The teachers who berated those students were right about this. I have noticed that most of the younger workers in my company seem to work in a state of constant distraction with all the stupid electronic devices they use — and it really shows in the poor quality of their work.
You are probably correct here, my feeling sitting there was that a baccalaureate was not the place for this. The education establishment had had 18 years with these kids, captive in their classrooms, these particular two having had at least four with this class, to teach, preach, and mold behavior. A graduation is an achievement. A milestone. Class should have been over. My daughter and her (conservative) friends who do not walk into poles while viewing cell phones admittedly are in the minority.
Just a modicum of praise for their achievement, perhaps just a little good finding from the podium may have placated me. I felt it was an acknowledgement by the teachers that they had failed, and this was just one last chance to grandstand for the parents, with the message “well, we tried”. Seemed more like an advertisement for the school faculty, at the expense of students, not all of whom needed this particular sermon.
I didn’t mention it, but the audience was decidedly ethnically mixed, and the day also included a poem from a black student, message about the suffering of blacks “still” (the name of the poem) having not gone away. The only message of the day that wasn’t on topic.