Everyone dresses up, the students give a speech and the class teacher, much like a homeroom teacher, awards each student with a graduation ribbon and shares a funny or sentimental story about the student as she pins it to their costume. After the ribbon ceremony, students and teachers play games and eat, sometimes even until midnight.
This year, I have been to two ribbon ceremonies, for classes A and C, whose themes were ancient civilazitions and horror, respectively. The first event, I didn't dress up because I thought it was just for the students. It turned out that I was the only person not in a costume! So for the second event, I went all out. Next week, I will go to class B's ribbon evening, which will be a retro night.
The Czech Republic, like many countries around the world, values the transition from student to adult and has created this ceremony to bring the students and teachers closer together before they set foot into the world and begin their careers or college education. Even though the photos might look like all fun and games, the speeches were very sentimental.
This tradition isn't connected to the environment so much as to the people. However, people anywhere in the world could celebrate graduation with something like the ribbon ceremonies of the Czech Republic, if they wanted to! It seems like a fantastic way for students to connect and celebrate with the teachers who have mentored them through high school.
