Valedictorians and the people that suck them off

The BBQ Pit
1

As I had previously stated in the Blair Hornstine thread in GD, I think that the whole concept of Valedictorian and Salutatorian is silly. Woohoo, they get to make a speech full of endless optimism and idealistic platitudes, like “You can do anything you want if you try”, not even thinking for a half-second that no, not everybody can do it if they try, just them.

Well, tonight I remembered the other reason why I think Valedictorians and Salutatorians suck. They get all the awards.

The English award: Valedictorian
The Math Award: Salutatorian
The Spanish Award: Valedictorian
The French Award: Salutatorian
The Best Sex Scene in an Amateur Porn Movie: (tie) Valedictorian and Salutatorian

What about the other 150 people in the class? Did some of them not work their butts off while they were in school? Are none of them worthy of recognition? Sure they are, but since they don’t have the titles, they don’t get jack. It’s as if the only two students in the whole school are the people writing the speeches.

And then, to make matters worse, invariably one of them is the Class President. The Salutatorian at my sister’s graduation tonight was, and he made not one, not two, but THREE long, interminable speeches tonight. I half expected him to say to the principal “Thank you for once again allowing me to show all the common folk graduating tonight how truly important I really am”. And the Valedictorian (who, to her credit, is a good musician) got the musical solo tonight, even though I’m absolutely certain there were other deserving people graduating tonight.

Basically, it seems to me that the whole night was a gigantic suck-off of these people by the school administration.

Now, I have no doubt that these two people are good people. But damn, if everyone was kissing my ass, telling me how great I am and showering me with awards, I’d sure get a big head about it. And I’m happy for them. But man, I came to see my sister, an honor student who earned a full scholarship to a good school, not a big love fest for the “elite”.

I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who saw this, and I certainly can’t be the only one that feels this way, that this obvious display of elitism sucks.

2

I was my high school class valedictorian. I tried to get out of it, went to the Principal’s office for a formal meeting, explained to him how I didn’t think it was fair for ME to get an award when everybody else had worked just as hard. He listened patiently and told me, basically, “Tough rocks, kid, you’re it.”

Since my only alternative was to run away from home, I made the speech.

3

Think of it this way, Airman. For many of the valedictorians and salutatorians, perhaps that’s as good as it ever gets. Do students with those honors go on to achieve anything as impressive in college or in “real life”?

I don’t know any valedictorians or salutatorians (I think), but perhaps it’s all downhill from there. The other 150 kids don’t have the subsequent pressure of living up to the ideal of the honor. In fact, what if there were a prodding parent that helped them to achieve that honor? Afterward - just idle speculation here - perhaps nothing would be good enough for the parent’s approval.

4

I’m convinced the way to make time stand still is to sit on a hard chair and listen to a long list of names. Graduation speeches don’t help.

I thought the salutatorian at my cousin’s high school graduation was never going to shut up. There was a lengthy catalogue of all the ways people made it through high school (some of 'em worked!), the lessons everyone would draw from their wondrous four years, then a recitation of How Our Paths Will Diverge and finally How I Served As an Example. When she got to the part of “I hope I have inspired others by my Christian faith,” I wanted to shout “For fuck’s sake, you’re graduating, not dying!”

In my high school class, the awards were more evenly spread out. I mention this only to have an excuse to throw in the fact was I won top English and top journalism student.

5

I know a Valedictorian personally, dan. My mother. And her standards have remained high her entire life. As a result she makes a good living. I have no doubt that Valedictorians as a group are more successful than your mid to low performing students.

For some of those kids out there, though, this is it, as good as it’ll ever get. And all they get is a seat on the sidelines, they never really get into the game. It’s just sad.

6

We had 4 at my graduation. By the time the 4th one was thanking every single person she had ever met for getting her where she was today (BTW, she got straight As due to taking the easiest classes that a drugged monkey could pass–not that I’m bitter, just because I missed it because I took an AP Calc class to challenge myself that I didn’t even need and didn’t get an A…) I wanted to kill something, preferably her.

7

I threw mine. I was number one in the class going into senior year, but couldn’t have given two shits about it. The girl that was number 2 was the type that I could tell it would mean something to (plus, I kinda liked her.) Once I got into college, I had no real motivation to get the A+ in AP English that it would have taken to hold onto number 1. So, I packed it in, took my A-, and gave my speech as #2. It meant a lot more to her than it did to me, that’s for sure.

And neither of us was class president. We were president and vp of NHS. But I’ve never known a valedictorian to be class president.

8

:::::::Lobbing a rotten tomato at Duck Duck Goose:::::::::
Teacher’s Pet!

9

I was a salutatorian, and I think that hard work in high school generally deserves the praise it gets. But at the same time, I think it’s stupid that academic performance is so highly valued to the exclusion of other qualities, as the true greats in history seem to be not those who succeeded within institutional systems, but those that worked more independently on private dreams. I know a few people who did that during high school, but didn’t get much praise for it at the time. I’ve only been out of high school for a year, but I can already see bright futures for those individuals.

Oh, and giving a speech sucked, because I had to get everything I said pre-approved by a teacher and the principal, which tends to steer things toward the bland and sappily sweet. Luckily, I was able to salvage a few precious nuggets of sarcasm in mine. The editing/sanitizing process was still painful, though.

10

AD can you tell me why the Valedictorian and Salutatorian shouldn’t get said class awards if they in fact had the highest grades in those given classes?

For example, let’s say the Valedictorian (the “V”) takes AP Calculus and ends up with, say, a 98 average, highest in the class. And we have another kid that makes, oh, a 95. Still an A, but not as high as a 98. Why on earth should the kid that got a 95 get the Calculus Award? Aren’t the awards given to whoever has the highest grade? (I’ll be the first to admit that other things should be looked at too … attitude, how hard one worked, etc. – however the second teachers start factoring in subjective criteria, there’s gonna be lawsuits [of COURSE there will be lawsuits, this is America!] … which is why, I suspect, they stick to the highest-grade-only criteria to begin with.)

Should we start telling the V’s and the S’s “ok look. Sure, you have the highest GPA in the classes, but we can’t let people get their feelings hurt. So we’re gonna take the award that you rightfully earned and give it to some other kid because, frankly, you’ve been “given” enough already — never mind that you worked your ass off to graduate V (or S).”

If the V or S has the highest grade in the class in question, they should get the award, period, as that is what currently decides who gets the award. Too bad if they happen to get 3 or 4 awards, if they have the highest grade they earned it.

It’s when students get the award and DON’T deserve it is what pisses me off. (I was brutally dicked out of an award my sophmore year of high school but that’s another story.)

And since we’re exchanging stories, my class had two V’s … one was brilliant, the other cheated all through high school. The brilliant one is like, some military hot shot West Point type now. The other one is driving a limo, last I heard.

11

Well you could have always just blown off graduation like I did.(I suppose I’m about the only salutorian ever at my school to do that. People in my class thought it was because I was shy. Actually it was because I didn’t care.)

12

My graduating class had 19 valedictorians. Technically. The school quit bothering to recognize a valedictorian since there’s so many people with the same GPA, so there’s just distinguished graduates. The senior class president gives the speech. Same general result, mostly, but with slightly more justification. After all, that individual was picked to represent the class.

But I personally am still miffed that one of those individuals who got the distinguished graduate and various other awards cheated her way through high school and had the nerve to brag about it. Yeah, Ms. I-Got-A-Scholarship-To-Some-Tech-School, don’t think everyone didn’t know you copied off your neighbor’s tests all through calculus. Hope you have fun at college in the few short months before you’re thrown out for copying your roommate’s papers. Won’t that resume-stuffing be useless then!

Yeah, I’m a little bitter. If anybody didn’t deserve what she got, it was her. At least the other people who got awards really deserved them.

13

I know 1 Valedictorian. An ex-junkie, just like me. He just got off to slower start in self-destruction.

14

**

In the Air Force do you get a citation for busting your ass or do you get one for doing an excellent job? At my graduation there were other students besides the valedictorian and salutatorian who were recognized. Not many more mind you.

**

Not at my graduation.

**

Why shouldn’t they enjoy their success?

At my graduation the folks who graduated with honors got to wear something special. Christ I’m old I can’t even remember what it was called. Any way when you have a large class you really can’t focus on every individual student.

Marc

15

The V and S got to make speeches at my graduation, and the remaining two student speeches were up for grabs. Anyone in the graduating class could audition for them. I liked it that way because it seemed more democratic. Plus, just because you have the highest GPA does NOT mean you’re an exceptional speechwriter or public speaker. At my graduation, the V’s speech sucked. It was basically a ten minute monologue about how the world smiles when you smile. The S, who was Chinese and couldn’t speak English very well, had a much better speech.

My graduating class was around 230 students. About ten or so special “recognitions” went out, and it was considerable overlap in the people who stood up each time. But what can you do? People who got the so-and-so schlolarship tend to be the same so-and-so who got Most Outstanding Student. People who feel left out shouldn’t blame the school (unless the awards were given arbitrarily or through favortism). They should blame themselves for not being special enough.

16

When I was graduating high school, there was this girl who was #2 but just the slightest margin. She went back to one of her 9th grade teachers and begged and pleaded for him/her to change her grade 3 fucking years later so she could be valedictorian. The teacher changed the grade and she became the V. Man, did she look like an ass for the rest of the year.

17

Why fawn over the valedictorian? Because it’s the only chance he or she will ever get to lord it over the football quarterback, who gets all the attention the rest of the school year.

18

I was a Valedictorian, and I wasn’t the only one recognized at the graduation ceremony. The class president was, the class musician sang a song, a special scholarship recipient was chosen at the ceremony (which was neither the Val or Sal), etc.

All the scholarships earned by each graduating senior was printed in the program.

Then again, my school had an Awards Night that recognized everyone in the school, grades 9-10, who performed exceptionally each year. The Top Ten seniors of the graduating class did get a lot of awards, but a lot of awards went to non-Top Ten seniors, or to juniors and and sophomores and freshmen.

And usually at my school, the class president was neither Val nor Sal. In fact, all the officers of each class were rarely Val or Sal.

19

I remember working on the Navy brig in NAS Charleston, one of the guys in there, can’t remember what he was in for, had been class valedictorian. This kid was about 20 at the time, so high school was fresh on his mind, and the valedictorian thing obviously meant a lot to him, he carried the newspaper clippings and showed them off at every opportunity. I couldn’t help laughing one day when one of the other prisoners told him something along the lines of “I guess being valedictorian didn’t keep you from being a fuck up and ending up here just like me.” It was kind of cruel, but he was asking for it.

20

I was at the graduation ceremony last night with Airman, and I heartily concur with his observations.

I think that since the salutatorian was giving so many speeches, he should’ve been kept to maybe two minutes per speech, with five minutes for the salutatory address. And both students desperately need to forget Bartlett’s Quotations exists, because the usual suspects were quoted. (I refer here to Mandela and Mother Teresa. If I have to make a speech at my graduation, I’m quoting PW Botha and Madalyn Murray O’Hair, just out of spite.)

The problem that I see with giving awards based solely on grades is that a grade isn’t necessarily an indicator of achievement or effort. If a student is good at a particular subject to begin with, the higher grade comes more easily because the work is easier. Some people put forth a tremendous amount of effort, and don’t make the same kind of grades.

In any case, what’s wrong with recognizing a student for more than just grades? Why can’t a teacher recognize the student who may have gotten a lower average, but who showed a lot of interest and initiative in that subject, or a student who worked just as hard as the person with the highest average, even if the grade were lower?

I also echo the sentiment that these kids are in for a rude awakening. The valedictorian is going to Pitt for pre-med studies, and the salutatorian is going to Penn State for engineering, IIRC. They’re going to go to school thinking they’re the Queen and King of the World, and they’re going to be in classes where there are an awful lot of people just like they are, with similar academic backgrounds and resumes. And they’re going to learn that they’re not so special after all, and that they’re going to have to work for their grades.

Robin