We’ve already covered that in many schools it’s not just the jocks who get letters, unless you say people on the chess or debate team or in the drama club meet the definition of “jock”.
Because it’s not his jacket.
Didn’t anyone else’s varsity jacket also have their name embroidered on it? Heck, our JV jackets were personalized to that extent.
What if it makes him happy, doesn’t that count for anything? Presumably the mother didn’t buy him a letter to fool people into thinking that he’s on the varsity team. His letter affords him nothing external. It doesn’t put him on the team. As for your drivers license analogy, I’d say the same thing. Does it make him happy? Does it allow him to drive? As long as the answers are yes and no, I honestly couldn’t care less if mom spoofs one up for him. As a child, I cut out stars and pinned them to my chest. It made me happy. No one mistook me for an actual sheriff. AFAIK, no one complained that their badges were diminished.
ISTM that’s not actually what the mother’s saying; she’s not saying “All students should be equal.” She’s saying that all the school teams should be eligible to receive letters.
FTR (and just in case nobody figured it out from my earlier post): The whole “school letter” thing is a load of hooie. It’s a freaking high school award that, really, has no impact after. Leave the kid alone.
Interesting word, “presume”. Did his mother buy that letter for him, or to make herself feel better?
Is it possible in any meaningful way to earn a letter later in life, perhaps after one has become more mature? E.g. is there a GED-Letter sort of thing you can go through and demonstrate the skills you would have been expected to demonstrate if you had earned a letter during high school?
Not really. There is plenty of other things that will make him happy, including receiving acknowledgement for something he actually has achieved. As there have been cases of special needs students earning actual varsity letters, I think it’s also presumably possible that the mother DID buy the letter thinking it might fool people not familiar with the boy or the school he attended that her son had placed on a varsity team (and therefore allow her to indulge in a fantasy that her kid is normal).
If the kids is as mentally disabled as everyone seems to be assuming, I doubt he even knows what the letter is. IMHO, mommy definitely bought the letter for her own fantasies.
Why? Because people that adopt mentally disabled autistic children are known for their narcissistic tendencies?
When I was in high school they gave me a fucking letter for being on the varsity chess team. The letter is meaningless. I can’t help but roll my eyes at anyone who seriously gives a fuck what this kid or any other kid wears or who would even start to compare wearing a letter with falsely claiming a PhD.
Talk about “presume.” You don’t know that. You’re assuming that his own mom knows what’s best for him less than you do, and that’s the bigass assumption that’s so foolish.
No, it really wasn’t, which is why I asked you to spell out your analogy. If you did, you’d see it was “disanalogous” (the word I used, not “disingenuous” as you apparently tried to correct me): the analogy completely falls apart. The Ph.D.-granting institution has no clear analogy in this story; the “anyone who tried” has no clear analogy in this story; the Ph.D. itself has no clear analogy in this story (although it’s the closest). It’s a completely terrible analogy, but if you squint so it’s out of focus it looks mediocre enough that you can try to pass it off as an actual argument. I’m asking for you to look closely at its parts, so you can see what a stinker it is.
Are we still talking about members of the military who have Downs Syndrome? If so, I’m completely and 100% cool with that.
The two things are not mutually exclusive, which is what you’re not getting. Some individuals need a crapload of charity; that’s just how it goes. This sort of tough love is completely inappropriate in such cases.
Indeed. The person I trust to make the judgment of the severity of his disability, and the best thing for him re: sartorial choices, is not you. It’s his mom.
If my boss hired a recipient of a diploma-mill Ph.D to work alongside me and this joker started parading around the office referring to himself by “Dr”, my first thought isn’t going to be, “Oh, shit! This guy’s Ph.D is cheapening mine. I hope the boss tells him to stop! Oh my wounded self-esteem!!”
No, my first thought would be, “Hmm, this is interesting. If this guy is as stupid as I’m guessing he is, everyone’s going to figure it out sooner or later. I’ll just sit here graciously and bide my time.”
Everyone’s saying this kid is the one who needs a life lesson . Why doesn’t the varsity athlete need a lesson in how not to attach one’s ego to status symbols, or a lesson in how to be a gracious winner?
So many analogies on this thread. And yet not one of them is remotely relevant to this situation. Why? Answer: because not every experience is equivalent to every other experience.
This boy has Down syndrome and autism. His mother bought a letter for his jacket. Those are the relevant details. His life has already presented more challenges than most of us will ever face. Is it too much to ask for some compassion for him?
I wonder whether the varsity basketball players support his wearing of the jacket. I hope so. I hope they are like those lovely middle-school boys who defended a cheerleader when kids from another school started mocking her. She had Down syndrome too. There was a thread about that incident here.
So, if the military had members that have Down’s Syndrome, would you want different regulations for them that allowed them to do stuff like wear ribbons they didn’t earn, or would you just like it if the regs were the same but higher ups just ignored when special needs members were not following military regulations?
You’re missing the point. You said this:
Receiving a Ph.D at my particular institution DID mean that I had to write a thesis and perform original research. I didn’t get a Ph.D for “trying”.
That is why your paper diploma has meaning. It represents a genuine accomplishment. You would not have bothered getting it at an institution that was a diploma mill. You would have put all the hard work in at legitimate institution where the piece of paper at the end represents that and not the possibility that you were given it for little to no reason at a school that others know is also a mill.
Obviously, you are not familiar with my opinions on adoption. Aside from that this woman’s behavior screams “look at (and feel sympathy for) for me and the disabled kid”. The kid couldn’t make a varsity team. Most rational, adults would respond with, “So what, it’s not the end of the universe. There’s plenty of other things in life.” Instead when the child couldn’t win a letter honestly, she took the dishonest route. The letter obviously means something important to her, otherwise, why buy it and why fight the school when they said it’s inappropriate.
Because there is a difference between being a gracious winner and having hard work and dedication mocked, ignored, or flat out spat on. My analogy for this situation would be a workplace award. Employee A worked hard and earned a company award. Employee B bought a plaque engraved with the same award name. Employee A has the right to laugh and otherwise mock Employee B to his face for such a stupid action.
I didn’t go to graduate school to get a diploma. Indeed, I don’t even know where my diploma is.
I went to graduate school so that I could learn something and make some contributions to my field. I know this makes me sound earnest, but it’s true. If I had wanted only accolades and status, I would have gone into something a lot sexier than environmental science.
Other people are different. They see only the diploma and the fancy alphabets. Which is their choice. I’m not going to tell them they can’t go around calling themselves Dr., as if someone appointed me the Ph.D police. If someone wants to look like a superficial buffoon, that’s no skin off my nose. I trust that my abilities and competencies will make me distinguished. Not my “paper”.
What the what? Are you seriously answering a rhetorical question about what I’d want if the military had members with Down’s Syndrome? Because here’s the answer: I WOULDN’T WANT THE MILITARY TO HAVE MEMBERS WITH DOWN’S SYNDROME! Jesus Christ. If they did, what I’d want them to do would be to give honorable discharges to all of them. It’s not remotely ethical to have people enlist in the military who can’t make informed consent decisions on the level of a mental adult.
Good lord almighty. That was the point of that rhetorical question, to show what a terrible analogy it was.
If Employee B has Downs Syndrome, and Employee A laughs and mocks Employee B, Employee A is a douchebag who should be fired.
Goddamn, people. Quit with the terrible analogies already.
You know, it’s funny. Every year, my workplace gives awards to a slew of employees. And in every slew, there’s a couple who don’t even deserve the time of day. But because they just happened to be assigned to a “winning” project team, they get an award just like everyone else.
And every year, there’s a group of miffed employees who refuse to go to the awards ceremony because they can’t bear to watch So-and-So get an award while they don’t get anything. They are the same people who–when they were a kid–pouted in the corner on Christmas morning because they didn’t get the brand new roller skates they felt entitled to. And they are the same people who never go the extra mile unless there’s something in it for them.
Perhaps if they had learned how the real work works back in high school, they wouldn’t be such miserable adults today.