<p>I just read some of thread “Need help getting over it” and it reminded me of a situation in the high school where I teach. For a number of years, we’ve put on an end-of-the-year-very-big-deal awards assembly to honor outstanding students in every class offered at the school (a small school, 330 in 9-12). This last year, there was a bit of controversy mostly spearheaded by a vocal parent of a disappointed student, with the result that a committee of teachers, students, and parents would meet to develop standard criteria for the awards. Up till that point, there really was no criteria–each of us was asked about a month before the ceremony to identify the outstanding student in each section of a class that we teach. </p>
<p>My question for all of you–what criteria do you think a committee like this should consider? </p>
<p>I always have had a clear leader in most classes I teach, not only in the grade percentage but also in a student’s insightful contributions to class discussion and obvious interest in learning for learning’s sake (you know, the kind of student who doesn’t stop to ask, “is this going to be on the test?” and tune out if it’s not). In another (remedial) class that I teach, I always went with the student who showed the greatest improvement, since increasing skills was the basic goal of the class. But now we are supposed to standardize the criteria for all teachers.</p>
<p>Ideas that were mentioned at the meeting where the parent complained:
Purely numbers–go with the top percentage.
Limit number of awards to any one student–one of my selectees last year was also honored by four other teachers, and there was some grumbling about that (but she really was the kind of clear leader I refer to above).
Continue to leave the selection up to teachers’ professional judgment–the student with the highest percentage might exhibit behavior that detracts from the learning community of the classroom; the selectee should be someone who makes a positive contribution, and learning and achievement are not only about grades.</p>
<p>I’m particularly interested in ideas from parents who feel their own children have been overlooked in honors such as this. Thanks</p>
<ul>
<li>The top performing student should get an award. Hopefully the teacher will not of been biased in grading the students so the award would be earned. Unfortunately, a number of teachers have bias in grading students along gender lines, because of familiarity with another family member (previous student), etc.</li>
<li>Another award could be made for most improved. If only the most improved gets an award, it tends to eliminate the top performers and seems to be unfair. This most improved could be left mostly up to the teacher’s judgment.</li>
<li>I don’t agree with the limition of only one award per student. There are times when a particular outstanding student should get multiple awards.</li>
</ul>
<p>If there’s an awards ceremony and the top student doesn’t get an award, I think it diminishes the value of the awards for anyone and is sure to cause controversy.</p>
<p>I question whether “obvious interest in learning for learning’s sake” should be among the criteria. It is very subjective and it could be applied in a discriminatory manner. (In my highly subjective and limited experience, white families tend to value “learning for learning’s sake” more than Asian families do. Why should Asian kids be penalized for having values appropriate to their culture?)</p>
<p>Awards can backfire. At my daughter’s school, each teacher designates a Student of the Month, and the winners get to go to a special breakfast with the principal during first period. During my daughter’s freshman year, a teacher picked her for this award once, but she asked to be excused from the award breakfast because her biology class was reviewing for an important exam during the period she would miss. She was told that she had to go to the award event and miss the class. She made very sure that she was never chosen as anybody’s Student of the Month again.</p>
<p>Can there be different kinds of awards? Some that reward performance, some that reward effort, some that reward good citizenship?</p>
<p>Edit: When S was in k-8, he was not eligible for the traditional awards because he was too advanced in a couple of subjects. This meant he was not in the relevant classes, and the other classes had to be split to accommodate his schedule. He received one minor award, which I do not recall ever having been given out before. I strongly suspect that the teachers cooked it up in order to recognize the student who was clearly more advanced than anyone else.</p>
<p>I have very mixed feelings about awards. I went to a high school that didn’t believe in them, and in many ways I think it was healthier all around. I highly recommend reading Alfie Kohn’s Punished by Rewards and thinking about what he says before deciding on how or whether to revamp the current system.</p>
<p>At my daughter’s school, they give awards that are based not only on the in-class performance, but are also based on participation in extracurriculars such as the AMC tests, math competitions, being on science team, in other words, showing interest beyond just achievement in the classroom. For instance, to win an award in History, you also have to participate in Model UN, Youth in Government, forensics, Duke moot court, or some activity along those lines. I hope that came through clearly.</p>
<p>I can see the rationale behind this, but it could unfortunately discriminate against less affluent students. Some students from poorer families cannot spend their after-school hours participating in extracurricular activities because they must hold paying jobs to contribute to the family income or supervise younger siblings so that other family members can work.</p>
<p>I hear what you’re saying. Youth in Government is a free program at our school. The others are simply the examples that popped into my head. Most of the awards require some type of “beyond the regular curriculum” to be recognized. Our Science and Academic Teams are open to everyone who wants to participate (there’s only one competitive squad and the others are practice teams), and it’s free. There are many students receiving these awards that also have to work. I can scan in the criteria our school uses and PM it to you if you’d like to see it. I think it’s fair for our fairly diverse population of students.</p>
<p>That’s interesting. It’s good that they’re letting the kids count free opportunities. I was thinking more in terms of kids not having time for the outside activities because they are too busy working, but it sounds as though kids who have to work are not left out. That’s great.</p>
<p>When my kids were in elementary school, a group of parents worked to re-vamp the awards and while they were improved, IMO, there are always problems with this kind of thing. Two things that I thought worked (elementary school) were to have an overall outstanding student for each class - to avoid the situation where one kid gets 5 and no one else gets any - that allowed the teachers to still award outstanding math, social studies, etc. students and something we called “citizenship” award - that gave teachers leeway to pick the criteria, almost, and recognize the kid who may not have been the best academically, but it could have been the kid who made the greatest gains that year, or whose presence in the classroom benefited all - because they were respectful to all, had good work habits, whatever. Our aim was to give the teachers flexibility and to spread out the awards.</p>
<p>I’m glad our h.s. doesn’t have these awards, although we do have a val, sal and essayist (#3 rank). We do, however, have senior awards nights with local scholarships and it has been an annual bone of contention. Some kids are invited and go home with a paper recognizing sports participation, and others go home with over $1,000 in checks. All have to sit for three hours on a hot stage, and no one knows beforehand what they’re there to get. I’ll tell you this - my kid got the xeroxed participation award. I decided to look on the ‘bright’ side - it was obvious his teachers didn’t think much of him, he was well rid of the place, and there were NO tears at graduation. I think it made it easier for me to see him off to college - knowing that he had earned and deserved it. He’s in a top 20 LAC and has met with more success than most (but not all) of the award winners. Younger child has been identified by the same staff as ‘golden’ (of course it’s true, but so was older one, in a different way) and already I dread senior awards night. It’s crass and hurtful. It’s been suggested that the ‘paper’ awards night not be part of the scholarship bounty, but so far it hasn’t been changed. </p>
<p>Student of the Month and that type of award - I regretted the paper they wasted to run them off. After 1st grade they’re meaningless to kids (and parents).</p>
<p>um, why have awards that are so arbitrary at all? seriouslly, what is the point? i agree with lfethandofthe dog, the problems created are not worth the pieces of paper, and on college aps, do they mean anything at all? </p>
<p>if kids need arbitrary and subjective awards from their HS teachers in order to be motivated, or whatever reason these awards are handed out somethig is wrong with the school </p>
<p>bag the awards, and spend that night doing a talent show or something</p>
<p>these kinds of awards often ignore the more introverted but outstanding scholar, may be given to teachers pets, and think of this, once certain kids are “recognized” as freshman, it can be demoralizing to other who think, teacher’s pets, why bother, and I can guarantee that does happen</p>
<p>and teachers, no matter how they try, are human, and once they see certain kids “win” or being picked, will focus on those kids are leaders and perhaps not draw from others…seen it happen</p>
<p>award nights are silly, we had it in 8th grade, and my D, both won lots, so many did not…but by that time, nobody cared, they were out of there</p>
<p>I think you have to do awards based on something more subjective than best average. I went to two high schools, one did it by talent as well as enthusiasm, participation, and the other intangibles but the second did it purely by grades. At the first school I got the English award because I did well in class, I loved English, I was on the literary magazine, etc. It was my thing even though I probably didn’t have the highest average in the class. At the second school, I lost the English awards and got awards for classes that I didn’t really care about, like physics. I think it’s a great shame to give the physics award to the kid who got a 98 but hates physics over the kid who got a 97 but loves it, participates in class, wants to study it in college, etc. I’m not saying C or D students should or would be getting these subjective awards, but above a certain level there isn’t much of a difference between grades. In my mind, anything an A or above is pretty much equal, and that’s where the subjective qualities come in. It’s harder to give out, but it means more to the recipients, in my mind.</p>
<p>I actually don’t know that much about awards at my son’s school. I think they are very low key. They do not even name a valedictorian. (Maybe that is a Jesuit thing. It wouldn’t surprise me.)</p>
<p>BUT some of the college-specific scholarships that kids have to be recommended for seem to go out rather arbitrarily. (They also go out very quietly - secretly almost.) Sometimes kids get them and they’ve never even heard of the college before, or it is a completely inappropriate fit. So I always wonder - were they awarded to a big donor’s kid, or were they trying to just gerneally recognize a kid, or were they just trying to get it over with and rushed, or what. Mysterious.</p>
<p>So anyway, I guess I’m wondering what kind of awards is this thread talking about?</p>
<p>Our school has a “Recognition of Excellence” that recognizes achievement at all grade levels. Students are “ranked” at four different levels. Teams of teachers from each department select the outstanding students in the department based on established, publicly known criteria. I think that’s another important fact…we don’t have teachers picking the “best” from their class, it’s a team of teachers from the department selecting the “best” based on the criteria the department has established. My daughter has been on the losing end of awards where students have received awards as “most improved”…which basically meant they went from throwing a desk at the beginning of the year to sitting quietly by the end of the year. I think those awards are meaningless.</p>
<p>I see many valid points in these posts. My own view is pretty close to bing121086’s, but I definitely understand citygirlsmom’s concerns. This whole assembly program came about a number of years back…we had a principal at the time who seemed to focus on the bad things a very small minority of students were doing, calling the whole school to an assembly to be lectured about the “crimes” of a few, etc., and the awards ceremony was the outgrowth of faculty room lunchtime talk along the lines of “We need to do something to recognize the good kids.” Granted, it took a different turn from there, so that the focus ended up being academic achievement rather than other areas such as citizenship. The program is called “Honoring Excellence” and I think it has been meaningful to our community and students and not generally considered a waste of time, but I think there would be that danger if we were to start adding all kinds of awards in an effort to build or not damage self esteem. I don’t think that says exactly what I mean, but I really don’t know how else to express it. I think the whole self-esteem focus in education has been taken to an unfortunate extreme. </p>
<p>As for “Most improved,” that’s really not the purpose of this awards program. I only considered improvement in my one remedial class (as criteria for selecting the student to be honored), but the award was still called Excellence in Language Arts C (it’s an elective class which was designed for students reading three or more years below grade level, and enrolled students must also take the regular English class that corresponds to their year in school). The goal of the class is reading improvement, so in my mind a student who starts out at low 3rd grade level and finishes the year at 6th grade level has achieved more than the student who starts at 6th grade and moves up one grade level (or the student who is already reading above grade level but figured this would be an easy elective and was allowed to enroll on a space available basis).</p>
<p>I agree with ucla_dad, for a number of reasons. First, I do not believe in either holding back awards for the sake of others’ “feelings,” nor bestowing false awards for the sake of anyone’s feelings. The key is to ensure that both at the end of the year, and in other settings/occasions during the year, abundant opportunity is given for any student to shine, who wishes to shine & can shine. I like the way our school does acknowledge different aspects of accomplishment throughout the year, & culminating @ graduation. There are varieties of school & school-sponsored contests (some academic, some artistic, some athletic, some leadership, some community service). And at the end of the year some of the non-academic areas are also subject to award – not duplicating earlier awards.</p>
<p>If a student truly has “swept” several academic categories, for example, the honest thing is to award that student. In our school it also solves the problem, if it were to exist (which normally it doesn’t) – of a conflict between an unweighted & weighted GPA Val. If theoretically a person achieved UW Val, a student with a more challenging curriculum but one-tenth of a point less in GPA (since the school does <em>not</em> weight), would undoubtedly be granted one or several impressive academic awards, whereas a Val who sought few challenges would not be further recognized.</p>
<p>At my d’s graduation I felt that there was plenty of praise to go around, without patronizing anyone or over-rewarding anyone.</p>
<p>There is also an award for Diligence. It is called that & is not considered anything patronizing or apologetic. It is something to be very proud of. The whole ceremony was very dignified & respectful to all the graduates.</p>
<p>Our school has all the traditional awards based on the cold, hard facts of academic performance–val, sal, science, math, writing, languages, compsci, etc. If someone “sweeps” the awards, it’s because they earned it, and there really are no hard feelings–we love to follow those kids in their post HS careers, with pride and affection. We also have an award named for an alumna who died, tragically, way too young; It’s given to an outstanding student who is also outstanding in other areas, but always kind of in the shadow of those who are tops in any specific area. </p>
<p>This is the award the the faculty agonizes over (the “Underdog” award–“Thank you, Shoeshine Boy, you are humble and lovable”)–as they are identifying the student that they feel best represents the end product they have been trying to produce–and it’s the one that gets everyone choked up when it’s given, because it invariably goes to some wonderful kid that everyone adores, who has not quite been able to beat out all competition in a specific area, but is extremely smart, talented, nice, well-rounded and the one you would want your kid to marry.</p>
<p>I’ve gotten Royally screwed over for these awards.
One could argue that I deserved the Mathematics awards since sophmore year. I participated the most in classes and scored highest on mathematics competitions in my school. I was in AP stat and that teacher chose it that year. They gave it to the val in my class, because she had a 100% average in the course. I could see how some people would be annoyed that a girl in AP stat and Algebra II, could get the award over people in BC calc. I had Trig/Precalc and AP Stat, so I was annoyed about that too. What’s worst of all, I and 4 other guys scored higher than she did on the AP test. </p>
<p>Junior year I was in AP Calculus with the highest grades. I once again had the highest scores in Math Competition in my school. However, the award went to a senior who was not in AP Calculus, but regular calculus, even though he had the ability to be in AP Calc, but decided to slack his senior year. The teacher who chose the award was retiring that year and they administration felt it prudent that she should get to choose her students for this award. Bah! </p>
<p>Well, I guess I’ll just get a bunch of Academic Awards Senior year, but they won’t really help me.</p>
<p>LBI year-round, eh? Southern Regional? We owned a house in Surf City for many years–15th St. —turn right just before Callahan’s and drive to the end of the road.</p>