Per long-standing tradition, our upper school does have an end-of-year
awards ceremony as well as Academic Honor Roll ceremonies. In contrast, our
middle school program which opened its doors in 2004, quite deliberately has
neither. We do have a moving up ceremony the day before graduation which is
said by many who have attended it to be one of the most moving and uplifting
moments of the year. It includes:
- Head welcome to all
- incoming Student Council President's welcome to the Upper School for 8th
graders
- 8th grade tributes: half-page long tributes to each students' special
qualities, what they've brought to the middle school, what they bring to the
world. Our advisors do an incredible job both writing and delivering these,
and the kids just glow.
- MOCA poem: a poem, using student responses to prompts, summing up the year
- (last year) a photo-montage of the year put together by students
We simply believe that giving awards to young adolescents is a harmful, if
well-meaning, practice. Developmentally, they are all over the place, so
awards are meaningless from that perspective alone. Beyond that, I agree
with Alfie Kohn pretty much down the line on what you should and should not
do to allow students to develop true intrinsic motivation.
If you have any questions, please ask. I hope this helps.
Take care,
Bill Ivey
Middle School Dean
Stoneleigh-Burnham School
On Thu, Oct 1, 2009 at 9:42 PM, Bassett, Patrick <bassett@nais.org> wrote:
> I've had a request from a Canadian School responding to my blog that
> recommends giving up end-of-year "awards assemblies" (
> http://www.nais.org/about/article.cfm?ItemNumber=151710&sn.ItemNumber=4181&tn.ItemNumber=147271), wondering what schools in the US have "no awards" policy as they do Any
> out there?
>
>
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