As someone somewhat then sarcastically put it, by this logic, why have a commencement ceremony at all? It could make students who didn’t graduate feel left out.
I feel that the notion that America has an “everyone gets a trophy” culture is in some ways exaggerated or distorted, but it’s incidents/events like this that give that notion credence. Thoughts?
Good rule, wrong reason. If you allow NHS honor regalia you’ll have to deal with students (and their snowflake bearing parents) who want any kind of award displayed at graduation. This is Texas, so just imagine what kind of asshat awards they’ll want to include.
The weird part of this is that it is Texass and not Massachusetts.
That’s not right - they’ve always had special recognition for honor students, I think it’s typically a different color sash/collar thing on the graduation robe, and we haven’t had parents demanding display of, for example, athletic awards. If parents asked for that, the school can just say “no.”
Why does it matter what people wear to graduation? What kind of slippery slope is that? “Oh, if we let them wear this sash, we may have to allow that rope, too! Oh noes!” What is the actual issue here?
You can’t say it’s not right. It may not have happened yet, but it could, and similar issues pervade our society from the misplaced concept of ‘fairness’.
If you let them get away with that, then you’ll have to allow them to wear an African cloth over their robe to graduation ceremonies (this H.S. allows students to wear “pins and cords” awarded at school (presumably for some kind of achievement?).
Regimenting what students can wear to graduation is an important part of transitioning the little turds to becoming part of the faceless masses. Allowing individual expression just postpones painful reality.
What I stated wasn’t the reason they stated. They stated reason in this case is the idea that some students will feel bad because they didn’t get an award. If you’re looking for an underlying cause here then you’re just going to end up on the other side of the looking glass. I have no doubt this school also has sports award ceremonies, and I’d like to know if they’re just going to start honoring all sports participants in the same way, i.e. everyone gets a trophy because there are no winners or losers. And then we can begin to delve into the jocks vs. nerds social structure of high school and the grandiose prom celebrations.
NHS recognition at graduation isn’t new and it certainly isn’t isolated in Plano. Never heard of a negative impact on non-NHS students. It sounds like someone is going overboard with their concern. Will a valedictorian be recognized?
Not to be a dick, but isn’t the POINT of wearing the NHS stuff to set those students apart? Not to make the rest feel bad, but to recognize them for their achievements?
If the other special snowflakes didn’t want to feel bad, maybe they should have got off their asses and done something worthy of recognition, instead of whining and moping that the nerds get to wear a NHS stole at graduation.
Better not allow the class president to speak either! After all, the folk who lost the election might still bear the scars… Not to mention the unpopular folk who didn’t even run.
Not recognizing sustained academic excellence at graduations impresses me as pretty ridiculous. I guess I could imagine (but would not favor) a policy where there were NOP outward distinctions on the caps and gowns. Would there be designations in the program? Would such a policy hold that all recognition is to be done at smaller activity-specific ceremonies?
Why single out graduation and academics? Why do the athletes wear numbers on their uniforms? Or those various stickers you often see on helmets for good games, etc.? Makes the poor schmuck warming the bench with a bare helmet feel left out.
And why do the good musicians make it into the higher bands/orchestras? Or the students who can actually play and sing make it into the student productions? Do they ever display top artworks? How unfair, just because I can’t draw a stick figure.
So the mom of the student says that a NHS sponsor claimed that the administrators want everyone to feel included. That doesn’t seem like a reliable source of “Not wanting other students to be left out”
I’m wondering what precipitated this, if there was a student or parent who said they didn’t like that NHS students had special recognition, or if there was an administrator who started getting paranoid, or what. Or if there was a student who won some awards at some UIL competition or Academic Pentathlon or something and doesn’t understand why those aren’t recognized at graduation but NHS is.
The article does say that honor students will be able to wear honor stoles, just not the National Honor Society stole. I can understand an argument there, since NHS is not a school organization, it’s a national thing.
And as a former honor student, I wonder why this kid in the article cares so much. I’m pretty sure I was in NHS and probably had the rope or sash or whatever, but I don’t think it was a big deal to anyone. I vaguely remember other people having other sashes that I didn’t know what they were and I don’t think anyone cared too much about any of them, it was mainly exciting to be graduating and getting out of high school. The biggest deal about NHS was to have something else to put on college applications and resumes. I can understand being frustrated about working hard and thinking you’ll get special recognition and not getting it, but if he’s an honor student at a Plano high school, this probably isn’t his last and only chance to get recognition.
I’m guessing that they do have all those things or the article would have mentioned it. If they do have those things but not NHS stoles at graduation it does seem like a strange cutoff point, but doesn’t seem like a big deal to me.
I did not get the impression that this was a new practice. In fact, I got the opposite impression- that this HS had a existing practice of not allowing any club or organizational regalia at graduation and one particular student wants that practice changed , in part because his friends who go to nearby high schools will be able to wear the NHS stoles.
It’s not an issue of “special recognition” because those with GPAs over a certain level can wear honor stoles - but those are based on strictly GPA , not membership in an organization.
Looking at the article again, I think you’re right, which means this makes even less sense as a news story. It might be a slightly strange policy, but it’s one the kid should have known about and tried to get changed earlier if he wanted to wear his NHS stole at graduation. And regardless, he can wear his honor stole.
When my daughter was five-ish she took ballet, tap, jazz classes. At her first dance recital I brought a huge bouquet of flowers. She loved them.
A few days later I got a note in the mail, asking me not to bring flowers again because parents who couldn’t afford to buy flowers complained that their daughters felt left out.:dubious:
From that point on I brought even larger bouquets, but gave them to her in the parking lot after the recital.
The stoles are also expensive and have to be ordered well in advance. We do NHS stoles and Laude cords (and several other types of cords). We reuse NHS stoles over the years, ordering more as needed. If they’ve always done Laude stoles, there’s no way to switch on a dime to NHS stoles. And that’s such a stupid reason–any kid who qualified for NHS already has a stole, and you can’t stack them. Also, I wonder if they color-code cum laude/magna cum laude/summa cum laude? If they do, that really gives the lie to the idea that it’s about not highlighting success.
