Your son sounds swell. My oldest didn't finish his M. D. until age 31. Kind of a laggard.

I got the "Calligraphy Award" when I graduated 8th grade. It was not a compliment of my handwriting, it was an award making fun of my hand writing. I thought it was pretty funny. A teacher today would probably be fired for bullying students if they did the same awards today.

Okay, I've been reading this thread trying to hold my tongue, but there's just so much wrong with this starting with the OP's original post. My wife is a teacher in CSISD, so I've checked with her to make sure this is all correct.

First off, the OP says that a "neighbor who is a teacher" told him that they have an awards ceremony and they are mandated to hand out an award to every student. This is technically correct but misleading. There are six six-week grading periods in a school year. Each six weeks, there is an awards ceremony during school for each grade where a handful of students in each class are given awards that the teacher can personalize to the student. Over the course of the entire school year, each child gets one. And again, this ceremony is held during school and takes less than an hour. The OP said that this was done at the end of the school year and every student got an award. Did anyone else think that this sounded absolutely stupid? According to the premise of this thread, every school apparently has a Grand Ceremony at the end of the school year where every student is brought up on stage and handed a Participation Ribbon? Really? There are hundreds and hundreds of kids at these schools. These ceremonies would last longer than high school graduations. And where would they hold these ceremonies for elementary schools? In the school cafeteria?

Now at the end of the school year, there ARE awards ceremonies at each school. At these, awards for actual achievement over the course of the school year are handed out. These are the Honor Roll, Perfect Attendance and Outstanding Achievement in specific courses awards, like English, Spanish, Pre-Calculus, Honors Math, etc. Hell, I was at the CSHS awards ceremony last night and they gave out awards for Sports Management, Construction Science and Advanced Audio/Video Production. Does the OP have a problem with these? Because these are the "End of the year school awards" the OP was b*tching about to begin this thread.

Sorry if having each elementary school child get a single award at some point during the school year makes some people think this is ruining children's futures. And this practice stops at the elementary level; after that you have to earn your recognition.

Our school doesn't give out a bunch of awards. Last year for Kindergarten, they recognized 3 kids for outstanding performance in their advanced reading program (so 3 out of about 100 students). This year, there is an awards ceremony with 1st & 2nd grade combined. It appears to only be about 30 minutes long, so I doubt they are handing out an award to each kid.

jja79 said:

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Your son sounds swell. My oldest didn't finish his M. D. until age 31. Kind of a laggard.

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Congratulations.....that's awesome! You deserve to be proud.

My teacher/coach GF would like to hand out a Pissed Me Off The Most All Year award. I know who it would go to this year...even though she's one of my GF's best swimmers.

Shakes the Clown said:

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My wife is a teacher and by the end of the year I have a
"Least Likely to Succeed" Award to one of her students based on her reports of his / her conduct, home environment, and parent - teacher conferences she's had.

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That would have been my senior award from my old high school class!!!!

I showed them!!!!

welcome to America

I'm a middle school teacher. Our school does give an award to every student during an awards ceremony on the last week of school. Every student gets an award and there is a chart on it with all award categories. The administration marks all the awards that the individual student earned. If the student didn't qualify for anything, they still get called up in stage for their award.....the chart is just blank.

ought1ag said:

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welcome to America

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Funny you say that. I actually moved to Louisiana from Seoul, Korea (lived on an Army base). St. Tammany Parish, in its finite wisdom, initially put me in remedial classes because, as they told my mother, "he came from Korea." Spoilers: I am not Korean.

One graduation from grade school matters: highschool. All the rest are annoying and pointless wastes of resources and time due to social promotion.

Claude! said:

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ought1ag said:

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welcome to America

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Funny you say that. I actually moved to Louisiana from Seoul, Korea (lived on an Army base). St. Tammany Parish, in its finite wisdom, initially put me in remedial classes because, as they told my mother, "he came from Korea." Spoilers: I am not Korean.

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Remedial classes in Louisiana? Did they make you wear a helmet too?

It was a near thing, but no.

They pulled me out of class about five weeks into the year (it was music class - we were learning Lee Greenwood's "Proud to be an American") to sit in the counselor's office and take some tests. They moved me into the higher (relatively) classes after the first quarter.

Intro to Po' Boy making. Then on to basic gumbo production.

Upon graduation from gumbo 101 you move up to the sciences of Boudin.

When you get tested for GT you move on to advanced Etoufee classes.

Nothing like Louisiana school systems but hey everybody is fat and happy.

Not in elementary school--it's just lots of reaux drill and kill.

I don't think it's true that every elementary kid in each class in CSISD gets an award throughout the course of the year. My kids, who are reasonably well-behaved and pretty smart, never ever received a six-week's award in elementary school (and that's totally fine by me!).

Do I get to be proud of MiniSlicer for being one of the eleven (out of roughly 300ish 4th and 5th graders) to make all A's for the year and is receiving an Academic Excellence in Math award tomorrow (humble brag that my kid is probably better than yours because my parenting skills and natural genetics are probably better than yours), or is that just straight, white male privilege talking?

I don't have a problem with students getting awards they have earned. I hate seeing students getting an award just for being enrolled in school.

GrayMatter said:

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Shakes the Clown said:

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Lots of subtle, yet not so humble brags here.

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lol my kids suck so I'm trying to help them suck less through life.

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Griffle said:

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***Devils Advocate Alert***

While I agree that every kid getting an award is not ideal, there are a lot of kids in the U.S. that really never get to experience joy or success in school or in other areas of life as they grow. Whether due to homelessness, learning disabilities, uninvolved / non-loving parents, etc, a moment of your half-arse clapping can mean a lot to them.

If you are ever at one of those awards, and you see a kid get a less-than-stellar award and see a giant smile on the face. You just witnessed that situation.

But this is the general board, so boobs.

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In our high school, they had a Teacher's Choice award ceremony for about 100 kids. Each teacher gets to select one. Each of the kids was ferried through the line and received a Teacher's Choice award certificate. Could have been Tennis, could have been AP Geometry. Nobody announced why, or what teacher gave what and nobody knows.

Effing meaningless.

We absolutely need award shows for elementary and everyone should not get an award.

All our emphasis on sports is ridiculous and those kids and their parents need a wake up call by going to an academic award show and giving those kids recognition.

Not saying sports are bad, I love sports and my kids all play. Just saying the emphasis on it is absurd.

My old high school has FFA banquets now. I'm sure it doesn't smell great.

Reward people... reward.

Let's eat Grandma
Let's eat, Grandma

I'm okay with participation prizes when the kids are very small. 5 and below. At that age, their minds are not mature to understand win and lose. So let them just have fun and feel thrilled to have gotten a "gift". My kids got them too and as my kid crossed 4-5 I explained them the various kinds of trophies and that he had to get trophies that he earned by hard work and winning a competition.
Now they win a lot.
they are luckiky they got a dad who doesn't b.s them.

One thing to hand out certificates saying "class clown" or whatever and throwing a pizza party to celebrate end of year.

Completely different when making them wear caps and gowns for graduating every grade level. A George Carlinesque rant could be made easy here.

Sitting at my kids kindergarten graduation where they are handing out diplomas and calling them to the stage one by one as they shake the principals hand. It's been almost two fking hours and we haven't even sang songs yet.

I agree with the OP.

However, it is much worse when adults do it. I hate seeing obese people in their mid-30s wearing a "medal" they received for walking a 10k, half marathon, etc.

My wife graduated near the top of her class in high school, and she received an award at her graduation for "most improved" in physical education. She's STILL embarrassed about it.

I had a mechanical drawing class in high school that was taught by a cranky old former coach. You know that old man who yells at clouds in The Simpsons? That was him. Anyway, he scraped the remains of a smashed horned toad off the street in front of his house, mounted it to a wooden plaque and laminated it. He brought it to school and awarded it every month to the kid who was getting the furthest behind in class. He even engraved name plates to hang on it, showing past winners.