. This year the vote went to Elizabeth Barsalou, a classical singer heading to Georgia Tech. At graduation, she ended her speech belting out a lyric from a Korean pop tune by 2NE1.
“Because the classes are really small, our graduations are very personal,” she said. “They are graceful and elegant. Our speeches are picked because other people like them rather than just because someone had the highest GPA.”
Barsalou learned Thursday, nearly two weeks after graduation, that she was technically the valedictorian, too. The school refrains from focusing on any one student at graduation.
"We seek for each girl to obtain her own definition of excellence," says Pinney Allen, head of Atlanta Girls' School.
Mill Springs Academy of Alpharetta doesn’t follow full tradition either. A valedictorian is chosen, but he or she isn’t necessarily the graduation speaker.
“We had six speakers this year,” said Robert Moore, headmaster of the school serving students with disabilities. “They are students who talk about their experience." Having politicians as headliners before didn't go over as well. “They came with the misconception that [the audience] actually wanted to hear what they had to say.”
Paideia's graduation is perhaps, the most unusual. Last year, the school had a ping-pong demonstration because one student was ranked nationally in table tennis.
The ritual of a non-traditional graduation at Paideia began about 40 years ago.
Bianchi, a Harvard University grad, had a novel approach to education that focused on developing all facets of a student. He made Paideia intentionally different. The school took its time choosing a mascot and spirit colors, for example, because the focus was on teaching. Eventually, the school's collegial atmosphere, attracted students who were gifted in theater, music, sports and also got straight A's.
So when it came to graduation, Bianchi wanted to be original. “We weren't going to jump on the bandwagon just because there was a parade in town.”
Graduation became like a talent show. Bianchi came up with the idea of also writing and reading a profile about students to fill time when the school had fewer kids. The tradition stuck, even as the graduating class grew to more than 90 students like the Class of 2011.
Last week at graduation, a student played jazz piano, dancers leaped in bare feet and speakers kept the audience laughing.
Said Boyd to her class: "For me, going to Paideia was a chance to completely reinvent myself. With no uniform, the possibilities of what I could wear were endless. I spent literally days planning outfits, fearful that I had spent so much time in tartan plaid that my sense of style was permanently impaired. I could dye my hair unnatural colors! ... I could become anyone I wanted to."
Senior Ross Hegtvedt shared how Paideia gave him the academic freedom to realize his “awesomeness.”
“I did not reach the highest level of awesomeness until I wrote the speech,” he said. Or made his grand entrance to the Grits' "Ooh-Aah” with a classmate.
“There is almost an internal competition to see who can have the coolest one,” Hegtvedt admitted. “We faked out a high five and spun around, made our fingers into guns, shot the audience, shot each other and began to krump.”
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