SNOWFLAKES. [insert the face here] win again. No valedictorian at Ohio high school.

[PS4814]

At my school students are now "gaming" the system in order to get the title. Honors & AP classes are given extra GPA weighting, college prep and general level classes are not. What the top students are doing is taking a study hall (free period) instead of taking an elective course taught at the college prep level because they know that having the grade in the elective course - even if it is a 100 - will drag their GPA down since it is not a weighted course. Not really in the spirit of being valedictorian imo but it's what some folks are doing to get that extra 0.004 points to get ahead of their peers.

 

[Thomas1945]

Whatever, am I the only one that senses a fantastic money-making eight figure Federal Government Grant boondoggle here? How important is being the class valedictorian to any high school student? Every member of every class must be polled thus providing staggering amounts of data to be reviewed. Is it most relevant by ethnicity, racial or sexual preference? Does rural or urban background play a determining factor? Is a families previous educational or current financial status the key? The permutations and computations become even more complex ( and Grant size increases ) the longer the study.

Finally we have the book rights, the cable news appearances and dare I say the full length motion picture staring Aunt Becky. All for something that I fear 95% or more of high school students never considered was personally obtainable. Now that’s the type of study that could only happen in America. The next step is contacting President Barron regarding which Federal Agency would be most receptive to overfunding the project.

 

[NittPicker]

Become? We've been this way for going on 30 years. Our current commander in chief is just the most visible example of how far we've come.

Haven't you heard?? Everything is fixed nowadays and nothing is fair. Well, unless it benefits the person who is whining in which case it's perfectly acceptable.

 

[Doctori]

why Would they take this away from overachievers in school. Not everyone can be the starting qb etc. not everyone has the chance to be in the top tier of academics. Really stupid to take it away because for those who do strive to be the best in academics lose out. Next up no sports scores, we play until everyone has their turn then shake hands and call it a day.

Totally agree, RAZ..totally!
Next up...everyone gets an attendance medal for being enrolled in that school...that's right, take away the generation's unique desire to strive for top notch excellence, that comes from the desire to BE THE BEST!!!
This generation will lose out in the end!

 

[Bob78]

Get outta there!

This story really irritates me. We are going to raise a generation of wimps. Don't do anything that might upset the kids. If they feel the slightest bit of stress, get them milk and cookies and make it all go away.

Pathetic.

Hey! Keep the innocent milk and cookies outta this! Stress is ok, partly because of the magical de-stressing powers of milk and cookies!

Unless the cookies have raisins, which are known to cause extreme stress in cookie-eaters and those around them (scientific fact), and which should be banned from all foods at all times. The little bastards hide in there all smug and pleased with themselves, pretending to be chocolate chips, looking all yummy from afar, and then.... Pittoooey! Nature's little sumbitches, them raisins.

I need to go do some deep breathing. Sorry, what was the topic again?
Namaste.

 

[bdgan]

I like it.

It's a stupid designation. It's a stupid goal.

I laugh at all the true snowflakes freaking out about this and commencing the typical "oh it's the participation trophy generation" nonsense.

The reality is, highlighting these 1 or 2 people among the sea of potentials, inevitably leads to "trophy hunting" rather than encouraging learning and exploration. When they get up in that area of achievement, suddenly they start leaning toward classes based on the likelihood of getting the highest grade, and the highest overall GPA, rather than taking that stress off them (usually placed on them by parents) by allowing them to explore other subject matters that they may actually excel at (eventually, if not immediately), or that will at least broaden their knowledge base. A lot of the best learning opportunities come in situations where you're learning new things, or things outside your comfort zone, or when you're just exploring for the sake of exploring, rather than trying to hustle for the highest grade on an exam.

It's not like they're taking away recognition of academic achievement altogether (though I'm sure the snowflakes will argue that's next).

I have boxes of my kids trophies in my basement. I'm not sure why we haven't just tossed them out because my kids could care less. They have no meaning. They do want to keep their college diplomas, cum laude cords, and the trophies/awards that they truly won.

My kids weren't valedictorians but one of them finished 3rd in their class. I can tell you that most kids near the top of their class took the maximum number of AP courses. I don't have national statistics but I don't think the kids with high GPAs get there by taking easy courses. In fact AP grades are weighted and can help your GPA.

 

[Nitwit97]

Academic socialism at its best

Actually, the kids with the top GPA clearly had IQ privilege. They need to acknowledge this privilege and be forced to give 90% of their grade points over 3.00 to those who got under 2.00. That is the only way this can be fair.

 

[massimoManca II]

Ah. So a political thing. Got it.

The OP’s use of “snowflake” in the subject-line probably wasn’t signaling anything political #endofsarcasmfont

 

[demlion]

Did beat the girl.

LdN

No. They flipped a coin because they were tied. He lost, she gave the speech. Then he wrote his crybaby letter.

 

[demlion]

It is possible to enhance educational opportunities for all, celebrate all achievements, and still recognize the valedictorian. And what’s wrong with competition?

Nothing is wrong with competition. Especially now that they have "fixed" the system by weighting AP classes so that only college bound high achievers can be eligible for top honors. Just think how much $ their parents save by not having to buy their kids a spot on the rowing team.

 

[walleye38]

See the video at the link below. A high school in Ohio will no longer name a valedictorian in an attempt to reduce the competitiveness and improve mental health.

View embedded media

I hate our world.

EDIT: It seems that I cannot post the video link here. Here is a link to an article:

https://www.wlwt.com/article/mason-...torian-to-reduce-competitive-culture/27422423

That is the generation of political correctness, I hate to say it , but all the candidates running for president this year except Trump are for political correctness.

 

[Raffycorn]

That is the generation of political correctness, I hate to say it , but all the candidates running for president this year except Trump are for political correctness.

Trump is absolutely running on a campaign of political correctness - the culture war/political correctness stuff has been the most effective part of his politics dating back to 2015. Perhaps Trump’s brand of “political correctness” just happens to align with your own politics.

 

[BobPSU92]

The OP’s use of “snowflake” in the subject-line probably wasn’t signaling anything political #endofsarcasmfont

What are you talking about? SNOWFLAKE. has to be political now?

I hate all politics. This was just good old-fashioned OUTRAGE. about pussy America, independent of political persuasion.

 

[BobPSU92]

That is the generation of political correctness, I hate to say it , but all the candidates running for president this year except Trump are for political correctness.

Forgetting politics, I don’t understand why everything in America has to go to an extreme now. We can’t honor a valedictorian while also honoring other student accomplishments? Being the best in an academic measure is not worthy of being honored by a school? We can’t have children stressed about competition so we must do away with competition? Parents, teachers, and counselors should have no responsibility in monitoring how students handle competition so we should just do away with it?

I just don’t get this constant extremism. And please no one tell me that one political party is to blame for it. Leave politics out of it.

 

[KnightSlayer]

I look forward

Forgetting politics, I don’t understand why everything in America has to go to an extreme now. We can’t honor a valedictorian while also honoring other student accomplishments? Being the best in an academic measure is not worthy of being honored by a school? We can’t have children stressed about competition so we must do away with competition? Parents, teachers, and counselors should have no responsibility in monitoring how students handle competition so we should just do away with it?

I just don’t get this constant extremism. And please no one tell me that one political party is to blame for it. Leave politics out of it.

Yawn, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

 

[demlion]

Trump is absolutely running on a campaign of political correctness - the culture war/political correctness stuff has been the most effective part of his politics dating back to 2015. Perhaps Trump’s brand of “political correctness” just happens to align with your own politics.

You got it. It is not political correctness if THEIR ox is being gored.

 

[Nitt1300]

Trump is absolutely running on a campaign of political correctness - the culture war/political correctness stuff has been the most effective part of his politics dating back to 2015. Perhaps Trump’s brand of “political correctness” just happens to align with your own politics.

Bone Spurs -and all other draft dodgers- were the ultimate "Snowflakes"

 

[BobPSU92]

I look forward


Yawn, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Incorrect. Like this:

YAWN.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

No one is going to take you seriously if you are going to be nonchalant with your supposed lack of interest that still drove you to post.

 

[wilbury]

Forgetting politics, I don’t understand why everything in America has to go to an extreme now. We can’t honor a valedictorian while also honoring other student accomplishments? Being the best in an academic measure is not worthy of being honored by a school? We can’t have children stressed about competition so we must do away with competition? Parents, teachers, and counselors should have no responsibility in monitoring how students handle competition so we should just do away with it?

I just don’t get this constant extremism. And please no one tell me that one political party is to blame for it. Leave politics out of it.

If having the best GPA isn't important, then why is any GPA important? Get rid of tests and grades. Kids stress over them and since we don't care how they finish, they don't matter. How do we deal with SAT's, bar exams and medical boards?

There's no end to this. There will always be smarter, faster, or stronger kids. Instead of rewarding top performance, we discourage it to make everyone else feel better.

Maybe we should just pay every person in this country the exact same salary. I'm sure the world would be a better place.

 

[PS4814]

Forgetting politics, I don’t understand why everything in America has to go to an extreme now. We can’t honor a valedictorian while also honoring other student accomplishments? Being the best in an academic measure is not worthy of being honored by a school? We can’t have children stressed about competition so we must do away with competition? Parents, teachers, and counselors should have no responsibility in monitoring how students handle competition so we should just do away with it?

I just don’t get this constant extremism. And please no one tell me that one political party is to blame for it. Leave politics out of it.

I mean you mock this daily but - outrage?

My personal feeling on the situation is that social networking has created the extreme nature of everything. In the pre-social media, or hell even in the pre-internet days every village and town would have a few idiot wack-jobs that would proselytize folks in their extreme beliefs at the local watering hole or at a local government meeting. Most of the town would have a chuckle and ignore said idiot, maybe a handful would join their cause, but by and large nothing ever came of it.

Fast forward to the information age and now the wack-jobs from every village found a way to communicate and share their lunacy with others who felt the same and where they were isolated they became a community of wack-jobs. These communities of wack-jobs grew in presence and numbers online meaning that normal discussions couldn't be had without said wack-jobs tilting things to the extreme.

So when normal people use the interwebs they see nothing but extremes and said extremes have become the new normal. Well these wack-jobs can't be normal so they then had to then turn the extreme dial to 11. Everything is the worst / best ever. There is no grey area or area for discussion. It's you vs me based on your beliefs and as studies have shown beliefs are extremely hard to change even with factual evidence being given - see anti-vaxxers and flat-earthers.

tl;dr - the internet brought together groups of wack-jobs that had previously been isolated and brought about the extremes you're outraged over.

 

[BobPSU92]

If having the best GPA isn't important, then why is any GPA important? Get rid of tests and grades. Kids stress over them and since we don't care how they finish, they don't matter. How do we deal with SAT's, bar exams and medical boards?

There's no end to this. There will always be smarter, faster, or stronger kids. Instead of rewarding top performance, we discourage it to make everyone else feel better.

Maybe we should just pay every person in this country the exact same salary. I'm sure the world would be a better place.

It can be a slippery slope. Exactly. Why and when does being the best matter? When is it O.K.?

How can we possibly be sending the right message to kids not to compete? We joke a lot about participation trophies in kids' sports, but this mentality is becoming more and more common in all aspects of children's lives. If this continues, it will be a rude awakening when kids find out that competition is important later in life. It may not be literal competition (1st place, 2nd place, etc.). Kids may not be prepared for the standards that employers will hold them to. Merely doing your best and falling short often is not good enough when an employer is paying you a real salary and financial results are on the line.

In the grand scheme of things, being valedictorian or not likely will not determine one's ultimate trajectory. However, I believe it is still important to instill a competitive drive and standards of excellence in children. If a child has the potential to become valedictorian, and they achieve it, they should be rewarded for it. It is a worthy achievement. That doesn't mean we admonish the kids who didn't achieve it. We can still honor them for their achievements.

 

[anon_xdc8rmuek44eq]

If having the best GPA isn't important, then why is any GPA important? Get rid of tests and grades. Kids stress over them and since we don't care how they finish, they don't matter. How do we deal with SAT's, bar exams and medical boards?

There's no end to this. There will always be smarter, faster, or stronger kids. Instead of rewarding top performance, we discourage it to make everyone else feel better.

Maybe we should just pay every person in this country the exact same salary. I'm sure the world would be a better place.

I thought some years ago Cal completely changed the emphasis it put on SATs when considering students for admissions; it's a black box anymore.

 

[BobPSU92]

I mean you mock this daily but - outrage?

My personal feeling on the situation is that social networking has created the extreme nature of everything. In the pre-social media, or hell even in the pre-internet days every village and town would have a few idiot wack-jobs that would proselytize folks in their extreme beliefs at the local watering hole or at a local government meeting. Most of the town would have a chuckle and ignore said idiot, maybe a handful would join their cause, but by and large nothing ever came of it.

Fast forward to the information age and now the wack-jobs from every village found a way to communicate and share their lunacy with others who felt the same and where they were isolated they became a community of wack-jobs. These communities of wack-jobs grew in presence and numbers online meaning that normal discussions couldn't be had without said wack-jobs tilting things to the extreme.

So when normal people use the interwebs they see nothing but extremes and said extremes have become the new normal. Well these wack-jobs can't be normal so they then had to then turn the extreme dial to 11. Everything is the worst / best ever. There is no grey area or area for discussion. It's you vs me based on your beliefs and as studies have shown beliefs are extremely hard to change even with factual evidence being given - see anti-vaxxers and flat-earthers.

tl;dr - the internet brought together groups of wack-jobs that had previously been isolated and brought about the extremes you're outraged over.

I agree about social networking. Facebook, Twitter, etc. allow thousands of people to see who can yell the loudest and, thanks to the anonymity that some platforms allow, berate others who disagree, often without consequence. Still, intelligent adults should be able to see the gray areas and find middle ground. Sadly, it is often adults who go to the extremes on social media. It's just a mess.

 

[PS4814]

It can be a slippery slope. Exactly. Why and when does being the best matter? When is it O.K.?

How can we possibly be sending the right message to kids not to compete? We joke a lot about participation trophies in kids' sports, but this mentality is becoming more and more common in all aspects of children's lives. If this continues, it will be a rude awakening when kids find out that competition is important later in life. It may not be literal competition (1st place, 2nd place, etc.). Kids may not be prepared for the standards that employers will hold them to. Merely doing your best and falling short often is not good enough when an employer is paying you a real salary and financial results are on the line.

In the grand scheme of things, being valedictorian or not likely will not determine one's ultimate trajectory. However, I believe it is still important to instill a competitive drive and standards of excellence in children. If a child has the potential to become valedictorian, and they achieve it, they should be rewarded for it. It is a worthy achievement. That doesn't mean we admonish the kids who didn't achieve it. We can still honor them for their achievements.

Thing is that the kids who care about being valedictorian are maybe 5-10 kids tops per class. After you get past that point most kids know they have no shot and it provides zero motivation. It's not like in a class of 500 kids you have 500 working as hard as possible to become valedictorian. You could still build in some recognition for the top 10% of the class and maybe that might grab more of the mid-range kids to work a bit harder to try and get there, but most who are academically focused are working hard to get into their college of choice.

 

[KnightSlayer]

Incorrect. Like this:

YAWN.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

No one is going to take you seriously if you are going to be nonchalant with your supposed lack of interest that still drove you to post.

Your outrage bores me.

 

[Raffycorn]

I agree about social networking. Facebook, Twitter, etc. allow thousands of people to see who can yell the loudest and, thanks to the anonymity that some platforms allow, berate others who disagree, often without consequence. Still, intelligent adults should be able to see the gray areas and find middle ground. Sadly, it is often adults who go to the extremes on social media. It's just a mess.

The social media thing cuts both ways, though. I said earlier in the thread that my high school made the decision decades ago to only formally recognize the top 10% of graduating students at graduation. I don’t believe that there were any national stories at that time talking about the school’s decision or questioning the mental toughness of the graduates. It was just a decision that was made and students and their parents have enjoyed graduation the same way they did before.

 

[ChiTownLion]

 

[BobPSU92]

Your outrage bores me.

Damn it. No one told me I was hired for your entertainment.

 

[WDLion]

So schools are now basically saying that it's not important to strive for academic greatness. Great message there.

So today students won't work hard to better themselves unless there's a prize to win. If so that's on the students.

 

[Langmuir]

So, when a girl who takes typing and home ec and no classes with serious academic rigor is valedictorian, no one bitches, right?

That is exactly what happened when I graduated. The girl never took any of the harder science or math classes. Of course we did not have any honors or AP classes either so that you could be higher than a 4.0.

 

[Langmuir]

The social media thing cuts both ways, though. I said earlier in the thread that my high school made the decision decades ago to only formally recognize the top 10% of graduating students at graduation. I don’t believe that there were any national stories at that time talking about the school’s decision or questioning the mental toughness of the graduates. It was just a decision that was made and students and their parents have enjoyed graduation the same way they did before.

The issue I see with social media is that now everybody thinks they get to chime in on any issue even if it does not affect them at all. Then they try to blame somebody for ruining society. Why is this valedictorian issue even in the news? The only people that should care are people that live in that school district, it concerns nobody else. The left and right news media both sell outrage that then gets pushed to social media.

 

[BobPSU92]

The issue I see with social media is that now everybody thinks they get to chime in on any issue even if it does not affect them at all. Then they try to blame somebody for ruining society. Why is this valedictorian issue even in the news? The only people that should care are people that live in that school district, it concerns nobody else. The left and right news media both sell outrage that then gets pushed to social media.

The problem is that everyone feels the needs to "make news" through social media. It would not surprise me if the high school in Ohio communicated their decision on social media. It is rare these days that communication of these things is limited to the local community. Even if the school did not post their decision on social media, someone must have. It's unavoidable these days.

An organization tweets about it, and people see it. And they tell their friends, and so on, and so on, and so on...

Then the story spreads on social media. Granted, few reading the story are affected by it, but everyone weighs in. Arguments and judgments ensue. "Communication" in the 21st century. Also, with social media, others see the story and think it's a good idea for them to implement. Then it becomes a problem for more people. It would not surprise me if school administrators across the U.S. are discussing the decision in Ohio and whether they should do the same thing. (And the school in Ohio isn't the first to do it anyway. They are just getting a lot of attention for it.)

 

[Big 0]

I graduated 8th in a class of about 500. Only the valedictorian had the same academic rigor of study I had. He started in the doctorate program in physics at MIT when I started my 3rd (junior) year at Penn State, basically skipping 2 years of college at MIT. Still the brightest person I have ever personally known, and there were a lot of very bright people on my dorm floor at Penn State including some with doctorates in physics.

However I really didn’t care what my class position was, as most of us. Yes, we were competitive, but we all knew were were getting into a good college somewhere. The students in my class knew who was smart and who wasn’t, which was good enough for most of us.

The only social engineering practice employed by my high school was they got as many football players into NHS as possible my junior year breaking the high school’s minimum 3.0 GPA standard to get in. People with high GPA’s like myself with many extra curricular activities other than football (marching band, jazz band, concert band, track, wrestling, golf, German Club, etc.) were totally overlooked. Most of the football players had only one extracurricular activity - football. This purportedly was done to help them get college scholarships. The NHS advisor resigned over the incident and a couple of years later they disbanded the school’s chapter. My parents along with some other parents, and against my advice, had a meeting with the principal over the new practice, guaranteeing we would not get in our senior year. This apparently made us trouble makers. This is why I absolutely hate this social engineering garbage that a lot in this country like to promote.

 

[anon_xdc8rmuek44eq]

The problem is that everyone feels the needs to "make news" through social media. It would not surprise me if the high school in Ohio communicated their decision on social media. It is rare these days that communication of these things is limited to the local community. Even if the school did not post their decision on social media, someone must have. It's unavoidable these days.

An organization tweets about it, and people see it. And they tell their friends, and so on, and so on, and so on...

Then the story spreads on social media. Granted, few reading the story are affected by it, but everyone weighs in. Arguments and judgments ensue. "Communication" in the 21st century. Also, with social media, others see the story and think it's a good idea for them to implement. Then it becomes a problem for more people. It would not surprise me if school administrators across the U.S. are discussing the decision in Ohio and whether they should do the same thing. (And the school in Ohio isn't the first to do it anyway. They are just getting a lot of attention for it.)

So, the school administration implemented this, but people are angry at the kids?

 

[aalion]

Thing is that the kids who care about being valedictorian are maybe 5-10 kids tops per class. After you get past that point most kids know they have no shot and it provides zero motivation. It's not like in a class of 500 kids you have 500 working as hard as possible to become valedictorian. You could still build in some recognition for the top 10% of the class and maybe that might grab more of the mid-range kids to work a bit harder to try and get there, but most who are academically focused are working hard to get into their college of choice.

So we should get rid of the Heisman, MVP awards, Player of the Year awards, and Lady Bing tropies because 90% of the players know at the beginning of the year that they can't win them?

 

[L.A.Lion]

This thread gave me eczema.

 

[AWS1022]

I like it.

It's a stupid designation. It's a stupid goal.

I laugh at all the true snowflakes freaking out about this and commencing the typical "oh it's the participation trophy generation" nonsense.

The reality is, highlighting these 1 or 2 people among the sea of potentials, inevitably leads to "trophy hunting" rather than encouraging learning and exploration. When they get up in that area of achievement, suddenly they start leaning toward classes based on the likelihood of getting the highest grade, and the highest overall GPA, rather than taking that stress off them (usually placed on them by parents) by allowing them to explore other subject matters that they may actually excel at (eventually, if not immediately), or that will at least broaden their knowledge base. A lot of the best learning opportunities come in situations where you're learning new things, or things outside your comfort zone, or when you're just exploring for the sake of exploring, rather than trying to hustle for the highest grade on an exam.

It's not like they're taking away recognition of academic achievement altogether (though I'm sure the snowflakes will argue that's next).

None of the valedictorians I know of took any easy classes...they didn’t have to. My best friend’s daughter was valedictorian of one of the largest schools in the state and she’s on her way to becoming a doctor. I’m sure the percentage of valedictorians that went on to have successful careers far exceeds that of the general high school population.

 

[AWS1022]

At my school students are now "gaming" the system in order to get the title. Honors & AP classes are given extra GPA weighting, college prep and general level classes are not. What the top students are doing is taking a study hall (free period) instead of taking an elective course taught at the college prep level because they know that having the grade in the elective course - even if it is a 100 - will drag their GPA down since it is not a weighted course. Not really in the spirit of being valedictorian imo but it's what some folks are doing to get that extra 0.004 points to get ahead of their peers.

Taking multiple AP classes with a study hall is still more challenging than taking a full schedule of general classes.

 

[AWS1022]

So we should get rid of the Heisman, MVP awards, Player of the Year awards, and Lady Bing tropies because 90% of the players know at the beginning of the year that they can't win them?

Apparently by reading some of these posts we shouldn’t get rid of them, but we should include D-2 and D-3 players because it’s all about the numbers and not being successful against better competition.

 

[BobPSU92]

This thread gave me eczema.

“Peter, your dog is giving me diabetes.”