At this point, should it still even be called a "trophy?"
When a youth basketball league in Framingham finishes its season next month, every fifth- and sixth-grader will receive a shiny trophy. Even those on the last-place team. ''We want them to be happy and come back to play the following year," said the Temple Beth Am Brotherhood league's director, Rich Steckloff.In communities across Boston's western suburbs, at the end of long seasons on the soccer pitch, hoop court, or baseball diamond, kids are getting trophies not for winning championships, but for simply participating.
On the one hand, yes, participating is better than not participating, so you do want to recognize that. On the other hand, one of the purposes of youth sports is to teach the valuable lessons of good sportsmanship and how to be a polite, non-trophied loser. Giving everyone a trophy waters down the whole concept behind awarding trophies; the winners may feel less of a sense of accomplishment. (John Hawkins seconds the notion.) Better to give none at all than to give everyone one.
Update: On a not-unrelated note, John Rosenberg wonders why we're so eager to redefine the "gifted student" category to include students for whom there's no traditional evidence of being gifted:
...the reason students are “shut out of” gifted programs are not at all “difficult to pin down.” It’s the same reason so many applicants are “shut out of” Harvard, Stanford, et. al; they don’t score high enough on admission tests. Now, the reasons for that may be difficult to pin down, but opening up gifted programs to students “who might have special abilities but may not have been recognized through traditional screening methods” would not seem the way to provide answers.
I find these two situations analogous because what's happening in both contexts is that adults are trying to redefine the scoring of the "game." They're allegedly doing so for the benefit of the children involved, but I think they're making things worse. In the first situation, trophies are being given out right and left, despite the fact that you can't be a winner unless you score more points than the other team. A trophy and no points will not, in the real world, be worth much.
Being placed in an advanced class after one hasn't demonstrated basic skills as measured on a standardized test might not be worth much to a student, either.
(Via Joanne.)
Update: Dr. Helen sees this all as more support for the homeschooling choice:
Wouldn't the proper way to answer the question of why Blacks and Hispanics are lagging behind Whites and Asians be to conduct research on the factors that may be causing the discrepancies and remedy those rather than setting up a phony group of gifted students whose only gift may be that they have a teacher who holds self-esteem and looking diverse in higher regard than children actually learning anything?Posted by kswygert at February 23, 2006 10:18 AMWith such unscientific inquiry, it is no wonder more and more parents are homeschooling or turning to private schools to educate their children...