Small sample problem. But a good opportunity for lots of individual attention, if the hs is able to make that happen.
If would be great if students could learn in high school how to deal with being uncomfortable because God forbid, they get out into the real world and have to deal with being uncomfortable for the first time without the skills to deal with it.
Our school has a tradition of announcing sporting results and academic results in the school paper, online and even sometimes on morning announcements. Imagine all those people being uncomfortable knowing that the football team won, but they didn’t make the team, or worse, were so unathletic that they didn’t even bother to try out. Oh, and how uncomfortable would it be for student to hear a piano recital that opens a school event, or the band play at a game knowing that they are tone deaf and could never play a piano.
I think all students should be encouraged to celebrate their successes, whether it is wearing a college T-shirt or their varsity jacket.
What traditions are there that make absolutely NO person in the school uncomfortable? Even something like breakfast with the parent/teacher, a senior recital, prom - someone is going to feel left out. Can’t afford the ticket, can’t get a date, can’t go because it is a Friday night and that student has a religious obligation.
I really can’t think of one thing that everyone likes.
Excuses make lots of things easier to live with.
I know.
Even soft fluffy puppy day was outlawed since someone may not like puppies.
Free food day was stopped because some people felt bad that they don’t get free food every day.
We should stop grading students since some will feel bad about their grades (well, that is already happening - no red pen for you!)
And people wonder why US competitiveness is going down. Wait until the veal calves we are raising get to be in a position of power.
It usually takes more than 5 or 6 months from birth to get to a “position of power” and by then…it’s all over.
Can I just say how much it annoys me when the response to “Let’s not do X so that we don’t bother group Y” is “Everything bothers somebody, so we should go ahead and do X”?
(Why yes, yes I can—just did, in fact.)
It’s a silly idea, to claim that because you can’t perfectly do something (in this case, not bothering people) you shouldn’t do any part of that thing. It’s akin to a slippery slope argument, and there’s a reason that’s called a logical fallacy—one of the things humans do is set lines, whether that’s deciding where to stop on the slippery slope, or how far along a slope is good to go.
@dfbdfb they aren’t quite saying that. What they ARE saying is that “somebody is bothered” isn’t enough of a good reason to cancel a tradition that so many enjoy and look forward to.
In addition to that, will not doing it make those bother by it (if there are such people) feel any better? Will not wearing the Harvard t-shirt make the guy who didn’t get in feel better or be any happier that he didn’t get in? Will cancelling the prom somehow relieve the hurt of the girl who couldn’t get a date or couldn’t afford the dress or the guy who couldn’t afford to ask anyone?
On another thread people are talking about all the cords and stoles and honors medals kids wear to graduation. Is this any different? Does the kid sitting there wearing only a robe and no honors feel jealous? Probably. Is that a good enough reason to ban all the cords and stoles? I’m sure there are kids who couldn’t afford to join National honors or pay the $15 for the stole. My daughter could have joined Nat’l hispanic and then paid another $5 for the cord, but she didn’t. Her disappointment lasted about 5 seconds.
Well, since I’m not a fan of honor cords, either…
"Our school has a tradition of announcing sporting results and academic results in the school paper, online and even sometimes on morning announcements. Imagine all those people being uncomfortable knowing that the football team won, but they didn’t make the team, or worse, were so unathletic that they didn’t even bother to try out. Oh, and how uncomfortable would it be for student to hear a piano recital that opens a school event, or the band play at a game knowing that they are tone deaf and could never "
Of course you see the difference between printing the sports results and honor roll results in the paper, and having a day where everyone wears a t shirt with their time in the mile and their GPA.
In the workplace, it can be clear through outward physical signs who the “powerful” ones are - maybe they have private offices when everybody else has cubicles, they have reserved parking slots, fly private jet instead of commercial, etc. Yet despite all that, there are no t-shirt days at work where people walk around wearing a t shirt showing their salaries. Why do you suppose that is?
@Pizzagirl, in the workplace promotions tend to be announced, and titles tend to be known. And when someone leaves an “up or out” organization everyone knows why. That’s the real world.
Yes, of course. That’s not what I asked. I asked why, even though in the workplace we all know who the mucky-mucks are, and we may even see their special perks (closed door offices, etc), there aren’t typically t-shirt days in which people wear t-shorts emblazoned with their titles or salaries.
Can you think of any reason why companies don’t do that, even though we all know who is the vp and who is the mail clerk? Can you see the difference between the press release saying “we’ve promoted Joe Schmoe to VP, please congratulate him” and t-shirts with one’s job title? Protip - there are ways to recognize promotions, good jobs done, etc that don’t run people’s noses in it.
So I had a chance to reflect on all this Senior celebration stuff when I attended my D’s Senior Awards Night the other night. Every senior was expected to show up to cheer on their classmates and from what I can tell pretty much everyone did. There were a LOT of medals and plaques on the table and many kids received 2 or 3 medals, one even received 4 and pretended to be struggling to walk back to his seat (that got a laugh). For some the cheering was enormous - as it was when that student graduated the next night. They were either enormously popular or had sneaked their entire extended family into both celebrations.
My D received nothing - no academic awards, no activity awards - and I swear she was one of the few. Many of her friends received at least one award.
All around me parents were cheering their kids while I was clapping (politely for the kids I didn’t know and more enthusiastically for those I did).
Quite honestly, I was a bit uncomfortable - some of the issues that people have with T Shirt Day were now being applied directly to my kid. Would she feel humiliated? At the reception afterwards she would NOT be wearing a medal. She did receive two cords (one for NHS, the other for NAHS) but those were distributed afterwards (no fanfare) and there were a LOT of kids getting those. And most of those kids also had medals. And yes, many of the kids with medals wore them at commencement the following day. Their parents probably insisted.
Then I got to thinking about her journey. Without going into detail, it was the case that D had basically come back from the brink of academic disaster (GPA not at the minimum for State U, kicked off AP track for several of her courses, etc.) which was NOT her fault (she had a medical condition that her parents stupidly didn’t see). By the end of senior year D had managed to turn things around substantially. She worked more than hard for two solid years because she really, really, really wanted to get into her dream school . . . which denied her admission. And now she was stuck sitting there watching all those other seniors get awards, many of which she was simply shut out of . . . but wait a minute. I started thinking through what she HAD achieved the past two years and it was probably the quickest catch-up story since Helen Kellar (ok that was an exaggeration but you get my point). And then I realized that D’s journey wasn’t anyone else’s journey. She had come a long way during those two years. Some receiving awards that night may not have had to travel as far. Some - may have travelled farther. Who really knew? I certainly didn’t. There was a lot more to the story of each kid than an awards ceremony was showing. Each had travelled a unique path to that evening, experienced circumstances beyond their control, made choices - some of which which were going to be recognized at an awards ceremony, while others were not. I had the opportunity to hear some of the stories of the achievers on the way home - D knew them pretty well. And they were amazing stories.
When I met up with D at the reception she was cheerfully chatting with her friends about some amusing things that happened to cause a chuckle in her section. No disappointment whatsoever. She had a great evening! I noticed in the happy crowd that no one seemed bummed or humiliated. But perhaps the humiliated students had left? Well, at least one young man didn’t - he was posing with his family and acting as a total cut-up. Loaded with personality but w/o a single medal, plaque or cord, he was thoroughly enjoying himself. I found out soon afterwards where he was headed to college - a selective flagship school. Boy did that hit home that getting an award was BY NO MEANS the entire story on these kids.
So all my discomfort from earlier was the result of my own angst and my own head messing with me. Had I told D or any other parent - including the parents of that vibrant young man - that this was an inappropriate event they would have genuinely been confused (and probably sympathetic, figuring that I needed my happy meds or something).
And the cupcakes were excellent, of course.
And oh yeah - I completely APPROVE of the school holding this “institution sponsored” event that recognized a whole bunch of students and excluded others. Because the school strongly exudes the philosophy that this was a community that encourages and supports each other. And they not only talk that talk - they walk that walk as an administration. So just like one sibling wouldn’t be excused from congratulating other members of the family on their achievements, no one was excused from congratulating the recipients of all the accolades. And from what I saw that evening and the next day, no one’s self-esteem was damaged, no delicate feelings were bruised, egos were intact, and each member of the senior class happily began to prepare for the next stage of life.
Or, if feelings and self-esteem were bruised, it could easily have been by other top-ranked students who didn’t get the crowning achievement award. Or . . . perhaps everyone decided to be happy for everyone which when you think about it, is probably the most important sign of being able to move on to the next stage.
@pizzagirl, I’m not sure if you have been in the workforce yet, but you can be assured that to many working professionals a title IS a T-shirt worn every day. For those passed over for that promotion, perhaps the one guy whose entering class of Jr. Associates was promoted while he was advised to move on . . . yeah, that’s actually the grown up version of “having your nose rubbed in it” as you say. And grownups in the work place can pretty much guess one another’s salary.
There will ALWAYS be Bitter Bobs and Bitter Bettys - whether it be high school, college, or the workplace. Heck we had a few in Jr. High (just a few) and actually, now that I remember it, our third grade class contained one or two. I’ve been one myself.
You can’t get away from humanity, nor can you prevent very human feelings from taking place.
Um, mamelot, I’m 50 years old and have two seniors in college about to graduate. I know the work world, thanks.
I agree that one cannot prevent human feelings from taking place. Nor should a kid who is proud of (x) have to hide it. In some circumstances, though, especially in schools where there are major haves and have- nots, it can be insensitive.
@pizzagirl, yes, that assertion has been expressed on this thread.
My apologies for misunderstanding your experience in the work world. You must have a wonderfully civilized professional life. From what I myself have seen (which has included public, private, not-for-profit, financial, legal, accounting, advising, medical, and academic - plus a few others) pretty much every day is T Shirt Day 
Well, a lot of workplaces have policies in place to smooth out the stratification a bit–things like everybody being on a first-name basis, open door policies, etc. They can vary a lot.
This whole discussion is about how much a school should do to smooth out the stratification. Does anybody here want to support a requirement that all the other students physically bow down to the football team after each victory? On the other hand, does anybody want to support a policy that no victory by the football team should be announced because it might engender hurt feelings in those who didn’t make the team?
If someone can’t appreciate the difference between an award ceremony that honors achievement in academics or sports of the arts or whatever and the wearing of tee shirts with the names of schools that may well have been accessible through affluence or connections, then I think we come from entirely different planets here.
Just consider this: Student A, well qualified to attend the state flagship honors program that accepted her, is attending the mediocre local directional U because her immigrant parents insist she live at home; Student B got into his dream school, a small LAC, but is attending the state flagship that is a terrible “fit” because his parents think the state school is good enough and they prefer to spend their ample funds on an affluent lifestyle. Students already know where their friends will be attending college and don’t care where people who aren’t their friends will be attending. What possible purpose does a tee shirt day serve other than to make my Student A and B feel even worse about their situations? There’s enough obnoxious behavior going on in the typical high school corridors without institutionalizing it.