I think you captured all of my feelings too. Our school does an awards ceremony every year. The music teacher recognizes each class for something, but not individuals. The P.E. teachers recognize kids who jogged the most. The classroom teachers recognize attendance and accelerated readers. So far my kids have all been recognized for something individual, even if it was just good citizenship, which 2/3 of the grade seems to get. I am perfectly okay with only recognizing achievement that is worked for and earned. Sure I feel bad when one of my kids does not get special recognition (which I don’t really count the citizenship since it is so common), but we talk about what they can do to maybe achieve it. It reminds of the line from the Incredibles about when everyone is special nobody really is or something.

I think that in there attempt of having more children achieving excellence, teacher and leaders in our school have chosen to praise those who performing comes easily and forget those who “school” might me more challenging.

School are made for middle class little girl to perform well, but of course that include lot of students but not all, what about those student that would excel in a another environment then the typical school room. How about all the different ways each child can learn, there is more then the textbook way to learn.

I think that rewarding children in a public setting, in public school, where excellence can only be reach according to certain standard is maybe not the best way to go. Certain kids learn that no matter how hard they try they will never be a A student, but what is wrong with that, cause in another setting the same student would be outperforming those A student with skill that they and only they have!

Should we reward all, no, should be reward none, maybe not, but we should help all to be able to reach their potential, and this have to be done in many ways, sometime thinking outside the box, or the school room format!!!!

I should probably add – one thing that makes me feel this way is that at my son’s school, the way they give the awards is to have each class walk up onto the stage, then call forward the children who get an award. So if you’re one of the kids who doesn’t get one, you conspicuously don’t get one – you’re up there on stage, NOT receiving an award. Especially when you’re one of only three kids this happens to in a class of twenty or something, it seems sort of harsh.

Here’s the thing: Kids are smart. They know when they’ve been given an award just for existing, and they don’t really value those. At every awards ceremony, everyone knows which kids are being honored for doing something exceptional anyway.

Wonderful post that sparked my own post which I shared here http://www.melsboxofchocolates.com/2011/08/do-you-deserve-award-have-you-earned-it.html . My post pretty much sums up my view, but no I don’t think everybody should get an award all the time because we don’t earn it all the time. Awards are for going above and beyond or doing exceptionally well, and we cannot be the best at everything all the time. I won’t be winning an art award anytime soon, or exercising award, or housekeeping award and that’s okay! I think it’s also important that winning awards isn’t the end all say all, but that we also celebrate with our family and friends when we have tried hard. As parents we also need to teach our children about intrinsic awards and being proud of ourselves for when we know we did a job well done!

“He thought everyone should play every game no matter what, and I disagreed.” This is a completely different issue than the one being discussed. If a child is signed up for sport and is showing up for every practice and working hard, of course they should be allowed to play! That has nothing to do with giving out awards for nothing.

I don’t think every child should be recognized, I think those that go above and beyond should be. Otherwise it undermines those that get rewarded. My son has been on both ends. He has made straight A’s and gotten perfect attendance but then this past year he got into trouble at school and that knocked him down for receiving the Presidents Award for exemplary fifth graders. I too held my breath knowing he had worked so hard to obtain that with perfect attendance and straight A’s but one incident had ruined it all. He was disappointed but he was disappointed with himself which was a valuable lesson. A person previously posted that a teacher should find something nice to say about every child and yes that is true, as a person who has recently went back to get my teaching certificate I agree that every child needs encouragement that is positive but encouragement and an award/reward are not synonymous nor should they be. If everyone received an award for simply showing up then where would the incentive to try harder actually come from?