Here’s to the class of 2012

The final echoes of Pomp and Circumstance are reverberating around the Valley this weekend as graduation season comes to a close. Mat-Su College and the area’s high schools bid farewell to the class of 2012 and countless graduates headed off to face their futures.

Graduation is a time for celebration. After 13 years of dedication and commitment, students and their families can bask in the warm glow of accomplishment, knowing they have reached a significant milestone in life.

Graduation is also a time for reflection. It invites long looks back over the landscape of memory, populated by favorite teachers and best friends, and set to the soundtrack of laughter and youthful good times.

Graduation is both an end and a beginning, as those youthful good times yield to weightier matters, like college and careers, and the responsibilities of adulthood. But a good education provides a stable foundation for all that follows it.

For that, much credit goes to schools and teachers for their part in preparing students for graduation. It is preparation that will take the class of 2012 far beyond their graduation ceremonies.

We expect much of teachers. Those expectations, and the value of the finished product, greatly exceed the level of compensation teachers receive.

Teachers are called on to respond to the needs of a changing world. In their day-to-day classroom labors, they help to shape the future by turning today’s students into tomorrow’s productive citizens. This is no easy, or small, task.

It has become all too common for teachers and schools to be criticized in broad strokes, and for the huge responsibility with which they are entrusted to be reduced to a line item on a budget. It is, perhaps, too easy to criticize education funding. It is not so easy, however, to imagine life without a quality system of education. The kind of quality education that ensures a successful outcome for students, families and communities is an investment in our future that does not come cheaply.

As they march headlong into the future, the class of 2012 will be a living testament to the value of education. It is our highest hope that they will always remember, and honor, the value of all that went into the diplomas in their possession today.

This is not to say that every grad needs to be singularly dedicated to curing cancer or ending world hunger. But an honest life, lived responsibly, with confidence in oneself and compassion for others, will bring full-value returns on all that went into the significant achievement celebrated at graduation time.

Congratulations to the class of 2012. We wish you well as you embark on this next phase of your life’s journey.