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
Not sure why everyone is so hung up on trophies. It comes from the Latin word “tropaeum” meaning a tree-like monument erected by the victorious side from which hung the human body parts of the vanquished foe. If anyone wants their kid to get that, I say call social services. Otherwise, let kids be kids and avoid parent gratifying social wedges replete with some notion of phantom achievement to pry students apart. Kids don’t achieve they progress — some at different rates. They don’t need no stinkin’ badges to make mommy and daddy feel better about their parenting skills but instead need encouragement from everyone including their fellow students who could care less about how many trophies they have. It’s only when trophy-less little Johnny comes home to the inquiring-minded mommy and daddy does the competition begin and the problems take hold and the cliques start to form. Been there done that.
Karen,
Speaking as a former lab rat, G&T programs are often not a treat for the kids in them either. I was in them from the 3rd grade until graduation. That “insult” is a mark of division and that sword cuts both ways with kids. It creates an “officially sanctioned” tribe amongst children who tend to be tribal anyway. You’re ostracised for being different and automatically considered a suck up to authority. And that kind of behavior doesn’t just come from the kids either. I had several runs ins with teachers over it too, including one particularly nasty 6th grade teacher who told me “you’d be nothing without me, I’m the one who got you in to gifted and talented” . . . until I pointed out that I had been in the program for three years and that she had no idea who I was until I was assigned to her class. At which point she called my mother a b*tch and I countered by suggesting that she do something anatomically impossible and got sent to the office. If you get the impression that despite being in such programs that I’m not in favor of them? That would be correct. However, that being said, I am not against offering advanced classes for advanced students. That’s useful. The making a big deal of it? Not so much.
Reblogged this on euzicasa and commented:
Indeed, Mediocrity is bliss!
This man is nuts. We all have to deal with different levels of success in our lives. If he is concerned about children who do not have supportive parents he should work on that issue not punish those who have achieved honors.
National Honor Society is a terrible idea. When I was in school, they had the current members walk around the auditorium and tap the newly selected on the shoulder. It had to have suspense. There were children who spent the rest of the day crying after that.
Its not much better now. What is the beneficial purpose that outweighs hurting so many children? I can’t think of one.
Elaine,
I know what you mean about the parents. Was it just coincidence that the kids whose parents ran the PTO were chosen to be in the school instrumental music program or the “gifted and talented” program? I always wondered about that.
The term “gifted and talented” is a deliberate insult to the other children, isn’t it?
rafflaw,
I had a seventh grade nun who sat us in class by our monthly academic average. I usually was placed in the first or second row. I was absent for a while one month–which brought my average down. I had to sit in the next to last row then. A girl named Mary Jane sat beside me in the last row. She quipped, “If I were absent, I’d probably end up sitting on the window sill!”
Raff,
Lol…. Can you imagine catching a piece of chalk on the forehead…. I sat in the back row for a reason…. But that lady could nail you with a piece at 30’…. I kid you not….
Karen,
It is often parents who push for talented and gifted programs. The pressure often comes from the home. I saw it in the affluent town where I taught. One year, a group of high school parents threatened litigation because their children weren’t nominated for the National Honor Society.
I don’t see schools as places of competition. They should be places of learning…places where children’s minds are expanded–no matter what level they may be reading on. I have a grand nephew who struggled with reading in his early years in school. (He has a grandfather who is a dyslexic.) Fortunately, the district where he attended school saw how bright he was. He got lots of academic support from the schools and his parents. He finished his high school requirements in three years. He worked on special academic projects his senior year. He is now an engineering student at a university with a highly regarded engineering program.
AY,
You are right about the test of reflexes. I could have been a goalie for the Blackhawks in those days!!
I like school systems that aren’t afraid to experiment, to try new ideas. Often many of these ideas are abandoned after a trial period as they prove unworkable or not suited to the student body but I appreciate the open mindedness that allows the experiment.
Elaine,
Not only were you lucky to have recognize that early on in your teaching career…. But your students were Especially Blessed….
Raff,
One has its cross to bare….. I had a nun and geometry….. I was not so lucky…. I will give her this point…… She on a regular basis checked my reflexes….. Either the eraser or chalk would zoom past someone’s head on a daily basis….
Elaine,
I can remember as far back as grade school when we were segregated into the “readers” and the “not so good” readers groups. Every student realized what the selection meant. It is good to see schools that now also recognize the students who are improving their work and/or effort.
Wigging out can happen when there is a notion of too big to fail or of too small to fail.
Sometimes that wigging out causes intellectual incest.
Karen,
When I first began teaching in the late 1960s, students in the community where I taught were placed in elementary classrooms according to their test scores. Imagine being a student who was placed in the “dumb” class year after year. The first year I taught there were four third grade classes: high, high average, low average, and low. I was assigned the low average group. I had many very bright students that year. Fortunately, that placement practice was discontinued a couple of years later. It was a terrible idea to begin ranking children as early as the primary grades. Some children develop later than others. How awful to segregate children “educationally” from each other at such a young age.
Elaine,
It makes you wonder if the people running schools understand anything about human nature or have any common sense. How could they have any experience with children and think themselves capable of sorting third graders into 4 intelligence categories????
In my opinion, it hurts those selected to be the “high” intelligence students (and it IS a selection). They are under pressure and they are supposed to be competing with the other top students. They feel there is no other way for them. Truth is, most of adult life is not competition and even when you are in competition, it might not be helpful to focus on the competition. If you’re applying for a job, you can’t do anything about the qualifications of the other applicants.
I wish the original story was true. That principal would have been on the right track to junk the awards ceremonies and everything else that elevates some students above others. Just as virtue is its own reward, getting high grades is reward enough without a ceremony.
What is supposed to be the benefit to the other students of seeing other students honored? They are not in school to be the cheering section for other students.
I agree with the poster who said this was self-congratulation for the school and the teachers and pandering to some of the parents more than anything else. If anyone thinks that middle school is too early to start separating the kids out for honors, the truth is they start marking kids out to be the top students in kindergarten. I saw it when I volunteered in my daughter’s kindergarten class and children were selected for special reading groups with a special teacher. It puts pressure on those children throughout school years and other children resent them.
I’m not a fan of honors programs. The competition for them can blunt the real educational opportunities. It can lead to taking just the “easy” classes and dropping very useful classes where the learning is difficult. And, as pointed out, there are students who work even harder than the “winners” in order to achieve a minimum grade. Imo, the latter are the ones to be honored. Middle school honors? Waay to soon. Have an assembly with motivational speakers but can the individual honors. High school honors, if given, should be based on the journey, not the end result.
Mark me down in the Blouise column.
Great catch Elaine. Who would have guessed that a Fox news affiliate would get it wrong?