The final week of school is here and one of the many events taking place this week is the Honor Roll. That sounds so American, don’t you think? It’s the sort of thing I would have rolled my eyes at when I lived in the UK and didn’t know much about the States.
Back in England we would participate in Prize Giving at the end of the school year. Prizes would be given to three pupils in each year for effort and achievement. My son won a prize in his first year at the school. He’d worked hard and we were really proud of what he had achieved. But I also knew that he would never win another award. No matter how much work he put in, how good his grades were, that was it for him. The following year, he had achieved the same results so assumed he would get another award. I explained to him that no, hard work wouldn’t mean a prize. The children would all take turns and each year a different child would win something.
The Prize Giving started to become very predictable and we’d take bets on who would win. New to the school and settled in well? Yes, you’ll get a prize. We’d all sit there in the audience and roll our eyes.
The Honor Roll seems to be a far better system. It’s for children who have maintained high grades all year. If your child has tried their best and worked hard, they will be recognized. There’s no limit on the amount of children who can win the award. There doesn’t seem to be any politics behind it. Or I’m just not in with the right crowd yet and lacking in the cynical approach to it all. You even get one of those annoying bumper stickers you see on cars in the US. The ones that say:
‘My child was an Honor Roll student at school – I’m a smug bastard!’
So, did my son make it this year? You’ll have to pull up behind me and see if there’s anything stuck to my bumper.
If there is something there, it’ll be next to my ‘Sarah Palin 2012′ bumper sticker.
{ 5 comments }
Love this post! My favorite bumper sticker, spotted at the BMX track, is: “My kid is faster than your Honors Student!”
I love those bumper stickers. Someone in my street also has one that says ‘Hockey Mom’. I think I might have to get one and take it back to London….
Depressing to hear about the Brit prizegiving these days – sounds like the sports days when nobody wins. I’m all for equality, but giving out prizes to everybody just doesn’t reflect real life…
Oh yes, the infamous bumper stickers.
I came very close not so long ago to sticking one on the back of my helmet that said “If you can read this you are too f*cking close!”
Congrats to the young man btw.
LCM x
Love this post.
Not so sure the honor roll system is entirely fair though. Take for example, in the case of my oldest son — he just had his 8th grade graduation. He is taking advanced classes — one of which — geometry — that he makes B’s and C’s in. He did make honors, however, not the Presidential Honor roll for making straight A’s which he would have done had he been in a regular 8th grade math class. So, he got to watch fellow classmates a lot of whome were in easier classes, get all these academic accolades when the one C he got all year negated all the straight A’s he made plus the close to perfect scores he got on the FCAT. Not that I’m knocking his friends’ achievements at all. Just a little peeved. Honor roll, my arse! =)
@ocmarisa Oooh, I need a BMX one as well!
@nvg I was thinking of putting in the post to my Mum and seeing if she’d put it on her car with pride.
@lcm You should make those – they’d sell like hot cakes.
@IfICouldEscape See, I knew there would be some politics I was oblivious too – maybe I’ll understand it more next year.
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