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You might be.</p>
<p>Because I don’t see anywhere in the original post that says this is a “metric of merit.” Was this portion deleted before I read the post?</p>
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<p>But the impasse seems to be along the lines of: “Awards should be given based on qualities that apply most strongly to my own kid; it is unfair to premise awards on qualities that may be exhibited by other people’s kids but where my own kid is weak, or upon any criteria that I don’t fully understand.” … whereas award-givers seem to be functioning mostly along the lines of, “I don’t know quite how to define it, but I know it when I see it.”</p>
<p>Imagine there’s no colleges. I wonder if you can.
No need for SAT’s. And a job for every man.
And all the woman too…</p>
<p>There is such a place. It’s call North Korea.</p>
<p>Man, you’re a downer, toblin.</p>
<p>Personally, I think the parents who are outraged that their kid did not get an award are just exhibiting the extreme love for their kid that so many of us feel. As a parent, I too, am a mama tiger.</p>
<p>But as a teacher who loves her students (although not as fiercely as I love my own cub), I do believe that 99% of the teachers are doing the best they can to try to honor all of their students. Yes, there are errors — teachers and schools live in a crazy chaotic world —, but not very often are the errors malicious.</p>
<p>^what a sweet and balanced post…thanks for that</p>
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<p>I have been doing this for some time.
My oldest child is one who has always had lots of friends but seems to be “invisible” to the teachers and administrators. She has however received many nice and sincere compliments along the way from the parents. She has really appreciated it when someone has made that effort so I like to do the same for others.</p>
<p>It seems that in the world view of some of you on here it is completely impossible for the highest-achieving student to also have passion, a nice personality, and contribute to class discussions or team spirit. It’s always a dichotomy for you–there’s the kid with the top stats or accomplishments who lacks je ne sais quoi, and the kid with slightly lower stats who’s got the really important qualities we all care most about and so deserves the awards more. It seems to necessary for you to believe that high-achievers lack character or niceness, just like everyone likes to think rich and famous people aren’t happy.</p>
<p>Regardless, the examples of unfairness I was talking about are pretty black and white. A lot of this is pretty black and white, despite claims to the contrary. Kids know who’s taking AP classes and who isn’t. Even in a large high school like ours, there isn’t more than one section for most AP courses–two at the most. Because of NHS requirements, a published high honor roll, and National Merit and other state scholar designations, kids also know who has earned a GPA above a certain level. It isn’t really a big unknowable secret that one can only guess at, and will likely guess wrong due to the blindness of ego. The kids know what’s what because they’ve been in classes and in EC’s with each other since middle school. Yes, they may not always know about out-of-school EC’s, but the school usually is more interested in honoring kids for school involvement anyway.</p>
<p>For the last time, if the award is for academic achievement, what does “passion” or “helping others” have to do with that? Seems to me those are qualities you could honor separately. For example, our school has a language award which is for proficiency and excellence in the coursework, and another which is for interest in and dedication to the language and culture. The latter might go to a student who tutors others in the language, or who worked diligently for the Language Club.</p>
<p>My dad taught in a high school. The principal there had an “I Dare You” award, which went to a student he thought might do great things, if he/she caught on fire. Actually, I think there were two awards, one for a young man and one for a young woman. In my opinion, this was a great idea, and a way of challenging a student for the future. Also, there did not tend to be any idea that it was “deserved” by someone–and it was just interesting to see who was selected.</p>
<p>My high school had a rule that a student could receive an academic award in only one subject. This was announced ahead of the distribution of the awards. The teachers got together and tried to balance the school’s awards out. To the best of my knowledge, no one ever felt gypped–well, let me correct that by saying that to the best of my knowledge, no student who might have won multiple awards under different rules ever felt gypped. I think there is a significant difference between 1 award for a top student and 0 awards.</p>
<p>I agree with TheGFG’s last post, except that we’ve known a few of the other students since all the kids were fifteen months old. I also think separating an honor for academic achievement from one for “spirit” and helpfulness would be a good idea.</p>
<p>Hope you got things straightened out for the graduation brochure, TheGFG. Your situation reminds me of the old spy novel saying: “Once is an accident. Twice is a coincidence. Three times is enemy action.”</p>
<p>Some of us have a different view of "[achievement](<a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/achievement]achievement[/url]“>http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/achievement)</a>” – and don’t think it’s always reflected well in grades. </p>
<p>There are kids who are brilliant in math but don’t bother to turn in all their homework, because they find it boring and repetitive. There are kids who write extraordinary essays or papers in English, but are somewhat inconsistent in their work – again, perhaps falling short on a grade because they missed turning in an assignment here or there. </p>
<p>I think it would be rather boring if an academic award for “achievement” was simply handed off to the kid with the highest GPA. I mean… what’s the point of that? Should the Oscar for Best Picture simple go to the film that had the highest box office receipts?</p>
<p>If an academic award is for grades, it should say so: “Highest Cumulative GPA” - or “Highest Senior Year GPA” – or “Highest Sustained GPA in English”. </p>
<p>“Achievement” is something more. At least to me, it implies a qualitative judgment even more than a quantitative one.</p>
<p>OK GFG you win.</p>
<p>Now do you feel better? Of course not. Having everyone concede that your D was passed over, it’s unfair, the system should be changed, and prizes should be given out based on objectively verifiable criteria with no bias whatsoever… does that make it better?</p>
<p>Go enjoy your D and the few fleeting moments you have left with her and get past this. It’s not good for her and it most certainly is not good for you. Nursing the grudge will not help you appreciate how fantastic she is, nor is it helping you see that other kids may well be equally fantastic (or award worthy) albeit in other ways. So maybe there’s a coach or a principal or a teacher who has it out for your kid- who cares? In the blink of an eye HS will be over and nobody will remember who got what. Her entire HS career will be summed up in a yearbook that gets shoved under the bed until you clean out her room in 10 years.</p>
<p>How is this venting helping you except by allowing you to revisit the scene of the crime?</p>
<p>Your D sounds fantastic. Go ye forth and enjoy the last few minutes of her childhood without holding a stopwatch, a ruler, a grading book, or a calculator. If you nurse this slight so will she.</p>
<p>“Go enjoy your D and the few fleeting moments you have left with her and get past this. It’s not good for her and it most certainly is not good for you. Nursing the grudge will not help you appreciate how fantastic she is, nor is it helping you see that other kids may well be equally fantastic (or award worthy) albeit in other ways. So maybe there’s a coach or a principal or a teacher who has it out for your kid- who cares? In the blink of an eye HS will be over and nobody will remember who got what. Her entire HS career will be summed up in a yearbook that gets shoved under the bed until you clean out her room in 10 years.”</p>
<p>^^^
I don’t think its fair to assume that the GFG is nursing a grudge or encouraging her D to do the same simply because she is venting on this thread. It is easy to get self righteous about this kind of issue without knowing anything, really, about the OPs parenting style or relationship with her daughter. For all any of us know, she is spending all kinds of quality time with her D and has never mentioned another word about the awards ceremony since it happened. And I do get the impression that she appreciates how fantastic her D is or she wouldn’t be as upset as she is.</p>
<p>I also am frustrated at the almost deliberate misunderstanding of the position that the GFG is taking on the criteria for the awards. I think she gets the importance of passion, attitude, etc. Her point is, when there is HARD criteria for an honor, then there should be a clear and predictable winner despite that person’s passion and attitude. Nor should we assume that the person with the stats to win is lacking in any of these other more subjective criteria.</p>
<p>If you have a road race and person A crosses the finish line a split second before person B, is it okay to give first place to person B because he was more passionate in his running, smiled bigger when he crossed the finish line and displays more humility than person A?</p>
<p>“Her point is, when there is HARD criteria for an honor, then there should be a clear and predictable winner despite that person’s passion and attitude.”</p>
<p>For the kind of honors we’re talking about i.e scholar-athlete, departmental awards, most scholarships (besides those just based on test scores), there is no “hard” criteria. Multiple factors must be evaluated and taken into consideration. I’ve already posted examples of how scholar-athlete and departmental awards may have unexpected results. </p>
<p>“It seems that in the world view of some of you on here it is completely impossible for the highest-achieving student to also have passion, a nice personality, and contribute to class discussions or team spirit.”</p>
<p>No. My D is the highest-achieving student at her large (class of 500) high school if you look at GPA and test scores. And, I believe she does have all those above characteristics s. But, there are others who may not test or score as well who also have passion, a nice personality, and contribute to class discussions or team spirit. Indeed, they may be “better” than her in those areas. I think a teacher or coach is a more objective judge than a mom.</p>
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Well, I’m not GFG, but that would certainly make me feel better than the insinuations that my kid probably didn’t really deserve the award.</p>
<p>^^^Good grief. What do you care what some anonymous posters on a message board write or think? We could all be bored middle schoolers for all you know. Nobody here knows the facts about any of this. If your kid truly deserved the award and you know it, either you are content with that or you fight it. Go to the school board, write an editiorial in the local paper. THat’s what I’d do if I really cared about something. I wouldn’t care about a consensus on some internet site.</p>
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<p>This poster summed up my opinion better than I could. (except I’m not a teacher or mama tiger).</p>
<p>Inherent in a lot of these complaints is the implication that a lot of teachers and administrators are nasty, odious people targetting kids they don’t like. That’s not my experience, and I’m not going to believe it just because somebody posts it on CC. In fact, if these teachers hated the kids so much, and there was so much unfairness in the system, how did the kids manage to earn the grades that make them think they deserve the awards in the first place? If these teachers are just blatantly cheating, why didn’t they just give them low grades they didn’t deserve? Somehow they managed to get superior grades out of this corrupt cabal.</p>
<p>This thread was posted by somebody who felt bad and wanted to rant about it. Of course, on an anonymous board, you take the risk that people will tell you that your rant is just whining, and that you shouldn’t feel bad in the first place, and that you should think about the feelings of the other person, etc., etc. And then those same people will get all huffy if you point out that they’re not being very helpful.</p>
<p>^^^It cracks me up how people can post something self-labeled a “rant” and then seem to get upset because someone calls it “whining.” Is there a significant difference between ranting and whining? Would you prefer me to change the word “whine” to “rant” everywhere I have written it. That’s fine by me. I don’t see a qualitative difference.</p>
<p>Whether something is a rant (a justified complaint over some problem or annoyance that, typically, we can’t do anything about) or a whine (an unjustified complaint over an imagined or exaggerated slight) is in the eye of the beholder. I guess we’re lucky to have volunteers who will straighten us out about which is which.</p>