Your story really disturbs me. Especially in a day and age when most students continue their academic careers in college anyway, no one should be devoting so much of their high school student lives to an honor as fleeting (and as realistically inconsequential between those who get it and those who almost get it) as valedictorian status/being able to give a speech no one will remember in a few months. Your story, more than anything I have read previously, makes me grateful my school district has done away with the tradition of class ranks.</p>
<p>I obviously can’t analyze how the experience actually affected your D and her friend, but your explanation of the scenario does not strike me as inspiring at all; instead, I find it sad.</p>
<p>I don’t even know who the people at the top of my class were, we did rank but there wasn’t any public recognition that I ever noticed. Anyone could apply to speak. I happened to know the girl who did end up speaking and she gave a great speech. I’d rather someone comfortable with public speaking who wants to speak badly enough that they went out of their way to apply for it be the person to speak than arbitrarily assigning it to the valedictorian, who may not even want to speak. That girl who spoke made the ceremony worthwhile to me, and that is really the only part of the day that I remember.</p>
<p>Emaheevul07, you went to Plymouth-Canton right? Was it all one graduation assembly, or was there one for each school? I can’t imagine having one person and ceremony for a graduating class that big.</p>
<p>It is good to read about so many schools without ranking, without valedictorians, or with many valedictorians. Our school still picks a $1 and #2 and there is ridiculous competition over fractions of points in senior year, mainly in order to get scholarships at the state U. for those ranks in the class.</p>
<p>As for speaking at graduation, many times either the val. or the sal. decides they don’t want to speak, and a substitute is chosen, usually the #3 in the class.</p>
<p>The speech this year by the valedictorian was awful!</p>
<p>I think it is not a good sign if a student worked really hard for 4 years in order to speak at graduation. Talk abut false, external motives for learning!</p>
<p>This seems to be local custom more than anything else, not an automatic “right” that vals / sals speak.</p>
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<p>Do you think all vals and sals necessarily wish to / want to speak? I was neither (#3, always the bridesmaid, never the bride, LOL) but I wouldn’t have had a real desire to have spoken nor would I have really have had a lot to say. I don’t know that vals or sals are necessarily bigger founts of wisdom than anyone else.</p>
<p>My son was Sal and worked very hard to get it. He knew he had to give a speech at graduation and wrote one of the best speeches I have ever heard. It should not be a popularity contest going to the cutest and most popular boy and girl. It should go to the two that worked incredibly hard for four years and knew this was one of their rewards for their hard work.</p>
<p>Our school doesn’t rank or have vals and sals, but we do rank when it comes to the speeches. The top 6 or 7 GPA-holders can audition to speak at commencement. Three are selected and I’m always impressed by what is presented.</p>
<p>OP - As GTAlum points out, parents of Vals seem to be the most afflicted group when the speech is opened to competition. Frankly, I’ve heard some awful speeches by Vals … which admittedly influences my opinion. </p>
<p>My school doesn’t rank, and any senior can submit a speech to a selection committee. 3 speeches (3 different categories) are chosen anonymously and I have never heard, in 3 years of attending graduation, a really bad speech.</p>
<p>I don’t agree that the Vals or Sals are necessarily the best students, I don’t agree that they deserve an additional honor just because they have good grades, and I also know many Vals and Sals who didn’t want to give speeches. My school’s system seems most fair to me.</p>
<p>D1 high school didn’t rank, didn’t weight ( private prep) - also school describes itself as having a " culture of performance".
Virtually everyone in her class was on stage for a performance either solo or w a group.
( graduating class <20)- D1 sang a solo </p>
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<p>( My inlaws- who had not come to any of her previous performances or school events were open mouthed)</p>
<p>They also had a " hot seat" where the graduate sat in a chair and director read about their school career while a photo montage played on the screen behind them.</p>
<p>D2 attended a school which was much larger ( inner city public- class of about 400)
They don’t weight, but they do rank- so lots of students with a 4.00GPA, but only about 7 spoke- although might have been more- I go to lots of graduations.</p>
<p>Save your sadness for your own concerns; the girls are doing great. They both had wonderful high school experiences that consisted of a lot more than getting top grades. They are each now finishing up their successful freshman years in rigorous majors at two fine high-end schools located on opposite coasts, and they are enjoying that too. And they are still best friends and are looking forward to getting back together for the summer. Sorry, but the dysfunction and tragedy you are looking for just ain’t there. </p>
<p>I focused on the val speech thing, because that is the topic of the thread. But I can bore you with a lot of discourse on all the rest of the wonderful stuff they did in high school if you really want to hear it.</p>
<p>I think the bottom line is the concept of val and sal most likely originated in an era where kids rollowed the same path and it was fairly easy to rank order because “all things” were equal. These days schools have concocted all kinds of potential high school academic paths and all kinds of creative ways to assess score and GPA. This was going on three decades ago at my high school where #2 had not taken “all the hardest clases” which was the beginning of the end of the val/sal situation although it took a decade to figure out a “new tradition.” Given these trends I can understand why schools choose not to rank order kids at the end of the day and why they may have different systems for choosing who speaks at graduation. I do agree that schools who decide the institute new traditions should begin with the incoming freshman. I do like the concept or one male, one female and the class president very much.</p>
<p>At my kid’s graduation yesterday there were two speakers. The senior class president (a very friendly sounding young lady) and one other fellow. I’m not sure how they picked him, but they must have had an audition because they both gave great speeches which I really appreciated. Neither one was among the thirty or so Valedictorians listed on the program. </p>
<p>Rather than start another thread, I thought I’d comment on how I noticed an awful lot of hardware around the necks of all the kids at graduation, in the form of cords and medallions. Some of them looked liked double-Michael Phelps or mini Pattons lugging all that stuff around. On the program they listed the meaning of the over twenty types of cords and other recognition. It’s nice, but I sure don’t remember this from the old days. Even my own kid had a couple things hanging around his neck (and we weren’t even sure he would even graduate until the last minute). But, he seemed to be happy abut it, which is sort of rare for him.</p>
<p>^^I noticed that also last week at my son’s graduation. I thought it was odd. They hadn’t done that three years ago when my oldest graduated. I think the school had cords for NHS club participation (I knew that color from my son), cords for 3.0, cords for 3.5, cords for 4.0, medallions for senior scholars and I dunno what the other hardware and colored cords were for. The program never said what all the different colors were for…my 87 year old dad remarked as we were standing outside waiting for S2 that we should change the name of the town from Lake XXX to Lake Wobegone since virtually every kid had some sort of color of “honor” cord. I worry for these kids in the real world.</p>
<p>Couereur, I appreciated your story of the girls setting a goal and working together instead of a cutthroat competition that the schools could set up by naming only one.</p>
<p>My son, one of three tied for first, has never been told officially that he is giving a speech next Sunday even though school ended yesterday. The principal told me in a meeting a month ago that the top 3 would be giving speeches (they had not been named at that time). Son does not seem too concerned but I am shaking in my boots that he will try to get up and speak without writing anything in advance. Hopefully, someone at the school will discuss it with him soon. </p>
<p>Although I am proud of him and recognize that he did work very hard, I think the system should be changed. I don’t think there is much difference between number 1 in the class and number 5 or 6. I prefer the college system of summa, magna, and cum laude.</p>
<p>^^There’s another reason to have a formalized aproach to selecting senior speakers. Hopefully he’ll find out soon…winging it isn’t advised! Oh goodness.</p>
<p>^^^ re your 2nd paragraph above, lotsofquests - when my d was announced as the student with the highest GPA, no one said a thing about a speech to her until a week before graduation. We knew that student had always given a speech in the past, but she didn’t want to appear presumptuous if the ceremony had been changed. And for a while she figured it must have been changed, because shouldn’t someone tell her ahead of time what the guidelines were? Finally the other traditional speaker, the senior class president, asked her to go with him to the assistant principal’s office to find out what was going on. His response was, “Ohmigod, didn’t I tell you about that?” So even if your son doesn’t want to seem obnoxious, he’s well within his rights to ask if he’s giving a speech and what the expectations are.</p>
<p>Have a wonderful time at the ceremony! Brag alert here - I was so proud of my d for giving a gracious, inclusive speech. She had not been happy in hs and, as so often happens, her social group had been either excluded or outright ridiculed by the in crowd. She mentioned some common things all the students would remember fondly, memorialized their late class advisor, and even snuck in a joke about the retiring superintendent (seated next to the podium) who had always been stingy with snow days. It’s a happy memory and I’m sure yours will be, too.</p>