For years, I have been struck by the trend in schools for recognizing everyone or no one in awards ceremonies. Last year, I watched an award ceremony where everyone not given any award for academic excellence was given an award at our public school. The same logic appears to be motivating Principal David Fabrizio of Ipswich Middle School in Massachusetts. Fabrizio has ended a long standing tradition of “Honors Night” because the failure to be part of it could be “devastating” to the students not receiving honors. He noted that some children do not have parents who are supportive at night and do not make honors due to poor home conditions.
I have seen the same view in both academics and sports with my four kids. I am supportive of giving kids recognitions for participation in school activities. However, I do not see why we cannot recognize top achievers. This is part of life. You work hard to achieve distinction. Sometimes you do, sometimes you don’t. You have to learn to handle not just success but failure in achieving goals. I find it far more pandering and insulting to take the “everyone’s a winner” in everything.
Fabrizio’s motivations are commendable. I just disagree with his conclusion. He stressed “The Honors Night, which can be a great sense of pride for the recipients’ families, can also be devastating to a child who has worked extremely hard in a difficult class but who, despite growth, has not been able to maintain a high grade-point average.” Yet, school prepares students for handling the realities of life. I was often dominated in sports and, even in swimming where I worked the hardest, some kids simply were faster and received the lion’s share of honors. However, my parents taught me to keep trying and never give up. I learned to be happy for my classmates. Was I jealous, of course. But I learned not to take the award as a statement about me personally. I prefer that to creating an artificial environment where we downplay excellence.
This is a competitive world and these students will soon be part of it. Equalizing everything to the lowest common denominator does not seem a good environment for learning. Competition does not have to be personally devastating and school is a key time to show that there are a variety of ways to distinguish yourself. Rather than avoid such rewards, I think it is better to maximize the range of activities to allow students to find a good way to express themselves and excel. What do you think?
Source: Daily Mail
AY,
lucky for me the geometry was at the public high school that I attended. If I had the good Benedictine sisters for Geometry, I might not have survived!
Congrats to Elaine for the great follow-up! How many times do people get their BP up 100 points only to learn that the outrageous headlines are nothing more than outrageous garbage designed to raise your BP?
Blouise? That firs sentence should be put on a plaque and given to every person in the country!
The reward is in the achievement, not in the trophy.”
And what Blouise said, especially, “The reward is in the achievement, not in the trophy.”
FWIW:
PRINCIPAL’S STATEMENT
“Ipswich Middle School is dedicated to high achievement in every facet of our students’ lives. We did not cancel honors recognition as erroneously reported by FOX News Boston. We changed our Honors Night from an exclusive ceremony at night to an all-inclusive ceremony during the day in the presence of the entire student body. During this ceremony we will honor those who have excelled in academics, in athletics, in the arts and in the related arts. Any reports to the contrary are incorrect.”
Well we finally get the WHOLE story from a better news source. The awards were not cancelled, just the fact that the whole point is to honor students in front of their peers, to hopefully motivate them. This guy has it right and sound like a great idea to me. It was NOT about having those who did not get an award being devestated.
Dog of the Month is a great thing. I was January Dog of The Month. My photo was posted on the bulletin board and all the humans who come to the marina were positive. I got lots of dog biscuits and gained a pound. But, I got rid of that pound by the end of March. My half blind guy, for whom I am guide dog, got an award at his club which they call Hooters. I kept an eye on things at the award ceremony and thereafter and can say that he made out better than I did as Dog of the Month. The gal’s name was Precious and she had good credentials to work at Hooters. Now when half blind guy and I come into Hooters the regulars give him a hoot and call him Trickster. I am allowed in the bar because I am a guide dog.
I got to be Dog of The Month. The dogpac did not put this together, it was the humanoids here at the marina where we dogs live. The other dogs were fine with it until I got the Good Dog treatment by all the dog pals and a dog treat– while the other dogs got no pet on the head, no compliment and no bisquit. Well. Dog of The Month for one group is jerk of the month to another. FartinDog kept up his practice of you know what, right near my face. IchtinBayDog didnt shut up for a month, which was par for the dog course. And so on. Churches do a Dog of the Month kind of thing for the humans so as to keep the flock together for fleecing. Schools do the apCray so as to backhandedly award themselves a Good Dog for being a Good Teacher. One of our humans at the marina has a kid who is named Dick who was named Valedictorian at his high school. The other human kids started calling him ValDick. He had a girlfriend named Valery which made it all worse. He is kind of a weenie and we dont think that they were porkin either. Yet. The award will probably encourage that endeavor. So, with Dogs as with Kids, give em an award for something and there are collateral consequences which are unintended. What will Valery’s parents say when she gets knocked up by the Valedictorian? Nuff said.
The reward is in the achievement, not in the trophy.
(Perhaps this principal has had to deal with too many stage mothers and fathers pushing their kids forward in the school politics game … so he ended the game.)
I was raised with the philosophy that doing one’s best was expected … no praise necessary. Helping someone else to do their best was praiseworthy. There were lots of trophies, certificates, and ribbons in my childhood home, awarded to both children and parents … none were on display.
My mother and father would have supported this Principal’s action for they would have approved of his motivation … as do I.
Raff,
But he good Benedictines….. Were all to gladly to point out your sins…. While praising the good holy father….
mespo,
Good question!
🙂
Elaine M:
“He’s being accused of “dumbing down” America on talk radio …”
*******************
How’s that for irony?
I read the article in the Ipswich Chronicle. According to that article, top students will still be acknowledged at the school–but in a different way. The principal plans to honor the students in front of all of their classmates at the end of the school year. What’s wrong with that?
*****
Honoring Ipswich Middle School honor students
By Dan Mac Alpine
GateHouse News Service
Posted Mar 20, 2013
http://www.wickedlocal.com/ipswich/news/x846072225/Honoring-Ipswich-Middle-School-honor-students#axzz2O8bKZ6Xz
Excerpt:
Ipswich —
He’s being accused of “dumbing down” America on talk radio, but Ipswich Middle School principal Dave Fabrizio says he’s doing what’s best for his students.
Fabrizio’s decision to change the way the school recognizes its honor students at the end of the school year sparked the controversy.
Previously, Ipswich Middle School honor students were recognized in a separate, evening ceremony, which included inspirational speakers.
This year, under the first-year principal, the honor students will be recognized in front of their peers during a daytime, school assembly at the end of the school year.
The decision upset some parents, Fabrizio said, because they believed the change dropped the honors recognition ceremony a notch or two.
Fabrizio disagreed and refused to change his mind and the story hit Fox News and then migrated to talk radio.
“We had a situation where our best students were being honored exclusively away from the rest of the school. The problem was, those who needed that motivation weren’t there,” said Fabrizio, who hopes recognizing the honor students before the whole school will inspire other students to work harder and become honor students themselves.
Despite the criticism, Fabrizio said he has received a “folder full of supportive e-mails.”
Fabrizio stressed the decision to change the recognition ceremony included faculty, faculty leaders and the school council, which includes parents.
“This isn’t the dumbing down of America,” said Fabrizio. “This isn’t everyone getting a trophy. The same kids who were honored before are being honored now.”
I’m with the principal here. Too often honoring kids at this level means purely subjective evaluations by teachers or administrators or test results that prove more about the ability to take tests than the information itself. In middle school has anyone really done anything noteworthy? I think introducing anything competitive for this age group is mere pandering to the parents. There’s plenty of time to recognize real achievement later. Bravo, principal David Fabrizio!
As for JT, back in the pool!
I like how just at this post ends, we get to all your ABA Blawg 100 awards.
I think the key to both having awards and being appropriately sensitive to the non-honors students is to make the awards extremely competitive so that there is no need to feel devastated by not being recognized.
There are a lot of people who want the award for top exam in their class, but I doubt many people are devastated by not winning. Disappointed, sure, but it’s easy to shake off not being #1 out of 80 or 120. Not so easy if the school honored the top 30% or 50% of the class.
Don’t try harder, don’t study longer. All are equal. Who do you think you are?
There are many non honors students that excel in life. Many honors student do not. And of course there is that pesky problem of what success means.
Getting high marks in school is an easily delineated and measurable achievement. The students in a class are well aware of the abilities of their fellow students.
Not recognizing the honor students in a ceremony does nothing. During my school years I knew which students were bright, studious, hard working. They already have achieved the acknowledgement, the respect…. (or derision) of their classmates by the time these ceremonies take place.
My opinion is, Though well intended, this concept is poorly thought out. I believe it is simply a placebo for Adults projecting their insecurities onto the children.
I was on the wrestling team in highschool and one night, at a home match, we had “senior night” where each senior on the team would be honored with the school administrator making some brief comments about how great a student we were or how much potential we have and which college we had been accepted two.
I found the entire thing utterly disgusting; the team from another school shows up for a sporting event and the school admin uses the opportunity to essentially brag to the parents about how our students were so great and all going to college and implying the opposing team is not any of those things. The other team had to sit through the entire circle jerk and it is something to this day almost twenty years later that I regret participating in.
I think this guy did the right thing even if for the wrong reason. Awards are for pets.
I wonder if this principal is also canceling the school’s sports banquet (surely it has one) so as not to “devastate” its students who are not gifted athletes. Somehow I doubt it.
Of course you’re right. Pretending as if everyone has won and all must have prizes–or none must have prizes lest anyone be hurt–is no way to prepare students for the future. Also, kids know when they’ve been given a fake prize and it doesn’t help their self-esteem. What does is SUCCESS–hard-earned, and not always coming to everyone, but well worth trying for.
I graduated High School in 1970. There was no Valedictorian crap at any time during my school career, no special honors night, none of that. Yet we somehow managed to produce a group of adults as successful as any comparable group.
Not having the ‘night’ is stupid but not any more so than having the program of ranking kids in 7th grade based on grades. Plenty of failures in life who drew straight A’s in school. My 3.52 GPA at university proved only that I knew how to succeed at university – and maybe even not that as I did not finish because of, you know, life.
We focus too much on unimportant trivialities and too little on producing happy, healthy, successful adults. That is true with or without an honors program or an honors night.
I agree that this principal’s motives were good, but kids have to learn that they can’t always be the best. I learned that lesson very quickly in geometry!