<p>Our kids private school - very small - always handed out awards - academic, drama, sports, etc. Funny story. All three kids were at the same school from pre-school on. Oldest daughter is at graduation. The ONE award she gets is the LIFER award for being at the school the longest. She deserved other awards at graduation but the new headmaster (who was fired the next year) was not very endeared to my daughter - I know it is a vote with these awards but her senior year was a mess, a lot due to headmaster. Was so humiliating. She graduated with honors from her LAC and now is pursuing a Masters and probably a Doctorate at Columbia U. That experience humbled us all - not that we were not before. But I will never forget that stupid award. I dreaded the next two kids graduations - not really - but in the back of my mind - please don’t let this happen again. Fortunately, other two received much more significant awards plus the lifer. It does not matter now but you don’t forget. What a stupid award!</p>
<p>S2’s independent school (a k-12) has an 8th grade breakfast with awards in June. They do awards. The French prize (for outstanding achievment in French) went to the top French student in French I. They completely overlooked my son, the only 8th grader taking upper school French (French II). That’s OK … this year he’s getting top grades in French III and doing his sophomore year in Provence. But he happened to mention it to his French teacher <em>yesterday</em> and she was horrified, and plans to be sure that the 8th grader <em>this year</em> in French III will be appropriately recognized for his achievements.</p>
<p>In public middle school, the flyups ceremony (I think they call it soaring ahead) was horrendous. They attempted to say something about every child – and what they said about S1, after a year of struggle at home about how he hated his surname – was how he was such a good sport about being greeted every morning (by the clueless teacher) by an insulting version of our surname. First we’d heard of it – and very clearly the root of the problem at home. We never did get an appropriate apology from the principal or the teacher in question.</p>
<p>Yes. This one still irks me, and my son just graduated from college. </p>
<p>My boy was a three time state finalist in the National Geographic Geography Bee, once in elementary school, twice in middle school. </p>
<p>His best overall performance was third in state. Prize included a plaque to hang in the school’s trophy case, plus an atlas for the school’s library.</p>
<p>It was our pleasure as parents for three years to be able to watch the finals. Each time, one hundred well behaved, highly intelligent kids in one room answering tough questions. Any one of them could have won, as it was the luck of the questions they drew that determined the winners. I still miss that experience.</p>
<p>But this still sticks in my craw. Not even a mention at his awards ceremony. Not a peep.</p>
<p>At my children’s small (private) K-8 they do a graduation and everyone gets <em>some</em> award, tho it’s easy to tell which awards are seriously academic and which are sort of made up to fit the students’ achievements or contributions to the school. Which is fine. </p>
<p>They used to do a 6th grade award ceremony but it was farcical and I’m glad they did away with it. S2 did not get an award for a subject he was clearly best in because (as they explained to me privately) they “wanted other students to get awards too.”</p>
<p>No grades in my son’s middle school. Fine with me. They did do some kinds of awards thing during the school day for Continental Math League, high scores on PLUS test or SAT. In HS my son has only gotten one award so far, for best History student in 9th grade. I’ll be interested to see if he gets any at convocation next month. He was captain of a team that won a state championship, so maybe that will be mentioned. I think he’s the kind of kid who will be more appreciated in college.</p>
<p>I have three kids (older two in college) and my youngest is in 8th grade. I just found out a month ago that they have an awards assembly for the 8th graders because some parents were complaining about not having it open to parents and not having a graduation ceremony. My comment about the latter was that we only have one MS and once they’re done, 99% will continue to the High School across the street. In other words, they’re not leaving any friends behind unless they move or go to private HS, and that’s uncommon.</p>
<p>When I asked my older kids about the awards ceremony both remembered it as a very boring afternoon even though both had been recognized for something but neither remembered what it was.</p>
<p>My youngest two went to a very nurturing private lower and middle school. The headmaster hated awards. The award ceremony, which started at fifth grade, was truly a painful experience for him, you could tell, but it was a holdover from years before his tenure, and I think he was afraid to abolish it. What I did not understand, however, was that this seemed to extend only to academic awards. He seemed to have no problem with the separate award ceremony that recognized only a few superior athletes.
The teachers nominated three for each award, and they were not based solely on academics, but were a combination of the grade and “going the extra mile.” The headmaster had final say, and some years he allowed a child to receive more than one award and some years he limited it to one each, all as he struggled with his dislike of the whole process.
He always recognized the out of school things like geography bee, etc. I remember well him recognizing my youngest when she got National Duke by talking about the later success of those in the school who had gotten the award before her. It was very nice and probably meant more to her than any of the others, of which she won many.
My middle daughter, on the other hand, only got one award the whole time because she never had the best grades, although she always “went the extra mile.” Watching the look on her face as she hoped she would be awarded like her sisters and seeing her disappointment has always caused me to be greatly conflicted about the whole awards thing.</p>
<p>At my D’s MS award ceremony, she received some recognition for her grades - along with 30 or students - no other award. The next day the art teacher called me to say that although my D deserved the art award, they had to give it to a boy because there were too many awards given to girls. We would have been perfectly happy not knowing this!</p>
<p>Uh oh. I just got an invitation in the mail for my 8th grader for their “first annual 8th grade awards ceremony”. I wonder what that’s all about. Stay tuned . . .</p>
<p>yeppers, we have middle school awards ceremonies for each grade level. Honor Roll, High Honor Roll, Departmental Awards, DAR awards, Duke TIP Achievement etc… all recognized. And then there are two overall ‘best in show’ (;)) awards given out for each grade level. </p>
<p>Ironically, it seems most of the awards, especially the big ones, go to the kids of teachers or major parent volunteers. And the eighth grade High Honor Roll, which requires straight As for every grading period, is kind of meaningless since many of the kids who make it are taking the easiest course work. Most of the kids who are taking h.s. level work make the regular honor roll because of the occasional B. Of course, we go every year to honor our kid, but it is the weirdest feeling to watch 1000 people held captive as witnesses to a lavish ceremony honoring three or four kids who receive most of the awards.</p>
<p>Btw…the whole middle school awards ceremony thing became inconsequential to our family when, during my d’s 8th grade year, the top award was given to the daughter of a teacher. That girl and her friends snuck into her mom’s classroom during lunch and stole the questions/answers for virtually every math test that entire school year. She would dole out the info to curry favor and gain ‘popularity’. I only found out about it after she won the big award, and my d grumbled ‘cheaters DO prosper’. Apparently, it was quite commonly known among the students the entire school year.</p>
<p>Yes, ours does. Both of my kids are painfully average academically and have gone through the same K-12 schools without being noticed or acknowledged for much of anything. The exception has been a couple of teachers who really “clicked” with them. My D found 2 in HS that she stays in touch with and my son actually won a Citizenship Award in middle school after being nominated by the science teacher he was a TA for. At the ceremony he announced that nominations were not usually given to TA’s but to students with good grades and classroom behavior . But my son (who had barely passed his class with a “C” the year before)would sit around chatting with him after school and impressed him with his maturity, intellect and wit. These are the traits he is getting noticed for now that he is in high school too, even though he is still holding onto that “C” average (lazy…what can I say). He is an old-fashioned gentleman at the age of 16 who is just as comfortable talking about WWII with his grandpa’s buddies as he is talking about Star Wars with his peers. </p>
<p>It’s nice when kids like him get credit for something since most of the awards and recognition go to the straight A students.</p>
<p>mladtd</p>
<p>Your kids’ skills are at least as valuable as any others.</p>
<p>mladyd: I had these same issues with my first son. He is more work/people oriented than academically oriented–definitely not a straight A student, with some mild ld issues.</p>
<p>At the time he was a hs freshman, our school had a special award for kids who contributed in some way to a positive climate in the school. He excelled at a couple of ec’s, and is just a good kid–the kind who always has a smile on his face. He won one of these at the end of freshman year (which his teacher thoughtfully explained to him was more meaningful than the kids who won one at the beginning of the year, based on reputation alone). It really was a big deal for him (and I made sure he knew that I thought it was a big deal) and it made all the difference in his attitude about high school henceforth. Sometimes these awards can seem superficial, and sometimes they can serve as something very valuable in a kid’s life.</p>
<p>Sadly, they no longer have this award.</p>
<p>hsmomstef~</p>
<p>Our middle school does an awards ceremony at the end of the school year where various achievements and accomplishments are noted in front of all the students. I think it’s a nice touch and gives some recognition to kids who have achieved in all sorts of areas, from academics to sports, etc.</p>
<p>~berurah</p>
<p>There seems to be some confusion about what “standards based education” is. It’s all about the benchmark approach to education, e.g., NCLB. As such, it’s rooted in conservative education policy. It’s nothing to do with liberals or progressives at all. </p>
<p><a href=“http://pareonline.net/getvn.asp?v=5&n=6[/url]”>http://pareonline.net/getvn.asp?v=5&n=6</a></p>
<p>Sounds like some folks are looking to blame non-conservatives, but jumped on the wrong buzzword without really understanding what it meant.</p>
<p>The only logical link between a reduction in awards ceremonies and “standards based education” would be if a school no longer has the interest or resources to devote to recognizing excellence because of the pressure to comply with the unfunded mandates of NCLB and the focus of NCLB on meeting minimums rather than rewarding achievement above that level.</p>
<p>This isn’t to suggest that that could be the only possible reason for a lack of awards, simply that it’s the only reason that has any connection to “standards based education.”</p>
<p>There are many subjects I am willing to defer to your expertise on, but not this one!</p>
<p>State standards and proficiency tests and standards-based report cards are two different things.</p>
<p>Academic standards have been written for 47 of our states, last time I looked, and usually have benchmarks to go along with them.</p>
<p>To test the benchmarks, standards-based tests are given–the state tests of proficiency.</p>
<p>But standards based quarterly report cards are another matter. They have nothing to do with NCLB. A district may choose to use traditional methods of reporting and testing (percentiles) or standards-based testing (proficiency testing) and reporting.</p>
<p>Standards-based testing has been around a long time, most aggressively since the '80’s when it was called mastery learning. Benjamin Bloom at the University of Chicago is acknowledged as the founder of this movement. </p>
<p>Since you’re familiar with the work of Marzano, I’m sure you’ve read Douglas Reeves, Rick Stiggins, Ken O’Connor, Grant Wiggins and Thomas Guskey.</p>
<p>The change to standards-based reporting has been very slow, mainly because parents are usually resistant to it, although the push has been pretty strong in the last several years. Several schools in our area have implemented it in the primary grades and intend to do so in the middle schools. Our district is especially “progressive” because it intends to extend it even to high school. This will probably not be accomplished for ten years or more, but as parents of elementary school children become accustomed to it, it will be easier to transition into the secondary grades.</p>
<p>If you’re interested, the Montgomery County Schools (MD) website has a ton of information on standards-based report cards, as they’ve been intent on implementing it (with various setbacks) for many years.</p>
<p>Conservatives are naturally resistant to it because it destroys the concept of excellence–once you achieve the standard, you pretty much have to rely on the teacher to give you advanced work. This is risky at best. It naturally follows that there will be no honor rolls, or honors awards, since everyone achieves proficiency, no matter how long it takes. </p>
<p>I don’t, however, think it will ever effect the top 15-20% of our nation’s students, who will continue to be challenged regardless for various reasons.</p>
<p>The Montgomery County Schools, you say?</p>
<p><a href=“http://coldfusion.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/press/index.cfm?page=showrelease&id=2158[/url]”>http://coldfusion.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/press/index.cfm?page=showrelease&id=2158</a></p>
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<p>The horror, the horror. I’ll have to take your word for it that you’re resistent to this.</p>
<p>At least you didn’t make the mistake of attempting to refute the facts in my post.</p>
<p>I’m not surprised you are unwilling to admit you were wrong.</p>
<p>Sorry, HH, but I didn’t see anything on the school district website to back up your claim that the school district doesn’t recognize excellence, much less connecting the alleged non-recognition of excellence with with assessment tools or anyone’s politics.</p>
<p>I thought that went without saying. Especially when I just posted something demonstrating very clearly that the school district does recognize excellence.</p>
<p>I’m not about to get into an argument about state proficiency tests with you. I also made a statement about the top 15-20% of students. </p>
<p>I laid out the facts. Interpret them any way you wish, as is your wont.</p>