From the other side…I went to school in the late 80s, early 90s.
Academically, it was one of the best schools in the state (as measured by test scores, national merit, academic competition, % of students going to good colleges, the ways that academic achievement is recognized.)
We didn’t have an honor roll, or at least not really. The only academic distinction was “people with over a 3.5 average” which was about a third of the students if not more. That was all that was recognized for the four years, that was all that was recognized at graduation. The only person who might have known who the valedictorian was that person him or herself, assuming she/he asked. The school certainly wasn’t going to tell them. No one else knew or cared. (They didn’t give speeches at graduation, they were never publically identified) If you really wanted to, you could find out your class rank, you could. But they made you jump through hoops, ask if you really wanted that information, and highly discouraged you from finding out. Very few people ever did.
And students did work hard, and they were somewhat competitive - but it wasn’t insane. When I got college, I heard stories from people who had done incredibly shitty things to other students in the name of honor roll. Stuff about people hiding books, cutting pages out of books, destroying other student’s work, incredible academic dishonesty, cheating, lying, friendships destroyed, etc…so that student A would stay .001 ahead of student B. We never would have bothered.
There is nothing wrong is recognizing outstanding achievement, be it academics or athletics. While I suppose there is a tiny smidge of justification in the bit about “academic information, good or bad, cannot be released without the permission of the student,” the correct cure is to request permission from the honor roll winners to publish their names.
I suppose there’s a crumb of comfort to the stupid: they can insinuate that their names do not appear on the honor roll because of their commitment to privacy, rather than their academic inability.
Jesus, calm down. If I got his idea right, it’s that the Nobel Peace Prize really shouldn’t be awarded to people that condone car-bombings and other forms of murderous mayhem.
Which, by the way, has fark-all to do with the topic of this thread. Nice hijacking attempt. Move along, nothing to see here.
This makes me feel sad and un-special. I suspect other dopers might ridicule me for it. I demand that this thread and the pit as a whole is closed immediately. Evidence of Pit-skills are just like exam results, they should be kept deathly secret in case they upset others.
Geez that’s awful! Those parents should read Harrison Bergeron - what they’re promoting in the guise of anti-elitism sounds more like icky communism to me. From each according to their abilities, and to each according to their willingness to whine about the accolades they wish they’d gotten.
Bright kids definitely didn’t have it easier at any of the schools I attended, although the jocks were idolized. I always wondered why I had to take the same gym class, with the same standards, as the athletic kids while they were able to take music classes consisting of beating blocks against each other as I was learning to play the violin.
When I was 11 and was invited to join the gifted enrichment program (along with one of the other neighborhood girls), the parents of the other little girl our age who was not invited met with my parents to try to talk them out of enrolling me! They argued that it would be bad for the neighborhood for us to be separated! Not only was I not a good friend of the girl in question, but her father, the one arguing against my going into the gifted program, was a junior h.s. principal!
As the bright, socially awkward fat kid, there were long stretches of my life in which being recognized for my academic achievement was the only source of self-esteem I had.
Sometimes I did feel bad that other kids were good athletes, or good musicians, or were popular and attractive, but I eventually learned that we all didn’t have to feel good about ourselves for the same reasons. I figured out that it wasn’t a zero-sum game and that someone else feeling good didn’t mean I had to feel bad. I learned to embrace what I did well, and it took me a long way.
When you fail to recognize academic success, you only stifle it. Why work hard and do something extraordinary when you’re being told, in essence, not to be proud of it?
Sigh. Extra-special props to those of you with kids. I’m just not up to the challenge.
I also think there’s nothing wrong with the Honor Roll. The whole “self-esteem” in education issue is troubling, not because I have no concern about kids self-esteem, but because it’s often built on a shaky foundation. There’s no shame in not making the Honor Roll if one has done one’s best. Not everybody can make it or it isn’t an “honor.” Likewise, there’s nothing wrong with acknowledging those students who do rank at the top of the class. They aren’t superior human beings, just students who got better grades.
On the other hand, I don’t think spelling bees serve much purpose. Granted, good spelling is important and a simple school wide bee might not be bad, but I really don’t think the national spelling bee serves any useful purpose. So the kids can spell difficult words. So what? From what I’ve read they rarely understand what the words mean, merely how to spell them. Plus it’s a very intense, emotionally painful competition and I wouldn’t be bothered at all if it ended today.
I was another kid with excellent grades picked on by the jocks. I suspect it’s still much that way, and the “my kid is ridiculed for underachieving” thing is pure bullshit. Likely some kids are saying this to their parents to get sympathy so they get less flak for not getting better grades,
According to the article and the paragraph quoted in the OP, a small group of people ( “a few parents” ) complained, probably, as others have said, due to jealousy. Their complaints would have had no effect but for the fact that Tennessee has stricter privacy laws than most states :
The article goes on state that the school is developing a system of permission slips to bring back an honor roll for the students who wish to be recognized.
This article seems to be making a big deal out of nothing – the honor roll was discontinued due to a silly law on the books, not because of massive public support. Obviously, you’re going to have a few nitwits in any school system who will complain about anything, but the law was (unfortunately) on their side in this case, which is why the honor roll was temporarily discontinued.
And since this is the Pit, I think I’ll go ahead and express annoyance with my personal pet peeve – people who blame absolutely every child-care or juvenile delinquency problem on the “self-esteem” movement. I’m not saying the OP is necessarily like this, but I do know people who, upon seeing a 17-year old screwup on the news, immediately assume his or her problems are due to overly permissive and encouraging parenting techniques. For what it’s worth, most of the really violent kids I’ve met were raised by authoritarian / borderline-abusive parents.
Then, you MUST also get rid of sports teams. Come on - is there ANYTHING worse than not being picked for the team? Either get rid of them, or make them all-inclusive.
Also toss out all sports-related scholarships.
I’m with DoctorJ… Shit, you know, if it hadn’t been for academic recognition, my self-esteem as a student would have actually suffered. I was such a perfectionist that I needed the positive feedback. Interestingly, kids in my school(s) who weren’t on the honor roll actually had other talents they were recognised for by all of us… so… erm… yeah.
Meh. Sounds like a silly thing to me, all in all. Yeesh.
Yeah, right, go with the opinion of state employee lawyers. That’s the cream of the crop I bet.
Ignorant lawyers and weak administrators are the problem here.
Probably should administer some motivational corporal punishment to the non-honor roll students or even better, prepare them for law school with an emphasis on state employment.
It would appear that Diogenes the Cynic knocked this one out of the park. I refer you to the American Psychological Society Journal (December 1999 Vol. 77, No. 6, 1121-1134):
I may be coming to a hasty conclusion here, but it would seem that the best way to help a stupid kid is to first teach the kid that he’s stupid. A dunce cap might work nicely.
Well, I went to a poor school in the south, and then only until the fifth grade. (No, I didn’t drop out, I started college.)
The most “intelligent” (relative) kids tended to be the “popular” kids. There were the “Honor Roll” “popular kids” and there were the ignorant white trash kids. (Not a slight against them, they couldn’t help it.) They never got ahead, languished in mediocrity and felt bad whenever a new honor roll was posted, as they were never on it. It is really more of a testament to the poor state of the American eductional system. But that, however, is a different thread.
There’s nothing wrong with encouraging kids but self-esteem is a dependent variable. It is an effect, not a cause. Self-esteem comes from legitimate achievement.
What I object to is a new unwillingness to let children fail. There is a lot of value in failing. You learn more from your strike outs than you do from your hits. Competition is also a natural and necessary part of childhood. Kids need to learn that success must be earned and not given. I think Sofa King’s perfectly illustrates what I’m bitching about. It also explains the cognitive dissonance of American Idol wannabes.
…OMG, I agree with Diogenes! Preach it! Though I’m not sure about the dunce caps, there should definitely be a penalty for being willfully stupid or lazy academically. I also think that academics should have a system of reward for good achievements, just like sports.
I don’t think I could have survived elementary school, and certainly not junior high, had it not been known that I was one of the most academically gifted kids in the class.* The harassment from bigger and more athletic kids was bad enough as it was.
I don’t usually support the idea of lawsuits, but about the only thing that will bring these parents and school administrative dummies to their senses is if the parents of some bright but nerdy kid sue the crap out of the schools to keep any public recognition being made of athletic excellence - awarding of letters, sports trophies, lists of who made what team etc. Then you’ll hear 'em scream.
*Looking back on it, my school had a rather weird way of acknowledging academic achievement. At one ceremony my award for having top grades was…a baseball.
I can see the next step in all of this: the banning of award ceremonies at the end of the year. No more perfect attendance awards–the truant kids will be resentful. No more good citizenship awards–the disruptive kids will feel left out. No more most improved awards–the goody-two-shoes will be jealous.
I was one of those kids who loved school (despite the bad stuff that came with it). I liked getting the approval of my teachers (yes, I was kiss up). We didn’t do the honor roll thing in elementary school, and there were always too many kids on the honor roll in middle/high school to care who wasn’t on it. But I loved the end-of-the-year award ceremonies. I liked being recognized for putting in the extra effort. Those awards were great self-esteem boosters and I still remember the ones I got to this day.
It’s up to the parents to boost the self-esteems of their under-performing kids. If Johnny is trying his hardest and still can’t make honor roll, take him out for ice cream and tell him there’s always next year. If Suzy thinks she’s stupid because she’s not on the honor roll, tell her she’s not and encourage her to do things that she excels in, like art or music. School isn’t the only place where you can get your self-esteem. Home is where it all starts.
and un-special. I suspect other dopers might ridicule me for it. I demand that this thread and the pit as a whole is closed immediately. Evidence of Pit-skills are just like exam results, they should be kept deathly secret in case they upset others.