honor roll

Joanne Jacobs has a story today that is something we hear about too often, I think.

It's kind of become a trend.

A high school principal wants to quit publishing the names of honor roll students in the newspaper. Why? (Hint: It's not because they're getting beat up by school bullies).

No. He says it "represents an unhealthy focus on grades." Or, that it contributes to "stress" in the students.

Well, at least he didn't pull out the old trope of "but it makes the ones who aren't on the honor roll FEEL BAD," which is what some of the principals have used as justification.

This kind of thing bugs me. It bugs me for two reasons: a personal reason, and a societal reason.

The personal reason is this:

When I was a kid, the honor roll was pretty much all I had. I wasn't good at sports. I wasn't popular. I thought of myself as fat, ugly, awkward, and bespectacled, and my peers mostly did what they could to reinforce that image. I wasn't good at art. I was too shy to go out for the theater stuff.

I also missed getting into the Gifted and Talented program by the skin of my teeth. Why? Because, although my test scores were high enough and apparently the psychological evaluation suggested genius potential, one of my teachers thought my handwriting was too bad and that I should be kept out to "work on it." (I found that out years later. I can kind of laugh ironically at it now.)

But anyway: the honor roll was all I had. And yeah, this is the height of my geekiness as a kid, but: it mattered to me that I got my name in the paper once every 9 weeks or 12 weeks or whatever it was. Because, I had pretty much written off my peers as people who would EVER give me positive reinforcement. But, my parents' friends and the people my family went to church with - they noticed. They told me. They'd say, "Ricki, I saw your name in the paper again for honor roll. Good job!" And for a few minutes at least I felt like I was okay, during a childhood where I spent a fair amount of time feeling not-okay. (But then again: that seems to be a hallmark of childhood. Almost all the high-achieving people I talk to express the same thing: that they spent a lot of their childhoods feeling like they were not-okay.)

So anyway. It sets my teeth on edge to think of a principal so fecklessly dismissing the fact that grades matter to some students, and that for some students, that may be the only recognition they get.

(And I'd snarkily add: are they going to stop publishing the names of the sports stars in the paper? Are they going to stop talking about the kid who made some piece of art that won an award? Are they going to stop publishing pictures of the cheerleaders, the pep band, the kid who reads to old people at the "home"? Because if you take away the value of academic achievement, you should take away the value of all those other things).

The other reason I object to the "Oh, grades don't matter!" attitude is societal.

One common argument given is that the lower-achievers "feel bad" about not being on the honor roll.

You know what? From my side of the desk, I'd say, "Good!" Sometimes feeling a little bad is a good motivator. Every time in my life that I've felt that sort of odd shameful guilt - that sense of "ricki, you COULD be working harder" or "ricki, you COULD do better at that" it's motivated me to work harder or do better.

What we DO NOT NEED in this country are more people who feel entitled to slack off. More people who say, "eh, it doesn't matter."

Look, if someone is not sleeping - or cutting themselves - or losing a lot of weight because they're stressing about grades, then there's a problem with that person that needs to be dealt with (but in my limited experience? In a lot of those cases there's also something biochemical going on - it's not just external stress. Otherwise, why would some people thrive on the challenges of a difficult school and others fold?)

But, as is so often the case in American education, a one-size-fits-all-band-aid is slapped on a problem that exists in perhaps 10% of the population. And it will have the effect, I suspect, of disheartening part of the remaining 90%. And another fraction of the 90% will see it as license to underachieve.

And yeah, yeah, I know, in the work-world, the only way you know you're doing well is that you get to keep your job and kids "need to learn" that excellence is seldom rewarded in this culture (but then again: why should it be that way?). But - for cripes' sake, let the kids know their grades DO matter. Especially in high schools.

And yes, I know: grades do not always reflect learning. There are some people who are like Dictaphones, who can parrot back everything the teacher said perfectly without that information making a dent anywhere in their brains. But the eidetic-memory-without-comprehension people are pretty rare, I would guess.

(To be personal about it again: I got high grades. Part of that was, true, that I was just smart. And I worked hard. And part of it was I knew good strategies. For example, I would start studying for a final exam 10 days before the exam and study maybe 20 to 30 minutes a day. By the day of the exam, I was confident of the material, I had slept adequately, and I had looked at it over a long enough period of time that it actually STUCK in my head. I tell my students how I studied and some of them look at me like I have just told them I have an extra head that I keep in a jar at home.

Of course, I also had - and have - an excellent memory. In some cases, close to eidetic, I say with some pride. And that can only help. But here's the point: I don't just memorize stuff, I try to fit it in with what I already know.)

My guess is that the "stressor" students will not be any less stressed upon finding that honor roll names are no longer published. Once a gunner, always a gunner.

(Another personal example: I have tenure. That means I COULD come into campus 10 minutes before my first class, leave right after my last class, never do research, and refuse to serve on committees. But I don't. For two reasons: first, I don't like being an a-hole to my colleagues. And second, and more important to me: I couldn't live with myself if I felt like I was doing less than my best. In fact, sometimes - frequently - I feel that my best isn't quite good enough, which I realize intellectually is bunk but emotionally I can't quite get past. I actually think I work harder and do more research and more "personal development" to improve my teaching now than I did before tenure.)

But anyway: It bugs me to hear a school principal saying that grades aren't that important, that they're not really a measure of learning (because then, what does that say to the people who get high grades: "Yeah...what you're doing means squat." Real helpful there.)

What we do not need as a culture is more people telling young people that things of the mind do not matter, which is what I hear in these "we're not going to publish the honor roll" reports. I do not believe the claim that "We're doing this because sports and artistic and community service achievement are just as good" (and for that matter, should they be viewed that way? I mean, yeah, if you're a great artist and that's your niche, okay. But the number of true Oliviers or Picassos or Mozarts is vanishingly small, and it's probably important for people to become well-rounded even if they THINK their career is planned out for them.

But oftentimes, like everywhere else, the truly excellent ones are not rewarded, it tends to be the more outrageous or infamous ones. We already have too many pampered, self-indulgent sports and entertainment "stars" who set a bad example and who have to go on television to "beg" or "whore" for money when their fame dims. But there are hundreds of thousands of people out there who took the academic route, who now have good jobs, who, although they may have to work long hard hours and get little recognition, they are actually contributing something useful to society.)

So no, don't tell people that academics are "unimportant." Yeah, it does fit in nicely with the stereotype of the out-of-touch egghead, the elitist "smart" snob, the evil mad scientist, or the money-wasting ivory-tower-person who does "studies" that report things common sense already knows. But that's not all academics. that's not all smart people. But unfortunately - watch most kids' shows today and that's how smart people are often portrayed. And "math is hard" as a famous blonde once said, so it's already a tough sell to encourage people to try academically.

But, for the sake of all that's good - for the sake of the sanity of the future college professors these kids may have - do not just do a verbal shrug and say "Grades aren't that important." Because what too many students hear is, "Learning isn't that important."