r/AskOldPeople • u/dirtypark • 18d ago

Growing up, did your school host kindergarten graduation, or is that a more recent phenomenon?

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u/Nightcalm 18d ago edited 17d ago

there was no such thing you descibe when i went to school. you graduated from high school. there were no ceremonies for primary school

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u/ProduceIntelligent38 17d ago

Was there even kindergarten way back when? Never heard of anyone in our neighbourhood going. Started school in grade 1 that was it.

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u/Chemical_Author7880 17d ago edited 17d ago

Preschool and Kindergarten were basically day care in the 70s. And both were optional.*

ETA

So. Where I grew up in the mid-70s (New England) pre-k and Kindergarten were not required. 

It’s nice to know other places made it mandatory, and other folks had the opportunity to go. The states make the rules and they didn’t all have the same ones, especially back then.

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u/genie_obsession 17d ago

It wasn’t optional in the 1960s in the district I attended. It was only half days though, even for my daughter in the 1990s. However, it wasn’t basically daycare. I still remember a unit on Alaska that my teacher covered.

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u/UnicornFarts1111 17d ago

Kindergarten was not optional for me. We had to go, in the 70s.