awards assemblies until one year our faculty decided to turn the event
over to the students. Out went the typical academic awards, in came
those celebrating qualities of human spirit, kindness, courage and
achievement. The total number of awards was just a handful, perhaps
five or six. Students nominated their fellow students on the basis of
clearly defined award criteria authored by the faculty. These were
reviewed with the students in advisory. Nominations had to be
accompanied by one to two paragraph justifications for the nomination.
Students were apprised that the faculty as a whole would review all
nominations in order to weed out those submitted for obviously
inappropriate reasons (this rarely happened). The faculty meeting to
determine the winner of each award was extremely uplifting, almost
joyous. Clearly one of the best faculty meetings of the entire year.
At the ceremony, the justification statements for each award nominee
were read aloud in each category, without mentioning the nominee's
name. When the nominee's name was announced after completing the
readings, it was invariably met with an eruption of genuine cheers and
often spontaneous standing ovations. Truthfully, the best part of the
ceremony was the announcement of the nominees, not the eventual award
winner. We always received very tender thanks from the parents in
attendance, even from those whose students were not even nominated. To
my mind it seemed a perfect representation of what the last day of
middle school can be (ice cream sundaes didn't hurt). Frankly, it
always felt very magical.
Steve Bogdanoff,
Former MS Director, Marlborough School (CA)
President, ISIS Affiliates
37 Hollis Street
Groton, MA 01450
978-842-0381
www.isisaffiliates.com
On Oct 1, 2009, at 9:42 PM, Bassett, Patrick 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?
>
> Cheers.
>
> PFB
>
> Patrick F. Bassett, President
> N A T I O N A L A S S O C I A T I O N O F I N D E P E N D E N T
> S C H O O L S
> 1620 L St., NW, Washington, DC 20036
> 202.973.9710 (Office)
> 202.746.5444 (Cell)
> 202-247-9667 (Fax)
> bassett@nais.org<mailto:bassett@nais.org> www.nais.org<http://www.nais.org
> >
> www.twitter.com/PatBassett<http://www.twitter.com/PatBassett>
> www.facebook.com/NAISnetwork<http://www.facebook.com/NAISnetwork>
>
>
>
>
>
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