High School Graduation- Ottawa

I had the pleasure of attending a graduation ceremony at Ottawa's Adult High school recently. It was a wonderful experience. All of the other graduation that I have attended have been in the Niagara Region where there is very little immigration so I was able to get a glimpse of Canada's future in a way I never could have from my home area. Of the 320 graduates, the vast majority were immigrants to Canada reaching out for the good life that they believed to exist here. There were very few native born Canadians and fewer white students. There were many Somalians, people from Arab nations and people from the far east. The teachers were clearly committed to seeing all of their student flourish.
The ceremony itself was vibrant and well choreographed. A blind singer and another student sang O Canada acapella and later sang another duet. There were two Valedictorians. One was an English speaking student and the other an ESL student. The stories of overcoming bad choices, life upheavals and of working hard to achieve their accomplishments were interesting to listen to and think about. The young man had been a criminal. I learned later that he has several children by different women and in class had never been hesitant to express misoginistic points of view. He had nothing but praise for the teachers and appeared to take responsibility for his drug dealing past. The young woman had an education in her native country and appeared to feel that it was unjust that she had to repeat her education here to get ahead. She was working to support a husband who was also in school, two children and going to school full time.  She was the receipient of several awards.

One of the best things that we can do to understand our own country is to experience it in other areas. We begin to see the challenges that are quite real for others and the stresses upon the systems that we take for granted.