Sounds silly to me…it makes kids feel bad about themselves? Sigh… Then we should never recognize anyone’s achievement.
As an aside, I do think @bluebayou makes a good point about the whole NMSF/NMF thing though.
"Way too much emphasis placed on a one-time four hour test, that favors kids who can do well on the SAT. (Not saying that that is a bad thing, but it purposely excludes the kids who can ACE the ACT, with a similar % score; a 35 on the ACT, too bad, no picture for you.)
No chance at make-ups, if you happen to be sick that day, or if you had a football game/other athletic event the night before and got dinged."
While your criticisms have some validity, it highlights the double standard. This is a standard that is never applied to sports.
There is an entire trophy case devoted to the student who won the state heavy weight wrestling championship and is going to play football for a big ten school. People are happy for him. He worked hard. No one is complaining that the kid he beat may have just had a bad day or been sick. That is the nature of competition. Even if the other kid should have won, on that day this young man won, and deserves to be recognized for all of his hard work and achievement.
The same could be said of the Super Bowl. What is the chance of announcers at the end of the game saying:
- Remember, this was just a one-time four hour test
- It unfairly favored players of American Football over Canadian Football
- The losing team has no chance for a make-up or do-over if they are sick
- Maybe the other teams players were up late studying for a test the night before
@donnaleighg "Three or four years from now all those academic kids will be doing great, and won’t care one whit about some silly HS award. Those athletes may possibly be looking back on their “golden days”. "
Perhaps at the entry to the school there should be a sign:
In these halls we recognize athletic and artistic achievement. We do this out of sympathy. We know that, while most of our best students have an amazing futures ahead, for many athletes and artists these are their glory days, a once in a lifetime opportunity to feel good about themselves.
Happy to say that S2’s high school has no sports and no PE classes, a trend in the making for academic choice schools.
“Amen. I’d love to see a school honor the leading artists it produces, too. Where are those plaques?”
D13 was chosen for the All State Orchestra (Ohio). They have plaques for each of the students each year that are selected. It’s kind of fun to see her picture up there 3 years after she out of HS. The HS has a pretty awesome orchestra program.
Well, there probably should be PE with the emphasis on embedding lifetime fitness and health habits (and coordinated with often-required health education classes), but PE may not be done very well at many schools.
Here’s what’s needed to change this: high schools should compete with other local high schools on the basis of academic achievements, and the winner should get a big trophy each year. Then the academic superstars who help their school win the trophy would get more recognition.
I’m kidding, I think.
At my kids’ middle school, they posted the honor roll each quarter. I once heard a student say, “I don’t want my name up there. Why does it have to be?”
I wonder whether the same thinking applies to public announcements of National Merit Finalists.
There are still some neighborhoods where you can get beaten up because you did well in school.
What right does the school have to announce students’ academic achievements without the students’ permission?
“What right does the school have to announce students’ academic achievements without the students’ permission?”
At our school, they notify students before posting pictures for academic achievement. The student can say no.
They do not do this for sports, however. Why not be consistent?
Our school has a great big bulletin board that posts photos of students (usually in groups) who have some particular achievement of note, but it stays posted for about 2 weeks and then goes away. No permanent displays. Band and orchestra trophies, athletic trophies, TSA trophies are displayed in the departments, but no student names stuck to a wall. I think the attitude is meant to reflect “we are always doing something neat, why would it be notable?”
Agree 100%. I don’t like that at our HS they only require PE 2 years out of 4. Unfortunately, the PE ends up being babysitting much of the time with little emphasis on real fitness.
I have learned so much from CC. My DD goes to a small all girl private Catholic academy in suburban Philadelphia. I know it sounds awful but she loves it. Posts such as these make me love it as well. The trophy cases in the entrance area have athletic, academic and artistic awards and recognitions. I am very glad to say that it tries to celebrate every student. My DD was is a National Merit Commended Scholar and the only one in her class. The principal held a full school assembly to congratulate her. They have had similar assemblies to congratulate other student’s achievements as well. Guess we should send a thank you note after graduation. ;))
Because sports achievements take place in public?
I guess context is extremely important. In our public HS, in any given year, ~5% of the class is NMSF, and a bunch more, Commended, so it’s all relative.
Congrats to your daughter @PhilaSkiMom! Did this just happen? or is this an older d?
I was surprised to learn this year that our D doesn’t care for the big honors assembly at the end of the school year where the students are recognized for a variety of accomplishments in academics, service, athletics, etc.
You’d think she’d feel that way because she is left out, but no, she’s up there every year collecting a variety of ribbons for highest grade in this or that. Something about it rubs her the wrong way, and she says she isn’t the only one that feels that way.
D1 and I have discussed on more than one occasion how crazy it is that a test that took up a few hours of a fall Saturday resulted in 6 years of free full tuition for her (one of the 3 schools in our state that had a grad PT program also happened to offer full tuition for NMF for undergrads that remained in effect into their grad program). Her school did recognize NMF with a plaque in the hall and the school newspaper had an article about the NMF’s.
But athletics is king in our school district. Case in point: D1 was nominated by her high school to apply for for an award named for a famous retired NCAA coach who is a native of our state. Application literally took maybe an hour to fill out. D1 is selected as one of 2 girls and 2 boys in the state to receive the award at a basketball tournament; the coach who the award was named for was the presenter. D1 was a 2 sport athlete in high school but clueless about sports that she didn’t participate in; she had no idea until she won this award (which came with $1000 scholarship) who this man was lol. I cannot tell you how many people I would run into even months later who commented to me about her winning that award and meeting that coach. The school athletic department had a running headline on its website the entire school year about her winning that award! When athletic awards were given out at the end of the school year the athletic director again mentioned her award-along with the anecdote about when he called her to his office to tell her she’d won and she got the coach’s last name wrong. I gave her one of the coach’s books that Christmas so she could appreciate why he was so revered.
I don’t remember D1’s classmates feeling bad because their names weren’t on the NMF plaque but there were several young men who were envious of her meeting that coach!
I think it’s somewhere between sad and pathetic that the school decided to take down a display congratulating their students for their academic achievements.
That being said, I think the reason why some people get upset from seeing National Merit students publicly honored instead of football players is that - at least somewhere in their subconscious - they think it’s actually indicative of meaningful differences that might matter in real life … it’s not just a silly game.
In the back of their minds, most people know that almost no athlete, theater kid, etc. is going to become a professional. It’s just a game. However, a lot of people have the nagging suspicion that their kid’s SAT score might actually really matter - it will determine what college they go to, what job they have, whether their hair is silky & shiny, etc. I’m not saying this is right. I’m saying that many people are sensitive because they are afraid that the stakes are real. To me, the fact that they waste emotional energy being upset from seeing these National Merit students publicly honored is very revealing about what how they actually think. (Of course, there are also a few students who are upset because they’re just as academically talented as those who got a National Merit distinction but they just happened to have an off day. But I think they are just a small minority of those who are sensitive about the issue).
I think a lot of people view being smart or not smart as a reflection of their worth as an individual. They don’t view being able to run fast as reflecting on their individual worth - I guess they think it’s mostly a function of the genes they inherited. Of course, most people who weren’t college athletes don’t have any conception of the amount of time, work, and mental discipline it takes.
If there’s a display that implicitly says “these kids did well on the PSATs”, a lot of parents hear “those kids are smart and your kid is a big dummy”. The comparison is much less direct in athletics since most kids aren’t participating in any given sport at the high school varsity level or above. So people can cheer for another kid since they don’t feel like their kid lost out. However, at least in most upper middle class communities, pretty much everyone is aiming for college, so lots of people are comparing their kid to all the others. (Also, there’s a culture of “good sportmanship” which participating in sports tries to instill in athletes, but there’s no comparable tradition in academics.)
I often complain that D’s high school is more focused on sports than academics. But even her school recognizes the NMSFs and NMFs. They even recognize those that are commended. Taking the plaques down is ridiculous.
@Agentninetynine - this just happened. She is a senior so the assembly was in late September 2015 when the school was officially notified. The principal invited my H and I to be there as well. It was very nice.