Trophy for Every Kid

I have heard how all kids these days get awards at almost any event the school organizes. I disapprove. Strongly. Very strongly. How is it OK to tell every kid that they are just as good as everyone else? At anything they try?

This seems to be a weird practice we have imported from the West of late (I don’t remember anyone awarding awards to everyone when I was a kid). And so I read with interest Molly Knefel’s article titled Trophy Season. She would explain the West’s justification for this practice. Or so I hoped.

She has 2 reasons:
1)      She says that branding a kid a “winner” or a “loser” becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy; and so we should avoid those terms by awarding everyone. But that makes no sense at all. A kid doesn’t do better because he is called a winner. Rather, he is called a winner because he did better than the rest. How insane does one have to be to not get that?
2)     The other reason is only slightly better: kindness:
“That kid is supposed to get the message: If you didn’t score a lot of points, no one gives a shit about you. And if that makes you sad, or if you feel that it’s not fair, get used to it. The world is a sad and unfair place.”

To the second reason, I so agree with one of the comments from the Dish:
“I don’t know, maybe because the world IS unfair and we’re realists and not delusional purveyors of utopian fantasy?”
I was very heartened to see most of the comments seem to disapprove the awards-for-every-kid idea. A few samples:
“Why can’t we celebrate the exceptional?”
We only awards that are deserved, said another:
“Knowing that life is not fair, and that your achievements are not handed to you, makes earning them sweeter.”
Others threw the contradiction of saying kids are smart and yet awarding everyone:
“Do you really think kids are unaware they’re being patronized? Do you think they’ll value a participation trophy, or feel a sense of accomplishment?”
Another guy wondered what we are teaching kids with this approach:
“We should stop trying to GIVE them self esteem, or teach them that they’re entitled to their desired result, and not getting it means they’ve been treated “unfairly.””

Ayn Rand told us decades back the consequence of such everyone-is-equally-good beliefs. Something this comment captured so well:
“The gifted among us may just all wonder what the point of shining is.”
And if that feeling sets in, the John Galt’s of the world will leave. How exactly will that produce a better world for our kids?

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