<p>I remember being at one HS Open House, waiting to talk to the history teacher. We overheard her talk to the parents of one girl saying, “I’m so afraid she’s not enjoying the class. She never participates…” Son said that girl had about a 106 average in the class. When it was our turn, the teacher gushed over Son, said that she loved his participation, his attitude, etc. Son had about an 85 average in the class. </p>
<p>It was much more meaningful to the teacher that Son was engaged and enjoyed the class; racking up every possible point was not important to her. However, if she had been forced at that moment to give a “Best History Student” award, she would have had to have given it to Miss 106 rather than to Mr. 85.</p>
<p>My daughter was passed over for the award for the most outstanding student. It was given to a kid whose parents are major, major donors to our private school. This is despite the objective criteria - highest GPA, which we were told was our daughter’s. We were all upset, but my response was - life is full of injustices. A reality check came today when a friend sent pictures taken last week of a tent city in Haiti. There are pictures of amputees trying to walk for the first time, because they are just now getting crutches. Many of the wounded are children. </p>
<p>This has helped us all with keeping perspective.</p>
Look on the bright side–now you have a reason to decline to donate any more money to the school yourselves. I agree about perspective, but I continue to think that it’s appropriate to be angry at injustices.</p>
<p>You guys are a harsh crowd. Look, the school administration makes the rules. They, not the parents or students, have decided to give out these awards–awards with titles attached that imply certain superlative qualities. If they didn’t want to reward again all the students who had “already won the big prize,” then they should have invented awards with titles that reflected that priority. Instead, they try to squeeze in their favorites/political obligations/compassionate selections/ whatever into those superlative categories. It’s fake and hypocritical. The school has the responsibility to manage the process with honesty and integrity.</p>
<p>Our kid’s middle school gives an outstanding student award a male & female 8th grader each year. Decision is made by the director (principal) of the middle school. D1’s year the female award went to what we used to call a “bad girl” (but very pretty!). The entire 8th grade class (and parents’) jaws dropped… and one boy blurted out (audible to all the kids around him), “What did she do to earn that, sleep with Director (X)?”. Director X was new that year and apparently didn’t realize some of her past & outside school behaviors… My D wouldn’t have been a candidate (due to a behavioral infraction that year that we are thankful was not on her upper school record :)), but there were many other girls who would have been a more appropriate choice.</p>
<p>Wow, had to re-check the details of these postings! You’re ranting about HIGH SCHOOL? Let’s get some perspective here, folks. It’s HIGH SCHOOL, not real life. Isn’t this board called COLLEGE Confidential?</p>
<p>Our family ‘suffered’ through some perceived injustices at high school awards time too, but even the kids knew, at the time, that there was way more to come in life.</p>
<p>All the more reason to mock the winners, in my book! When you’re screwed, you can harbor and nuture the bitternes, or you can mourn it and then let it go. I think that parents often have a harder time letting things go than their kids do.</p>
<p>I wish Al Gore wasn’t such a political lightning rod, because he is such an EXCELLENT example of how to survive defeat. Whether he was robbed of the presidency by the Bushes and the USSCT, or whether he would have won if he had just managed to get 400 more votes in Florida, you have to admit that he had every reason to be crushed by his defeat. Most people wouldn’t have blamed him if he’d crawled under a rock and remained there. But in the next few years he embraced a cause (again, you don’t need to agree with the cause to admire the action) and won an Oscar and a Nobel Prize. He lost perhaps the biggest award there is (the presidency), either by getting screwed or screwing up himself, and he has gotten past it.</p>
<p>GFG- you posted your rant. Most posters responded either sympathetically or with stories of similar lunatic situations. You now ask how to help your D, who has been passed over in the past, get over her hurt.</p>
<p>We’re not harsh. But if you’re looking for a lot of strangers to comfort you with ways of reinforcing your sense that your D has been screwed over by some petty bureaucrats with axes to grind- you need to get a grip. It’s just HS, it’s not life, and yes, sometimes in life there will be petty bureaucrats who will screw over your D.</p>
<p>You need to help your D maintain some perspective on how lucky she is to be so accomplished, have such a bright future ahead of her etc. But if you persist in nursing your wounds, you won’t be able to give her perspective since you yourself are lacking in it. So what if the principal faked some other kids results? So what if some coach has it out for your D? Who cares that she was cheated out of her moment of glory? Some kid your child will never see or hear from again got a moment in the sun; your D is heading off to her grand adventure, and there’s plenty of glory and accolades in the world to go around.</p>
<p>Who screwed you over in your past that you are taking this so seriously??? And what cosmic wrong do you think will be made right if your D gets the athletic award that she’s already won in spades???</p>
<p>About Al Gore–I always figured that anyone who couldn’t win his home state had a problem. THAT would have made the difference overall. </p>
<p>What I always say to my DD when she is disappointed is: “Would you trade with that person?” And even though she has been very disappointed a time or two, she has been a big winner at other times. Never has she thought that she would want to be in the other student’s shoes. There also is some satisfaction when many people think the wrong person was recognized. We know it happens all the time.</p>
<p>The Gore example is spot on. I frequently wondered how he got past such a crushing disappointment in Florida and then in the Supreme Court. So too the Haiti videos. We all know of these people, whether personally or in the media, who seem to recover from such difficult circumstances. I think of them and demand my kids think of them when they are confronted with perceived defeat, especially of the stupid high school variety.</p>
<p>Of course. However, here’s the thing. Why are you even paying attention to other people’s kids enough to even know or suspect that Timmy isn’t as good in math as Jimmy, or Carrie is more of a teacher’s pet than Kerry? Your kids aren’t ever going to see these kids again unless they choose to. They’ll never see any of the high school faculty again unless they choose to. Why are they even on your radar screen? Why would you have any thoughts or feelings towards them aside from the generic “wishing everyone well”? </p>
<p>I fully expect that next year when my kids’ senior awards roll around, if I’m in the audience, they are all going to be a bunch of names that don’t mean anything to me (with the exception of their close friends). So when Timmy comes up for the math award, I’ll applaud politely and it will go in one ear and out the other and two minutes later I won’t even be able to tell you whether it was Timmy or Jimmy, much like have some “opinion” that it should have been Jimmy instead of Timmy. Let it roll over you, for heaven’s sake. As long as my kids get where they need to go in terms of getting into their colleges of choice and being ready to go off on their adventures, why should I devote any of my brain cells to fretting over whether Timmy’s moment in the sun was deserved or not? </p>
<p>And who’s going to enjoy the awards ceremony more? The person who politely applauds for everyone, or the person all torn up with rage and seething resentment over Timmy vs Jimmy? Why do you want to be like that? For what end?</p>
<p>I think it’s Serenity Prayer time!</p>
<p>In a sense, how is this much different from selective college admissions? Are you going to sit there and resent that some other kid got into the college your kid wanted to and seethe with the same rage? And encourage your child to steep like a tea bag in the cup of perceived unfairness?</p>
<p>As a mom once told me when I was young and childless, “You can f-- with my husband, you can f—with my job, you can f-- with me . But don’t ever f–with my kid.” Scary!.</p>
<p>This thread really should be required reading for everyone who plans awards ceremonies at any level, gives awards, plans commencements, etc. I think that other than weddings, awards ceremonies are the events that cause the most angst.</p>
<p>pizzagirl - I admire your attitude and wish I could be like you. But the truth is, I happen to know many of the students and their families and they talk to me, so yeah, sometimes I know more than I wish I did. And D is the kind of kid who tells me a lot. I am not a gossip and certainly respect privacy (I know a LOT I don’t tell), but it’s just hard to be objective about it all.</p>
<p>missypie- I agree. I wish I had read something like this before the award ceremonies.</p>
<p>This is a “rant” thread, so there you have it. It’s the “misery loves company” thing for me reading some of these stories (at least I didn’t have to pay to go to one of these events!).With almost 300 posts, this topic obviously hits a nerve.</p>
<p>Who was it that said that tragedy is when I cut my finger, and comedy is when you fall down a manhole cover and die? I don’t know, perhaps some of us are more nettled by injustice than others, especially if our kids are suffering from it.</p>