Mass. principal cancels honors night so losers won’t have hurt feelings

By David McElroy · May 28, 2013

A middle school principal in Massachusetts apparently thinks it’s bad to reward high achievers — because it might hurt the feelings of those who don’t do as well.

David Fabrizio is principal of Ipswich Middle School in Ipswich, Mass., and he canceled the school’s annual honors night this year. Here’s what he said in his explanation to parents.

“The Honors Night, which can be a great sense of pride for the recipients’ families, can also be devastating to a child who has worked extremely hard in a difficult class but who, despite growth, has not been able to maintain a high grade point average,” Fabrizio wrote in his letter to parents.

Fabrizio also cited fairness as a reason to cancel honors night. He said in his letter than academic success can partly be about the amount of support a student has at home — so honoring high achievers isn’t fair to those who don’t have the same support at home.

Thankfully, some parents were outraged and voiced their disapproval, at which time the principal demonstrated that he was not only politically correct, but was quite willing to talk out of both sides of his mouth. In a second letter to parents, Fabrizio said he plans to honor top-performing students at the annual end-of-the-year assembly, when honored students can be recognized in front of the whole student body.

So did the Fabrizio who wrote the second letter disagree with the Fabrizio who wrote the first letter? Or did parental pressure force him to bring the public recognition back and he simply doesn’t want to admit he made a U-turn? I know which possibility my money’s on.

When I was growing up, winners were recognized. I don’t remember anybody getting medals or ribbons just for participating. Sometimes you won something — and it was a big deal. Most of the time, though, you didn’t win. It wasn’t that big a deal, because we understood that only the best performers could be recognized. We weren’t sitting around traumatized about it.

There are times now that I go to a child’s room and see it covered with what appear to be honors, but when I look into the details, I see that he hasn’t really achieved anything. He’s just gotten meaningless tokens for participating.

I think we’ve created a bunch of little narcissists — who are growing up to be big narcissists. They get accustomed to being recognized for behavior that’s not special. They are told that they’re special so much that they don’t believe effort and competition are necessary.

And when they become adults, it’s harder for them to understand real competition — because they’ve been shielded from real competition and from losing — so they don’t understand the thrill of doing something good enough to be recognized for it. As a result, they expect to be treated as special without having to do much to earn it.

We live in a sick society. I think school administrators who shield kids from competition are one small part of the problem.

Update: I can’t tell you the name of the teacher this came from, but someone sent me her own experience related to school awards. During the school year that just ended, a middle school had an awards day for its departing eighth graders. A parent of a seventh grader complained that her child didn’t get an award, so the principal ordered teachers to make up awards for everyone. The kids all ended up with little cards saying things such as “Best Speller,” “Most Respectful,” and whatever else the teachers could quickly think of to “award” each student for.

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