Students who earned straight A’s at Eastern Middle School in Silver Spring have been invited to a school dance Tuesday, a celebration that starts during the final period of the school day and includes a DJ, free pizza and a game room.Try that belief on the athletes some time, see how much sense it makes. You know why we don't do stupid things like this, or like affirmative action, in athletics? Because athletics is important, which goes to show you how highly some people place the education of children against the backdrop of their own prejudices and ideologies.
Students with B’s and C’s may join in later, when classes are over and pizza is no longer served. Students with lower grades are not invited at all.
Eastern’s “Academic Achievement Celebration” is not an entirely new idea in education: Schools commonly reward student success. But the idea of a middle-school party that sets students apart by letter grades — leaving out 306 of the school’s 865 students, or 35 percent of the student body — has raised questions at Eastern and beyond.
Education, politics, and anything else that catches my attention.
Tuesday, February 04, 2014
So What If Others Feel Bad?
Where/how did this view ever come into being, that we can't reward the good because it makes the bad feeeeeeeel bad about themselves? What kind of warped view is that?
Only recently have honor rolls students' names been posted for all to see in the hallway. For years the prevailing feeling was it would make other students feel bad. I suggested that by seeing other students achieve, some students might work harder. It's not rocket science. The politics of envy works in education as well as other industries.
ReplyDeleteYou'd be right, save for the fact that tons of athletic programs either give trophies to everyone, or don't keep score, or both ... I loved that my son's soccer coach started giving out 'game balls' (just a soccer themed hacky sack). .. to players who did special things ... he spread it around, but never made it seem like he was doing it. And some never got one; my son got two. I'm sure that means more to him than the trophy he got after his team finished second to last the year before. I don't even see why this would be an issue. People respond to incentives ...
ReplyDeleteI thought it would be obvious that when I spoke of "athletic programs" I wasn't referring to pee-wee soccer. My bad. I consider that type of activity to be "recreational". Of course I'm familiar with "trophy for all", but they don't do that in professional, college, or high school sports, or even in serious community/local sports. Sheesh, max, do I have to define and defend every single tiny little point for you?
ReplyDeleteActually, some DO this kind of stuff with HS athletics. When one of my older kids was a senior and varsity soccer captain, in a DC suburb, the new principal announced that there would be no cuts on athletic teams, including the varsity. Naturally, it was a disaster, because kids who had never played much at the JV, because few kids who hadn't played in the top divisions of the travel league ever made JV and none had made varsity, were now on a team where they were a severe hindrance. Some didn't even know soccer terminology or rules. The same problem was on all the teams and the principal was forced to change the rule, for the varsity level, for the winter season.
ReplyDeleteYou don't, but you did say "Try that on athletes..." Well it is. I wasn't criticizing your point as much as I was criticizing the practice being used at all ... there's no reason to do it, ever, in sports. Best to teach them young that their are winners and losers, and that's fine as long as they do their best. And then, maybe you don't get people complaining in junior high that the students who work harder get a special treat for doing so.
ReplyDeleteMomof4, the problem you described fixed itself--because athletics is *important*.
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