Does that mean that the AP classes didn’t have + grades, avabeth? So a student getting an A in an AP English course would be worse off than someone getting an A+ in, say, Home Ec?
They had the + grades in the AP classes, but I don’t think ANYONE got an A+ in AP classes - at least, not all of them. Actually, I think I had it mixed up - AP classes got the .5 in the GPA, and the +s got the 5.0. It was a really screwy system, and that was how I ended up with a decent GPA instead of what I really deserved (I hated school, never did homework, but pulled As and Bs on my tests without studying, so I got decent grades), but it was really difficult, too - there were so many weighted things that messed with the GPAs.
Ava
My graduation had 9 valedictorians - we had 9 people in the class with 4.0’s. Two of them gave speeches (we had tryouts for the speeches), as well as a couple of non-valedictorians, if I remember correctly. The rest of us had other small roles in graduation. I led the Pledge of Allegiance.
Sure does sound goofy, avabeth. Thanks for clarifying it.
Yeah, it was goofy. But those honors and AP classes I took sure made up for the fact tha I didn’t do my homework:).
The whole valedictorian thing was just silly to me, though.
Ava
But if you two are competing for a public-speaking award, should you be punished for your natural talent by not getting the award even if yours is the better speech? There’s nothing wrong with “pats on the head”; encouraging students to believe they can do well is a laudable goal. But encouraging students to believe they can (for example) always get an A+, or that they can always win a competition or get official recognition for their achievements, is just unrealistic.
First, no I’m not going to discourage a student like that. I’m not going to give him an award, either.
Second, “most-improved student” is an award for achievement. The guy who got it at my public school was an immigrant from Germany who barely spoke English when he arrived in grade 4 (never mind the trouble he had in French class…). By grade 8 he spoke English as fluently as anyone else in school and was doing well in all of his classes. But he didn’t get the award for trying to do all that, he got it for doing all that.
I just don’t understand some of the low-grade resentment I’m seeing in this thread. For example:
So…Airman’s sister earned a full scholarship. Check. That full scholarship is probably worth quite a bit…four years of tuition can easily cost thirty to fifty thousand dollars or so. Not to mention the simple, grand opportunity that college represents. So in the long run, the scholarship is worth “far more than a speech”. Check. Airman’s sister kicks ass. Check.
But because she didn’t get to give a speech, or get the award for best senior Latin translation or whatever, she “didn’t get the recognition she deserved” and (to quote from Airman’s original post now) the event was “a gigantic suck-off of these people by the school administration” and an “obvious display of elitism”.
Whatever.
Airman, in case I wasn’t clear enough before, congratulations to your sister on her scholarship; it represents a tremendous achievement of which she should be justifiably proud.
My older sister was valedictorian. She is not wildly successful, nor is she drinking in the gutter, lamenting her lost high school days. In fact I don’t think she even liked high school that much. She now works for a world missions company.
My younger sister was also valedictorian. She will be starting a teaching position this fall.
I was not valedictorian…I am not wildly successful or drinking in the gutter. I would guess that looking at the 3 of us now people would not be able to tell who was valedictorian and who wasn’t.
It really does not affect the rest of your life much. You give a speech, maybe get an extra scholarship, but that’s about it. Anyone can glorify their high school experience, for sports or grades or whatever. Most people just experience it and move on. I feel bad for any student who does kill themselves trying to get perfect grades in school at the expense of other things, though. I would rather have a kid who is well-rounded and not completely stressed over that A- .
My high school didn’t have the problem of more than one person qualifying for valedictorian, ever. In fact no one has ever graduated with a 4.0, because the grading scale is hard, and perfect A’s in every class is almost impossible. People who got A’s in math and science don’t seem to get A’s in art or gym. A 97 or lower was an A-, 94 and lower a B+, etc. I was actually pleasantly suprised when I got to college and a 91 was still an A!
At Butrscotch Jr.'s graduation a year ago, one of the (mercifully short) speeches given – I think the V, S, and class prez gave speeches, details fade mercifully quickly – was by a young Vietnamese immigrant who shared what her family had gone through to get her to where she is today. Clearly, it meant something to her, and she shared that with us very well.
I think that’s the only sincere speech I’ve ever heard at a graduation. Mostly, it’s an exercise in not screaming. (And try a 3-hour PhD graduation in the UCLA tennis courts in 95 degree sun with not a speck of breeze – or shade – to be found some time!)
Our class’ valedictorian drank non-stop and flunked out of MIT in his 3rd semester. He’s a manager at a video store now.
And I didn’t mind any of my classmates’ speeches. What though, is the point of importing some windbag who has nothing to do with the class? I wish I could have those 15 minutes of my youth back.
our V & S, well it can be said that, they were the biggest pieces of kiss-asses I have ever known. the Val went to Ha-vahd, dropped out in the second semester, went to Junior-collage, had problems and died of an overdose 2 years after grad’ing. I guess that putting her mind to it to do anything didn’t quite work. the sal went on to a Vocational tech school and runs a Garage, but he’s happy and no longer a kiss ass.
as for our awards, yep they got most of them, but I got them back. slight aside here.
our Language teacher had just returned from 2 years in Norway, and was teaching Norwegian, to a small class of 10, I took the class as I grew up speaking the language in the house. kind of a blow off class, I thought. after the first 3 weeks of correcting the teachers slang and pronunciation, I was told to help teach the class. the second year I was running it, by the fourth year the teacher was up to speed to teach. I had to choose the best student in Norwegian, I could have chosen my self but I knew a guy who worked his ass off to do well and he did deserve it. at the ceremony I was called up to take the award not him. I got up and asked him in norweigian to come up and take the award. I ended up pissing off most of the school district ‘directors’. but I did make a quick speech to let them know how I felt… in Norwegian. My teacher never shopped me to the directors even though she know I called them a load of ‘Hestkuk’ (horsedicks) in front of the whole town. still laugh about it today.
Ah, memories of my high school graduating class’s valedictorian. He’s the guy who gave me those dirty looks when I started covering my paper during the AP English exams. He’s the guy who realized during the middle of his senior year that universities care about more than grades so he dropped his hard classes like AP biology mid-year and came into the Choir and tried out for the Plays/Musicals. He was enthuastically taught the principle of sotto voce. He’s the guy who bullshitted his way into an excellent university only to flunk out less than a year later. Last I heard he was living with his mom and dad.
YVMV
Enjoy,
Steven
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These aren’t “competitive” awards, per se. They’re awarded on four years of cumulative work. (I agree with you on the competition aspect; if there is competition, the award should be given to the best.)
And your second point dovetails nicely with mine. By giving the V and S almost every award, they’re being taught that everything they touch will turn to gold. While it’s possible that they may graduate from college at the top of their class, I don’t see that happening. They simply are big fish in a fairly small pond.
**
There was no award for “most improved student”. Just awards for super-achievers. (FTR, the Spanish award didn’t go to the V. It went to another student.)
I have a really good feeling about Torie (Airman’s sister). I think she’ll do well in college and distinguish herself there. She seems very motivated to do well in whatever she takes on.
The whole beef with last night’s graduation ceremony was not that the V and S did well. No one’s disputing that, or saying that it wasn’t deserved. The issue is that almost ALL of the attention was focused on them. It seems to me that a graduation should be about the class, and not about individuals. I want to go away from a graduation with good feelings about the Class of 2003, not the valedictorian and salutatorian.
Robin
This is the bigger question. Which deserves reward more? Effort? Or results? That’s probably a GD.
Enjoy,
Steven
I personally think the American school system should do away with the entire graduation ceremony. It has become a bastardization of what it should be anyway. And besides, shouldn’t the motivation for graduating be intrinsic, not extrinsic. After teaching in England for a year, I’m thoroughly convinced the Brits definitely have us beat at this. Americans are such show-offs. Wanna play American football? No, you don’t. You just want to be seen by the entire town doing something cool. Wanna play British football? Ok, but not a single person is going to show up to watch you…'cause they have better things to do. You mean you don’t want to play if nobody’s watching? Um, ok. Sod off, and the kids who LOVE FOOTBALL will play without you.
Hell, I’m not even into sports, but this nation has completely inspired me.
What, you American kids aren’t going to do your homework 'cause you’re not getting a grade for it? Hm…and yet my British kids C R Y when they forget to the do the homework, not because they’ll get a bad mark, but because they know their homework was important and they’ve let me down?
Do away with graduation. It’s symptomatic of too many things wrong with America.
heh, I don’t even remember my graduation. I’m sure beer was involved though. (back then you could buy 3.2 beer when you were 18)
That sounds a little bad. I wasn’t trashed for my graduation, it was almost 30 years ago and I have forgotten more important things than that since then!
The thing that confuses me about graduation is that its not as if HS was any kind of a challenge anyway.
Hell, I got a 2.1 gpa just by showing up occasionally.
Perhaps the “challenge” was doing more than showing up occassionally? I mean, a 2.1 isn’t something I would exactly brag about.
MsRobyn, I’m not following you. Yes, it’s annoying when the Val and the Sal earn every recognition. But the school also shouldn’t go out of their way to have special “recognitions” for everyone. First off, that defeats the purpose of “recognition” if just any schmoe can get it. Secondly, the effort is recognized…in the form of the graduation ceremony! Graduating in itself is an accomplishment. But the fact that some students go above and above simply graduating shouldn’t be ignored.
That said, it would annoy me if the Val and Sal received every award, especially if they were awards based on subjective qualities like “Best Student” or something like that. But…it doesn’t strike me as odd that the best student in a class would also have the highest GPA. Or that this student would also be class president. It wouldn’t be fair to the Val or the Sal if they became ineligible for an award just because. But at my HS graduation, we didn’t have that problem. Usually the only thing separating the Val/Sal from the commoners were a few hundreths of a point. It wasn’t like teachers had only a few “good” students to pick from when they were considering awards so there was diverse group of “awardees” who were recognized.
I think award ceremonies take care of the “What about me?” feeling that has been mentioned on this thread. Graduation ceremonies, on the other hand, shouldn’t be about honoring individuals, and I think everyone would be better off if they kept it that way.
I was a valedictorian. 1st out of a class of 12.
You pathetic, low life, jealous, half-wits. I pity you all for your lack of intellectual attainment.
I was the valedictorian of my high school, and despite what the thread title says, I got very little sucking off. In fact, were I to do it over again, I would have definitely spent more time getting sucked off and less time getting good grades. Grades are temporary, but the memory of a good suck off can last a lifetime.