He is one of ten upperclassmen who will show off their talent (he's playing guitar), looks (in formal wear and school spirit items) and skills in Hip-Hop and Ballroom Dancing. It's a fundraiser for his senior class's end-of-year festivities and proceeds will be donated to the LM Scholarship Fund and the ABC House in Ardmore, Pa., as well. It should be a blast!
But beyond that, I think it's great that the contestants, most of whom are Varsity athletes as well as being good students, had the self-confidence to audition to compete in this pageant. For Seniors, graduating from high school means leaving a comfort zone. After twelve years of attending school s full of friends and familiar faces, the seniors will soon be heading to totally new places, be it college or a workplace. And with those new worlds comes a chance for them to re-invent themselves. It's a scary, yet exciting, prospect.
I see this pageant as a small step toward those big upcoming transitions. It's one thing to run out on a football field, but a totally different thing to strut your stuff down a runway. Ballroom dancing?!? Talk about trying something new for these teens! Sure, this will be in front of a friendly crowd of friends and family members, but it's still a stretch. And I hope no matter who wins, it will be a confidence-builder for all of these young men.
As parents of seniors, we've spent the past 17 to 18 years trying to give and teach our sons and daughters so much. And in less than six months, we'll be sending them out on their own, with our fingers crossed that at least some of those lessons have stuck and the decisions they make are good ones. Personally, I'm hoping one of the things Jason has learned is self-confidence. Why not play guitar or strut down a runway, even though you're best-known as being a football player? The years after high-school are when young adults try all sorts of new things (not all the things we parents really want to know about) and start to define who they are - beyond "The Jock" or the "The Musician" or "The Computer Nerd."
They may trip on the runway of life as they begin to make their way on their own, but I hope all of the members of the Class of 2011 have the confidence to strut their stuff and try new things. Academics are important, but growing in self-identity may be the most important lesson they learn in the years to come.
For ticket information on the Mr. Lower Merion pageant on March 9, 2011, at 7:00 p.m. in the Lower Merion High School Auditorium: https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dHB1V0hEWDhVcXFlOTdXOEJROGk1RGc6MQ
Transitioning from high school to college academics: http://www.collegeview.com/articles/CV/campuslife/transitioning.html
How is High School different from college: http://smu.edu/alec/transition.asp
Websites on preparing for life in college: http://www.quintcareers.com/college_life.html
Read more Parenting Perspective blogs by visiting the Parenting Channel on 6abc.com.
