First and foremost, I’d like to congratulate all the graduates of the class of 2017. Well done. Now get out here in the real world and make your marks. I’m also giving a tip of my hat (it’s a fedora, by the way) to the last valedictorian from Noblesville High School.
The last.
As in, there will be no more.
You see, dear readers, Noblesville has chosen to join Carmel Clay and Westfield Washington Schools in the move to do away with valedictorian honors.
A long time ago in a high school far far away, I too graduated. I was not the valedictorian, but one of my dear friends was. He gave possibly the worst speech I have ever sat through, but he earned the right to stand up there and speak poorly because he was the most exemplary student my little school turned out that year.
When I finally got serious about my own college education, I was so much older than the average student that when getting a picture taken for my student ID the photographer asked me if I was faculty or staff.
It got under my skin a bit. That is one little reason, combined with the American tradition of competition and being the best, that I made sure I was going to be at the top of my class. I failed at that, not because I performed poorly, but because there was no way to measure it.
I graduated from college with a perfect 4.0 GPA and have a little scrap of metal somewhere in my office that reads “Summa Cum Laude.”
Again, I was not the valedictorian. I do not even know what my class rank was. My college stopped tracking class ranks before my graduation and I felt more than a little betrayed. I was immediately reminded of this old joke: What do they call the guy who graduated dead last in his class at medical school? Doctor. Just like the guy who finished first.
Personally, I’d rather not trust my daughter’s health to the guy who finished last.
Alright. I admit there is a good deal of respect that comes from finishing the program. But there should be more respect for the person who does it better than anyone else!
We do not hand out participation medals at the Olympics—we award the best athletes.
We do not hire the most mediocre person we can for the job—we hire the best candidate.
The Reporter, Hamilton County’s Hometown Newspaper, does not earn your readership for being just another newspaper—we earn it by being the best one in this area.
Our country is not run by the people who RAN for office—it is run by those who WON the elections.
Western culture as a whole—and American culture more than most—is founded on competition and winning.
Finishing the race is indeed an accomplishment, but it is not the goal. Winning is.
I’m Native American. My people ask ourselves what our actions can do to make the world better for the next seven generations to come.
I am also American. I like to win.
I know Westfield Washington Schools have done very well without valedictorians. This year they were listed as the highest ranked school in Hamilton County, 6th overall in Indiana and 561st out of 28,496 high schools reviewed by U.S. News & World Report. Kudos for that.
Too bad none of your students can say they were the top graduate in one of the top high schools in the country.
From someone with a minor in psychology, here is a little secret about how to modify behavior: if you reward a behavior, it increases; if you ignore a behavior, it decreases.
Hamilton County schools, you just removed one of the rewards of academic achievement. Let’s just do away with grades while we are at it. Just move to pass-fail. Seven generations from now, maybe we can all be perfectly average.
If there are no winners, we are all losers. Isn’t equality grand?
Totally agree with your well-written article.