The Value of Yearbook Dedication

I am sitting here with a brain so full that I'm not sure I can make coherent sentences.  This is one of the reasons why I blog.  It helps me sort out my own thoughts.  That said, if this seems a little rambling, there might be a good reason for that.

When I became the yearbook advisor for my school twelve years ago, a different teacher had been doing it every year.  That gave me a lot of freedom because there were no long held traditions that I couldn't break from.  I decided that if I was going to do this for multiple years, I wanted to establish some because traditions unite people.  One of the traditions I decided to start was to dedicate the yearbook to someone who had made a difference in our school and the lives of our students.  It had only been done once before, and I believed it was a great way for our students to see us honor each other for dedication and hard work.

That year, we dedicated it to our head of maintenance, Mr. Dale.  The book was presented to him and dedication read at a faculty meeting.  After that, I asked if we could dedicate them in front of the whole school so that our students could not only see us honoring hard work, but they could celebrate it as well.  Since then, our students have cheered for office staff, an art teacher, janitors, a high school science teacher, a fourth-grade teacher, an administrator, members of our IT department, a PE teacher, and a special needs teacher.

Why is this important?  There are probably many reasons, but I'll speak to the ones that matter most to me.

1.  We Honor Work
Our culture spends a lot of time honoring people for beauty, musical talent, and athletic talent.  We have people who are famous for being famous without actually doing anything and people who are famous because their parents are famous.  We have an unhealthy obsession with people who "speak their minds" whether or not they have anything to say.  This yearbook dedication shows that we honor people who work hard at the thing God has called them to do.

2.  We Unite in Honor
One of my favorite parts of the day is the reading of the first paragraph of the dedication.  Students try to figure out who we are reading about before the last sentence when we say the name.  Then, there is a roar into the room when that person makes their way to the front, we let their family into the room, and the entire school cheers and stomps the bleachers and celebrates.  It is a moment when our school is unified.  This year, our school has outgrown the space we have traditionally used to have our dedication.  We would violate fire code if we tried to put our student body all in that place, so we are having to split into two events.  I'm a little bummed about it, but I can't insist that we break the law.  I'll just miss hearing everyone all together in this moment.

3.  We Shower A Person With Love
Every year, the staff chooses the person we do because we love them.  That love is obviously already there, but it is not often expressed on a daily basis.  As James Taylor advised us, you should "Shower the people you love with love.  Show them the way that you feel.  Things are gonna be much better if you only will."  We do.  We usually make them cry.  We invite their families.  We explain why we love them in detail.

4.  We Show A Real Person
I don't know if you ever thought about the life of your teachers outside of the classroom, but I know I didn't when I was a kid.  They were a teacher, not a person.  In the process of our dedication research, we find out who this person was before they came to our school.  Some of our people have had really interesting jobs.  We tell the story of how they met their spouse if we can find it.  We share funny or touching stories.  I want our students to know that their teachers are human beings with childhoods and adolescent embarassments, and love stories, and hobbies, and all those things other humans have.

As long as I am the yearbook advisor, this will be an important part of our yearbook.  That's why it's right up front, just after the title page.