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If it’s *naturally *curly hair, that could be the explanation.</p>
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<p>LOL! That’s the whole point! This is high school – the repository of things that are silly and superficial and meaningless and popularity contests – and yes, it’s quite possible that the teacher picks the “less deserving” kid because the kid is a Republican, Democrat, Christian, or just a better suck-up! </p>
<p>So … KNOWING that this might very well be the case – that it could either be</p>
<p>a) “the kid actually IS more deserving than anyone knows based on things that you, the onlooker parent / student, have no clue about, but if you only knew, you’d agree he deserved this award in spades”</p>
<p>OR
b)“this is the teacher’s pet because this kid is well versed in the art of sucking up or has characteristics the teacher likes” …</p>
<p>why, again, would you emphasize this as an area for your kid to care about?</p>
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<p>If the kid studies for nitpicky teacher and receives the A in the class, isn’t that all he’s “entitled” to? What makes you think he’s additionally entitled to be singled out for an award?</p>
<p>I actually think personalities can play a part in teachers and coaches decisions on awards. Human beings have biases and adults can take a dislike to certain students. If a teacher percieves a student, an athlete, a musician or an actor as arrogant and entitled they may react on a level they are not completely aware of. I think it’s better of course if awards and rewards could be handed out on a completely objective basis, I just don’t think it is possible to take human emotion out of the process, unless it is for the highest GPA, or the fastest runner, highest jumper what have you. The teacher may have an unfair bias, but are we holding these very human beings to standards higher then we are capable of?</p>
<p>One thing I noticed during the senior awards at my school is that the one person who doesn’t need ANY scholarships got a majority of the scholarships being offered. She was given a full ride to the Ohio State University and certainly doesn’t even need money for books or anything like that because her scholarship covers that. I think they really should have looked in to academic needs before they started giving out money to people who already had enough of it. I also noticed that not just the scholarship but all of the awards were given to one or two people.</p>
<p>The people who got the awards did deserve them though. I’m just saying they should have spread the awards among equally deserving people rather than one or two people getting all of the awards.</p>
<p>ITA w/pizzagirl’s post 602. I absolutely concede that the teacher/coach/admin/whoever might have conscious or subconscious reasons for picking or not picking a kid, but what concerns me on this thread is that people are giving a lot of power to these flawed people and their perhaps flawed decision.</p>
<p>Last month at ds’s sports banquet, the much-hated coach didn’t give me a thank-you token as he did every other mom on the booster board, despite the fact that I held multiple board positions the past two years and did all the things that a sports parent is expected to do. This guy is a jerk of the first magnitude. Truthfully, I was thankful to not have to go up there and shake his hand like I had any amount of respect for him. I’m not at all offended that I wasn’t “honored” by him for my four years of service to the program, and there wasn’t a parent in the room who didn’t get what was happening (I was the one parent who routinely stood up to his BS; because of that I was one of the few parents who never got one of his incredibly rude e-mails, but I was forwarded them by those who seemed to be in his line of fire). Later in the program, the club president gave me a present for years of service, as did underclassmen moms who wanted to honor the two senior parents who were very involved with the program. I think the snub reflects more on him than me, that’s for sure.</p>
<p>Earlier, the coach put ds up for the honorable mention all-district team and put other members with less-impressive stats on the second-team. I mean, if you look at it objectively, ds had a better batting avg and more steals than two of the second-team guys, but he saw fit to put them ahead of my ds. Why? Who knows. Maybe it’s because they weren’t seniors and so he thought this kind of encouragement would pay off next season. Maybe it’s because ds missed a couple of practices to visit colleges/attend scholarship dinners. Maybe it’s because ds has me for a mom, and we all know the coach didn’t like me. I’ll never know the reason, but I’m guessing ds hasn’t given it a second thought.</p>
<p>No, this whole awards thing isn’t perfect, but it’s also not the end of the world if you don’t get what you think is coming to you.</p>
<p>SpiritualWitch: Our graduation went the same way. The valedictorian is an incredible student. She was awarded most scholarships as well as a full ride from the state. She did deserve them. However, her parents are quite wealthy (actually friends of mine) and I know they have had the full amount of college in savings for years. She deserved the awards, but did not need money to help pay for it. Others in the class, just decimal points away from her grade, did not get the awards and yet will have to borrow every penny to pay for college. I wish there were some way to spread it around.</p>
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How about if we say that we’re not really doing this, just complaining, and you say that you’re not really saying that it’s OK for teachers to give awards unfairly, but just saying that it’s not a big deal?</p>
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But what if he was a nice guy with whom you had friendly interactions, but he still did this? Wouldn’t you have been at least perplexed, if not hurt?</p>
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<p>I don’t want to speak for Youdon’tsay, but I’d be perplexed…for maybe the entire evening of the banquet, then I don’t think I’d think another thing about it. This year, one of the heads of one of the booster clubs did not get honored at one of the banquets and I think it’s because no one thought to do it. It didn’t make it onto the program for the night and it just wan’t done. Also, the middle school cheer sponsors didn’t any kind of gift or memorabilia from the girls…because that’s always done at the banquet but no one organized a banquet, so a whole lot of things didn’t get done. I think lots of things can be attributed to human forgetfulness (or laziness.)</p>
<p>In this case maybe, but that’s because there wasn’t a limit to the number of awards given. In other words, he could have chosen to honor every parent on the board – and he did, except me. lol When it comes to kids, if there’s only one English award then decisions have to be made based on whatever criteria there is.</p>
<p>Now, he did name a Parent of the Year and – shock of shocks – it was the wife of his assistant coach and the mom of a freshman on the team who was kept on as a starter in the infield even though he had more errors by far than any other kid on the team. If there were only one award, then it has to go to someone, and he gets to pick who that person is.</p>
<p>Isn’t this thread over yet? Guess what? Everybody is not going to agree, everybody is not going to comisserate with the ranters.</p>
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You’re just complaining? You don’t really think this stuff is important? That is completely the opposite impression I got from the multiple posts over the last, what, ten days? Some of the posts seem pretty darn serious, especially the entries about dejected and beat down children who didn’t recieve awards.</p>
<p>If all this is just a goof, then rant on.</p>
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<p>No one has said that it’s explicitly “OK” for teachers to give awards unfairly. But there is a distinct difference between nepotism-types of situations (the teacher’s nephew type-of-thing) and situations in which someone might actually be deserving but it isn’t necessarily apparent to the casual onlooker. Or in which someone thinks the criteria ought to be objective grades / test performance whereas the teacher is taking into account (their subjective assessment of) passion, inspiration, love of the subject, contribution to the classroom, etc.</p>
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<p>What if no one other than your daughter and her teammates ever knew that she was the captain of those particular teams? What if she won a state award in her sport and the people who aren’t particularly interested in following that sport never knew? It’s sort of the tree falling in the forest …</p>
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Yeah, but nobody has said we’re urging our children to hold eternal grudges over slights, either. But some posters keep taking others to task for that. I’m just saying that from the other side of this argument, there is an impression that some people either think those who are upset are lying, deluded, or making a mountain out of a molehill.</p>
<p>By the way, this thread would have died out long ago if folks had just said, “Hey, that’s too bad, OP.” But if you prefer to psychoanalyze people who are ranting, and explain to them how ridiculous they are being, don’t be surprised at pushback.</p>
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<p>LOL, exactly! I find such incredibly little correlation between “was big man on campus / well recognized in high school” and “ultimate life success” that striving to be BMOC at the high school level seems so pointless. Do the things you want to and enjoy them, but recognition (beyond getting into the college of your choice)? Pfffft, might as well shoot for homecoming queen - that and $4 will get you a latte at Starbucks.</p>
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<p>Sure. Is that hurt any less for the B student who works hard than for the A student who works hard but is a bit overshadowed by the “perfect” A student?</p>
<p>“No one has said that it’s explicitly “OK” for teachers to give awards unfairly. But there is a distinct difference between nepotism-types of situations (the teacher’s nephew type-of-thing) and situations in which someone might actually be deserving but it isn’t necessarily apparent to the casual onlooker. Or in which someone thinks the criteria ought to be objective grades / test performance whereas the teacher is taking into account (their subjective assessment of) passion, inspiration, love of the subject, contribution to the classroom, etc.”</p>
<p>Well said Pizza girl.</p>
<p>Do any high schools still give serious Senior Superlatives like “most likely to succeed” or “most attractive”? Those always seems so hard to live up to at class reunion time.</p>
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<p>This doesn’t make any sense to me in light of your previous posts, GFG.
If, indeed, this girl was – by objective measures – more fabulous than all of the other kids in art, phys ed, psychology, music, Spanish, etc. – then wouldn’t that have made her the most deserving kid for those awards? And if everyone got bored watching her walk up for the art award and 2 mins later for the phys ed award and 2 mins later on the psych award and 2 mins later for the music award – then wouldn’t that be really too bad, as it wouldn’t be right to try to spread the wealth around because she was objectively the most deserving?</p>
<p>I can’t figure out your point of view. WHich is better, having all 700 kids sit and watch the same 5 kids get awards, or having some kids beyond the usual suspects get rewarded? What if the objective measures indeed point just to the same 5 kids again and again? Is that good or bad?</p>