<p>So many of these awards have political baggage attached - they often go to the extroverted kids who know how to chat with the teacher rather than the quiet introvert who doesn’t like jumping into class discussion or they go to the kid of the parent who has worked really hard for the PTA or…</p>
<p>At the same time, one of my kids quit sports after realizing that everyone got the same trophy, no matter what they did - or didn’t do - during the season.</p>
<p>I think this wouldn’t have generated such heated outrage if the Principal didn’t mention how having an honors night would “devastate” students who didn’t make the mark despite working hard. </p>
<p>That remark along with some of the comments where some asked “What about students who worked hard and yet, fell short or got a C” reminds me of loopy educational activists and politicians who subscribe too much to the “everyone must get an award or it’s unfair” school of thought.</p>
<p>And I say that as someone who graduated in the bottom half of my HS graduating class and saw much more accomplished classmates receive awards for Westinghouse, Debate, Math competitions, Val/Sal, etc. Only difference was that I understood very well it wasn’t because my HS “wasn’t fair”. Instead, it was because I didn’t do what needed to be done to be accomplished as they were and the onus was completely on me. Not the school and certainly not those more accomplished classmates…including many friends.</p>
<p>My favorite awards are the class superlative awards handed out by the students themselves. In my D’s grade, as the sheets were passed out to vote for “class” fill-in-the-blank, my D was told not to bother because the student council was going to change the results. Sure enough many on the student council ended up winning awards like “nicest” or “most likely to succeed.” Sure they had a nice spread in the yearbook, but everyone knows that the truly “nicest” one never wins. </p>
<p>Awards can be very subjective. Sometimes my kids won pretty impressive awards, and sometimes they did not. Sometimes everyone in the whole grade got the same award. Sometimes it seemed fair and sometimes it made absolutely no sense. Sometimes they even lost friends over awards. </p>
<p>True, awards can be very motivating but they are extrinsic measures of success. Eventually the awards are shoved in a box or pushed to the back of the shelf collecting dust.The only way to truly measure success is intrinsically - look within and define what success means for you and go for it.</p>
<p>I, for one, hated the awards nights at our high school. They were too long for one thing. In addition, after 9th grade it was really not essential to go and see the same very small group of kids get the same awards year after year. I was thrilled when the music teacher decided to give his awards during band…much more meaningful to my kids.</p>
<p>It’s a high school awards. The day after high school graduation, these really become a souvenir for the recipient. Awards given by the high school aren’t even remembered by the school folks a year later.</p>
<p>Perhaps they ought to cancel the high school graduation, lest the kids who drop out feel bad.</p>
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That guy sounds like a pervert.</p>
<p>I think Middle School award nights reserved only for honorees is stupid. You want to motivate kids to achieve, set the example for them to see and do so in all school assembly, but I agree the guy could have presented this in a much better way and not that making a middle schooler feel bad is a reason to avoid celebrating another kid’s achievement. It reminds me of participation trophies in elementary soccer when “everyone’s a winner.” Ugh. Still… this is middle school and a foray into High School where those grades and awards really do matter in the college application process. </p>
<p>Done right, showing the entire student body what achievement looks like might just inspire some young 6th or 7th grader to reach a little higher and perhaps a few 8th graders to strive for more in HS. But achievement shouldn’t be reserved for a secret club for special attendees. </p>
<p>Our 8th grade does awards (and there are only a very few) during their graduation ceremony and the upper school had an awards assembly that was held during a morning assembly with mandatory attendance. And while there are always a few of well deserving students, but too often the same names are announced over and over and often based on arbitrary voting.</p>
<p>This guy is stupid. Am I wrong or is this UTTERLY hypocritical? Honors night is always an invitation event (please tell me of a school in which students are required to attend honors night) in which almost all the people in attendance are the students receiving the award and their families. So his purpose is to spare the non honor kids of feeling ashamed for not being honored for surpassing a certain grade yet they, in all likelihood, would not have attended honors night anyway but he instead switches the same ceremony to a mandatory assembly attended by all the students where the non honor kids will now and still be forced to watch their fellow classmates be honored.</p>
<p>Obviously, this is nuts. Until they cancel football games and pep rallies for football games and such, then I call foul on this. Only the best of the best can play in high school sports. And they get extra privileges at the school, and they go around having huge pep rallies, with required attendance, giving out trophys and making huge deals of the sports people.</p>
<p>So why is it ok to do all that for a sport person, and not for an academic person?</p>
<p>I hated my son’s high school, but they did do one thing right–every marking period they held an academic pep rally during the school day. Cheerleaders held paper banners for each honor roll level, and the kids ran through them like football players while the rest of the student body cheered.</p>
<p>Wait, middle schools have graduations and salutatorians?</p>
<p>Hahaha, this thread brought back a memory from my daughter’s Kindergarten awards ceremony, at which every child received a “Good Citizenship” award. Afterward, she asked me what that meant. “It means you follow the rules and treat people nicely.” “No, it can’t mean that,” she said. “Thomas got one and he ALWAYS breaks the rules!”</p>
<p>Jea828, even your kindergartner understood that her award was worthless since Thomas the terrible received the same accolades. What does that teach kids about “achievement”? Hopefully that the political correctness movement is utter B.S…</p>
<p>^ See kids, this is what you’ll end up doing for a living if you don’t do well in school.</p>
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<p>So what about the child who works extremely hard in a difficult class, DOES get the highest grade and is overlooked for an award? And this happens over and over and over… (D’s actual experience).</p>
<p>I have no issue with awards ceremonies, but our local school had a very strange way of conducting them. When I asked the HS principal the following questions when D was a junior:</p>
<p>what awards were given - no answer
what criteria was used - no answer
who made the choices - a teacher “committee”
which students won the awards - no answer</p>
<p>Somehow there was no list of awards to be given? Did they just make them up as they went along? </p>
<p>I am not a believer in “everyone getting an award”. But if a school is giving awards they should at least make SOME attempt to identify criteria and base the awards on that.</p>
<p>I don’t have a problem with a Middle School cancelling the Honors Awards night in favor of combining it with a year end assembly for the whole school. But the principal may want to rethink some of his comments.</p>
<p>“Fabrizio also said he decided to make the change because academic success can be influenced by the amount of support a student receives at home and not all students receive the same level of emotional and academic support at home.” </p>
<p>Yes this is definitely true, but what is he going to do about that? Change the way teachers grade? One of my pet peeves is teachers that count homework as a high percentage of the overall grade–how do they know that the student is actually the one doing the homework?</p>
<p>“In fact, Fabrizio, coming from a coaching background, believes competitive environments are healthy and necessary, but he feels everyone should be included.”</p>
<p>How do you include everyone in a competitive environment? In sports, kids may get cut from a team. In academics, not everyone gets an A.</p>
<p>This reminds me of a few years ago when our Catholic school decided to do away with the Honor Roll for Middle School, because it might make the kids that don’t make the honor roll feel bad. Luckily that logic didn’t last more than a year!</p>
<p>Stevensmama–that academic pep rally sounds great. “And now introducing our Academic All Stars!”, everyone runs out through the banners and cheer leaders and gets their awards real quick and everyone cheers. I’d def vote for that!</p>
<p>Gouf just beat me to it. I was going to echo that I love the idea of the academic pep rally Stevensmama’s school does – at least for the level around grades 5, 6, 7 when athletic teams are starting to get attention as well. Our school district does nothing at middle school (OK w me) and for HS does an end-of-year everyone-attends academic awards assembly held during school day. Parents of kids who will receive one or more awards receive an invitation from the school. This is a separate event from the evening program at which the graduating seniors are recognized for each of the scholarships they are receiving.</p>
<p>No problem with this, but can we also please get rid of the hollywood glitz that gets rolled out everytime some team makes it to state ? Help me understand why extracirriculars that involve balls are somehow more important.</p>
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<p>ROTFL…and I snorted coffee all over the screen when I read it.</p>
<p>But seriously…yes, why is it that we still ask members of our HS sports teams to be the best of the best. Imagine how the 95lb young man feels knowing he will never get the accolades a quarterback has come to expect. Until we remove all classification of ‘better than’ from the sports process, it is BS to remove it from the academic process. Oh, in case it is easy to forget, the school is supposed to be about academics!</p>