Shouldn't there be a place for kids' playfulness?

Thirty years ago, I hid a kazoo in my hand as I entered the auditorium where my graduation was to be held.

I wasn't alone; a number of us carried the forbidden devices. And when the signal came, we used them briefly.

The audience, including my own parents, laughed. So did the officials, although they were clearly caught off guard. It was a brief and lighthearted disruption of the oh-so-solemn pomp and circumstance that is graduation.

No one was injured, and if it made anyone mad, I never heard about it. We had our few minutes of silliness in what was supposed, after all, to be a celebration of us. We'd made it. Perhaps most important, I got to take my diploma home with me that night.

Justin Denney didn't fare so well when he walked across the stage to claim his diploma this spring from Bonny Eagle High School. When his name was called, he bowed. Then — gasp — he blew a kiss to his mom.

Next up was a public dressing down by the superintendent for his inappropriate behavior, before he was summarily sent back to his seat, empty-handed, according to the many news outlets that picked up the story.

One headline quipped that Denney "kissed his diploma goodbye — literally."

A school district spokeswoman has said the young man will get his diploma at some point. I'm thinking the superintendent should have handed it to him then and moved on. In the end, I'd argue, she became the disruption that marred the ceremony as effectively as a water balloon thrown into the crowd. Talk about dampening spirits.

I wasn't there, and I don't know the history of pranks that may have marred previous graduation ceremonies at this Maine school. Judging — and misjudging — is easy from far away. And the kid had signed a pledge not to "misbehave."

But we've sure seen a lot of stories in the past few years of serious consequences for very minor infractions when it comes to teens. In situations where more than one teen might appear, adults often seem determined to strip away individuality and enforce conformity, whether it serves a purpose or not.

Seems to me that if you want to take the joy of learning out of learning, you start by going after playfulness. From the time kids are tiny, yell at them to "sit on their pockets" and turn their "voices off." Worry more about whether they fold their arms in exactly the same way as they march through halls than you do about whether they're approaching a test with adequate nutrition or if they're developing the capacity to care about others.