You're Not Special

I guess every teacher with a blog has to talk about this graduation speech, right?

I'm assuming that many teachers (and adults) in general agree with the premise of the speaker's message: if everyone is special, then no one is special.  We seem to have a generation of kids that want to hear praise for a good effort, not good results.  That's all well and good, but the real question to me is, who are these people that praising these kids constantly, and do they know that they're doing it?

We still seem to have a steady stream of parents that come to our school, telling us that there is no way that Little Johnny could have done what he has been accused of--despite the video evidence to the contrary.  When Little Susie fails a class, let's blame the teacher.  When Little Johnny doesn't start for the basketball team, it's the coach's fault.  I can imagine that if the parents of the graduates were close enough to their children, they would whisper in their ears to let them know that, in fact, they are special.  Maybe not the kid to the left of them, maybe not the kid to the right, but you, Little Johnny, are.  No matter what that mean teacher at the podium is saying.

I'm glad that someone finally said what needs to be said regarding students and their special-ness, but I would imagine that things won't change once students (and their parents) come through the doors in August.

Graduation

From: aub.edu

Graduation:  that annual rite were many deserving (and some undeserving) youngsters pass through high school for the last time.

Another annual rite is the dissection of the list of graduates by teachers, pointing out which ones don't deserve to graduate.  I try not to engage in such snarkiness, but I can't help it.  Why?  I imagine that it is borne out of frustration: we see kids that do nearly nothing, slide by with a sub-1.0 GPA, get recognized at awards day for completing some anti-dropout program and then get the same piece of paper that their harder working peers get.

I'm convinced that one thing that keeps administrators awake at night is the graduation rate in their school/district.  And an easy way to keep the graduation rate up is to open the net up so wide that almost everyone gets to walk across the stage on graduation day.  But my question is this: if we raised the standard for graduation (2.0+ GPA, more credits required), wouldn't it make the diploma mean more?  Yes, I know that the graduation rate would probably drop, but if we let nearly everyone graduate, then what's the point of any of this?

Goodbye, 2011

From: dailyclipart.net

It was a pleasure to see all of our graduates on the field yesterday. Thoughts:

*What's the lowest your GPA can be to qualify for a diploma? I saw one of my students on the field who, at last count, had a 0.9 GPA (and he skipped my exam). Shouldn't you at least have a 2.0 to walk across the stage?

*Every year, there's that group of students that are close to passing a class necessary to graduate, but they don't pass. Some administrator says "Do you want [student name] back here next year?" and they get to walk. What if we pressed the issue and made these students pass the class legitimately? Can't they take summer school or something?

Our local paper published an article on all of the graduation ceremonies that took place at our coliseum--ours is on our football field. The money quote is at the end by a local high-schooler, who's most memorable high school moment is a food fight in the cafeteria. Telling.