Tag Archives: rites of passage

High School Senior Pranks

Main Piece

My informant explains that her old high school has an age-old rival high school in the same city. She remembers that the graduating seniors of every year would perform a prank on the rival school, and the rival school would do the same. These pranks were usually harmless, but sometimes costly to recover from. She remembers that in her senior year of high school, a few seniors from her school dyed the rival school’s pool purple, which was her school’s colors. The rival school, looking for revenge, threw two queen-sized mattresses in her school’s pool, which absorbed a large amount of water, making it impossible to lift them out of the pool without a crane. She laughed as she recounted these memories to me.

Background

My informant is a college student studying Business. She was school spirited in high school and claims to have always participated in senior activities with her classmates. She explains that nobody she asked could remember how the rivalry between the two high schools started. However, according to my informant, it is not hard to draw conclusions. Both schools were located in the same small suburb of Los Angeles, ranked academically high, and held strong sports teams. She concludes that these factors may have caused, in her own words, this “friendly, but not-so-friendly” rivalry between the two high schools. She explains that in addition to the senior pranks, there would be one school day out of the entire academic year dedicated to pep rallies and parties to encourage the football team to beat the rival school later that day. She explains that these schools were rivals in every way, but her favorite part of the rivalry was the senior pranks.

Context

These senior pranks are performed by high school seniors. Faculty members knew about the pranks and were aware of the plans for the pranks, but never interfered with them unless they saw a safety issue or a health hazard that could possibly result from the pranks. Usually, these pranks were performed later in the year, when most seniors suffered from “senioritis” and would rather organize pranks than do any more schoolwork. 

My Thoughts

I attended the same high school as my informant, and can attest to the large-scale rivalry between these two high schools. The pranks that the seniors performed were generally creative and inventive, but the pranks were not as important as the act of organizing these pranks. Students came together after school to meticulously plan their pranks to perfection. This goes to show that the prank itself was not important. The value of this tradition came from the act of coming together. 

High school seniors are in a liminal period. They are transitioning from their identity as a student to their identity as an adult, whether they enter the workforce or go off to college. Senior pranks are a form of rite of passage. According to French ethnographer Arnold van Gennep, practical jokes and pranks such as senior pranks are performed during these liminal times to ease the tensions and anxieties that come with the transition. Thus, we can conclude that senior pranks were a way to smoothen the transition from student to adult for high school seniors. 

Shellback, Golden Dragon, Golden Shellback

This is folk speech that is found in the maritime world. They are names that are given under various circumstances when sailing around the world. A shellback is a name given to someone who crosses the Equator for the first time while aboard a ship. A golden dragon is someone who crosses the dateline. The dateline is the imaginary line that runs North-South through the Pacific Ocean, on the other side of the globe as the prime meridian. Finally, a golden shellback is someone who crosses where the international date line meets the equator for the first time. These names are given to sailors to recognize their global travels. Sometimes, this is accompanied by hazing if it is the first time the sailors have received this name, such as treading water in the ocean. The informant has not crossed any of these lines by ship but was involved in the sailing community growing up and associated with people that had done this.

The informant learned about this folk speech from his uncle when he was growing up. They remember it because they had always been interested in making these achievements and traveling the world by ship. The informant always looked up to people that had done this because he thought they were hardy and real seamen/adventurers. There are other terms used for some of these accomplishments, such as a son of Neptune. There are names for people who have done none of these, like tadpoles, as well.

It is certainly an achievement to have accomplished this, but the navy and other similar organizations are notorious for hazing and rites of passage, being secluded on a boat with just other sailors. It is interesting to think about in comparison to other rites of passage within different branches of the military. Although this is a general sea term overall, it is often used frequently in navies across the globe.

Graduation at Phillips Academy Andover

Informant: “At Andover, graduation is a big thing because, so tradition-wise it always, you lead the gradu—blue key heads, which I’ll explain in a sec, lead and, they lead and, uh, end the graduation procession and, uh, the graduation procession follows bagpipers so we have a full band of bagpipers and this is apparently like school tradition since 1778 that a full team of Scottish bagpipers starts off graduation and I hated it. And then we all—“

Lavelle: Did they wear kilts?

Informant: “What? Yeah, they were wearing full Scottish dress and they played the bagpipes. And so then we follow them and then, um, blue key heads, so then, oh and then for ours– so we go throughout the whole graduation ceremony and then what happens is our graduation, instead of people being called up, we all stand in a circle. So the entire grade, and we have like 330 people, you have 330 people standing in a circle and when they call out your name for your diploma, your diploma’s handed down the circle. So it’s passed down through each of your friends’ hands until it reaches you. Um, which was really cool because  a) it went really fast because you didn’t have to wait for people to go by, so that was great, it went really quickly. Second, and then it was cool because, like, all your friends were passing it to you and then, like, everyone could celebrate as you got your diploma and you were all standing in this circle. And then when you all got your diploma you all stood in the circle for, like, a couple minutes and, like, appreciated that you were standing with your class for the last time. Um, and then the blue key heads run in the middle and learn– er, lead everybody in a round of, like, school cheers and then we break the circle.”

 

My informant was a graduate of Phillips Academy Andover with the class of 2011. This is an important memory for my informant as she greatly enjoyed her high school experience and looks back on her years at Andover fondly.

High school graduation is an important rite of passage for all adolescents and every high school has its own traditions that its students enjoy. High school graduation is often the last time students will be together with their class and can be a bittersweet experience. This is just one example of a unique graduation ceremony.

For more information about Andover graduation:

http://www.andover.edu/StudentLife/Commencement/Pages/default.aspx

Junior Ring Ceremony

My informant described a yearly ceremony at her high school, Notre Dame Academy, Junior Ring Ceremony. This ceremony takes place at the end of the fall semester each year. This is when junior receive their class rings. Students do not have to purchase a traditional class ring, any ring is fine. Generally, students try to get rings with stones in their class color (red, blue, purple, or green). This ceremony is really only for juniors and their families. It’s at night and the girls are required to dress up and look nice. It consists of some short speeches from classmates and faculty, a song sung by the class, and the presentation of the rings. After the rings are given out, girls are supposed to get their rings turned 100 plus the year of your graduation times, so if you graduated in 2011, you needed to get your ring turned 111 times. Each time someone turns a ring, they’re asked to make a wish for the girl. The last turn is supposed to be saved for someone special, probably someone the student admires or who has been influential in her life.

My informant graduated in 2011 from Notre Dame Academy Girl’s High School in West Los Angeles, California. She currently attends UCLA in Westwood, California. Notre Dame Academy, often called NDA, is a Catholic, all girls school with many traditions the students participate in annually. My informant told me about one that every girl looks forward to as the ring ceremony is a reminder that senior year is approaching quickly. This ring ceremony seems rather unique to NDA, but I have heard of some other high schools have formal presentations of class rings.

Farrier Lore: Laying down the hammer

Informant : “Horseshoe-ers when you lay your hammer down for the last time the only thing you have to look forward to is dying”

 

The informant is a kind, older, “cowboy” who has been working with horses and farm animals for his entire life. He is a Certified Journeyman Farrier (the highest level of certification by the American Farrier’s Association) and is very well respected in the farrier and greater equine community. He was born in Wichita, Kansas to a family that has been farmers for generations. In fact, the informant said that some of his family is still farming in “places like Oklahoma.” He shod his first horse when he was 13, and so he has been shoeing horses for about 51 years. * To “shoe” or  shod a horse is to put horse shoes on the horse’s hooves. Horses need to be shod about once every six weeks, so quality farriers are highly sought after in the equine community. A farrier is a very specialized and difficult profession because if a horse is shod improperly the horse could become crippled.* The informant learned of this lore from a fellow farrier during his many years in the trade.

When asked what the informant thought of the saying, he stated “…layin the hammer down. I used to think it was funny, but now, now I’m startin’ to believe it.” This particular lore is very relevant to the informant because he is “reaching that time when I’ll have to put my hammer down.” This saying indicates a right of passage. When the older and experienced farrier is going to retire, he will “lay his hammer down for the last time.”

The informant is very passionate about his profession and really enjoys working with horses, so I find that this is a somewhat depressing saying. Furthermore, having been born and raised in a society that avoids death and treats death as a taboo topic such a statement is disconcerting. We do not like imagining those we know passing away or acknowledging that they might.