Awards Day

I wrote this a few years ago when First Son was in first grade. After going to Second Son's awards day this morning where over half his class made all A's for the entire year, I was reminded of it. It's the whole, all-the-kids-are-above-average and if-everyone-is-special-no-one-is thing.  


Welcome to awards day! 

Can we please have every single child in first grade line up on stage to be recognized for their achievements. First we will hand out awards from our twisted reading program that strives to help children to learn that reading is first and foremost about the number of points that one can accumulate. As we all know, children hate to read. Hate it. All children. They hate to read. Didn’t you all know that? So what we do, is give your children points for the books they read and this my friends insures that they will not pick up a book based on an intrinsic love for reading, but instead for the point value associated with it. And we’re all okay with that, right? Good. Here’s an award for every child for participating in the twisted program. 

Next, let’s move on and honor all of our average students. Here’s your award and a medal for being average. Stand up and take a bow. We are all so, so, so proud of you for your mediocrity. Can we give a hand for the average kids? Great! 

Okay, next we move on to the kids who aren’t quite average. Yes, you too get an award and a medal because you did come to school and you did try hard. Or maybe you didn’t try too hard, but I’m sure that you all meant to try hard and that my friends deserves an award and a medal. Because meaning to try hard some of the time sure does make you special. 

Our above-average students will also receive the same award and medal as our average and below average students, because we don’t want to make the other kids feel bad. What we want to do is make sure that all of these kids feel good about themselves because an over-inflated ego will take them far in life. 

And while we’re on the subject, aren’t you so proud of us for not handing out ribbons on field day? I mean, first place, second place, third place, does it really matter? Field day is just about having fun, we don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea and think that some kids are better at some field day events than other kids. That might cause hurt feelings and no one wants that. 

That’s it for awards day. Thank you all for coming out. If anyone has any suggestions on how to fix the education system in this country, let us know, because we can’t figure out why it’s not working. I mean, the kids all feel great about themselves, they just can’t show that on the tests. What could we possibly be doing that’s not working?