Bon Voyage

It's that time of year: promotional matriculation commencement time. Graduating from this plane of existence to that, educationally speaking, is the order of the day. At our school we will move another group of fifth graders down the line to make room for another crop of kindergarteners. Our current kindergarteners will have their day right after them. This leaves the first, second, third and fourth graders to settle for their in-class parties and the hearty handshakes they will receive from their classroom teachers as they load out the contents of their overstuffed desks.
Then there's this group of ninety-some high school students traveling from New York to Atlanta who were thrown off a flight, along with their chaperones, after the pilot and crew lost patience with some kids who wouldn't sit down and put away their cellphones. This was a group of seniors on their way to a three-day rafting trip and excursion to Six Flags in Atlanta to celebrate their graduation. There's a lot of finger pointing going on from both sides. Each maintains that the other side was unreasonable. The kids were unwilling to cooperate, so they had to be removed. Of course, once they left the plane, it was mostly empty. The grads were then split up and placed on a number of different flights which caused them to be delayed as much as twelve hours from their original arrival time. Some students posted pictures and video of their journey on social media sites. At least one sent a barrage of Twitter messages to media organizations, complaining that the way they were being treated was a "scandal."
To these young men and women who did make the trip via jet flight, I can only say, "Welcome to the real world. Good luck."