Reply to Competitive academics - what to tell the smart, hard-working kid who isn't "the best"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]What accolades are they winning? [/quote]

The school selects two students from each grade based on GPA with teachers voting for tie breaks, so they'll win that. Mathletes plus there's a math competition in the spring (DD did well but did not win). Each subject teacher will select 1-2 students to win an award for that subject for the year -- DD may get one or maybe two of these, but there will be kids who get it for every single subject. That kind of thing. There is an awards dinner for all the kids who receive an academic award, plus everyone who has a GPA in the top ten percent of the class will get an award for that. This will be DD's second year attending (sophomore) and she sounds unenthusiastic about going because, in her words, "[XYZ students] will win everything again." Not exactly true but I get why this is her perception based on last year's experience.[/quote]
Wow, this is wonderful.  Compare this to schools and school districts where achievement is not honored at all and swept under the rug.
In our school district, for instance, there's zero recognition for academic achievement.  The only recognition our child received was an "all A honor roll" certificate that they had put in their report card envelope.  When we asked how many students made the all-A honor roll, the school claimed "privacy" and we had to file an FOIA just to get this information.

But what our school does have is a slide show that's run during lunch hours where each week 9 kids are recognized not for academic achievements, but for such traits as "follows instructions" and "meets expectations" (this is not snark, it's literally what it says on the slide show). When asked how these kids are chosen and based on which criteria, no answer from the school.  The chosen kids really don't seem all that competitive and their caption of "meets expectations" seem rather on target ([b]I wonder if the teachers that are forced to write these captions take joy in these underhanded insults or if they don't notice them.[/b])

Overall, it is extremely demotivating for kids who do try to excel academically. These kids will need to get their recognition in outside of school events: state and national competitions which still recognize achievement unlike their home school. Kudos to your child's school for recognizing academic achievement - it's become really rare these days.

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:lol:  :lol:  :lol:

I agree with everything you said and the bolded is a good question. I have often wondered about the backroom politics of deciding who gets these awards. Like your children's school, my children's school also seems to abide by the philosophy of using these awards to motivate potatoesque students rather than rewarding students who demonstrate high ability. It's rare that a child who excels in a subject gets the award in that subject.[/quote]

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