There was a (briefly) Rec-Liisted diary Saturday afternoon that you should read before diving into this one.
Basically, there's a controversy in Wichita, Kansas around a special needs student and a varsity letter jacket. The student doesn't play on the varsity basketball team; instead, he plays on the school's special needs basketball team. The school doesn't award letters to non-varsity teams, but the student's mother bought a varsity letter jacket for her son; when he showed up wearing it, another parent complained and the school forced the kid to remove his jacket (they gave him a sweatshirt to wear instead, which was a heinous way of dealing with the situation).
The discussion in that diary has covered everything from lambasting the school and criticizing the very existence of varsity letters to comments about how we recognize student success and what role parents play in the process. After writing a dozen or so comments to various points in that diary, I decided to put my thoughts into a separate diary.
Follow me below the Great Curlicue (of DOOM!) for my thoughts on varsity letters, recognition of success, and the importance of setting standards. WARNING: RANT FOLLOWS.
If you're expecting one of my typical diaries--laden with links and chock-full of citations to "hard numbers" and "raw data"--prepare to be disappointed. I'm writing this one from my perspective as a parent, with all the warts, bruises and biases that come with such an approach.
If you read the diary I linked in the opening, you'll see that several arguments have been raised against varsity letters and other such means of recognizing student success, and I'd like to address them one by one. So, in no particular order:
Varsity letters are just athlete worship, anyway.
Some folks criticize the notion of varsity letters as celebrating sports or 'encouraging jocks,' but that isn't always the case. Our public high school awards varsity letters to:
* Varsity athletes
* Academic team members
* Leading students (those who earn a 3.5 GPA or higher each year)
* Band members
* Choir members
* Dance team members
* Cheer team members
and (probably) several other groups that I've forgotten, with different criteria for each group. So, we recognize many forms of student success with the same varsity letters earned by athletes. We also hang banners listing the names of those students scoring above 30 on the ACT, as well as those scoring at Distinguished level on the statewide educational assessments. In other words, our high school makes it a point to celebrate student success in all areas, and it takes pains to make those recognitions across the board. 'Nuff said on that point.
The whole idea of varsity letters encourages elitism.
It seems to me that such an argument would have us eliminate ALL recognition of student success. Consider those banners I mentioned for high ACT/assessment performance; shall we tear them down because they perpetuate academic elitism? Shall we take away those varsity letters awarded to kids with GPAs at or above a 3.5? Is it elitist to recognize them? I think not.
If you say that recognizing academic success isn't elitist, why should recognizing athletic success be considered elitist? Athletics often acts as a gateway/boost to college/university study; at our high school of 1200 students, we routinely have 10-20 graduating seniors receiving athletic aid each year. I'm calling that a Good Thing. Even for those kids who don't move on to college, we must consider that athletes are required to maintain their GPAs and academic progress in order to play. Since athletics are encouraging academics at this level, why not recognize those students who can maintain their grades AND compete athletically at a varsity level?
Every school athlete should receive a letter.
At most high schools, there are
varsity athletes who don't earn letters, thanks to the specific criteria for their sport. For instance, the criteron for earning a varsity letter in football at our high school is that the player must appear in one-half of the quarters played in the regular season. So, 11 games gives us 44 quarters, and those players appearing in 22 quarters earn a varsity letter. That's simple enough, but there are varsity players every year who don't earn letters; this year's senior class had ten or twelve 4-year players, but only two 4-year lettermen.
So, what about junior varsity or "freshman team" players? Well, it's simple; at most high schools, they simply don't earn letters. We field freshman and/or JV teams in multiple sports (basketball, football, softball, and baseball off the top of my head), and they know--going in--that they aren't earning letters. Freshman/JV play is all about skill development and game experience, with the goal of earning a varsity spot/letter in the future. I see nothing wrong with a rule that non-varsity athletes don't earn letters.
If we go to the "everyone gets a letter" model, then we're right back to the "participation trophy" mentality so prevalent in children's/youth sports. No, thank you; I'd rather see things like varsity letters remain a goal - something to strive for - whether they're awarded for reasons athletic, artistic or academic.
It's all about parents living vicariously through their kids or protecting their kid's turf.
I'll readily admit that this one drives me absolutely batty. On the one hand, we're encouraged to help our kids explore and develop their abilities and talents, but then if we're perceived as taking
too much pride in their accomplishments, are perceived as "going too far" in helping them develop those talents, or suggest that they've earned distinction or recognition, we're bad parents who are just "living vicariously through our kids" or are worried about the status of (as one commentator sarcastically put it) our "special snowflake."
What a load of bunk.
Of COURSE we take pride in our kids' accomplishments, whether they be academic, athletic or artistic in nature. Sometimes, we celebrate completely intangible things; I've told my kids (repeatedly) that I'm more proud of what their coaches and teammates have said about them as people than I am of anything they've accomplished on the field, court, concert hall or classroom. We've spent the last two decades teaching our four kids that all this other stuff is fun, but that the day will inevitably come when they can't play sports, play in a band, perform in theatre, et cetera - and that the person they become is far more important than anything else they may achieve in the meantime. So, they know that these things aren't all that important in the long run, but they're worth earning--and celebrating--now.
We recognize the importance of setting high standards; we celebrate when those goals are met and comisserate/console when they are not. When meeting those goals results in an award, we see more value in those awards than we do in mere "participation awards". It isn't just the parents, either, but the kids as well. My kids routinely tossed aside the "participation only" awards, even at a young age, with comments like "We didn't do anything but show up - why are they giving out trophies for that?" I didn't have a good answer then, and I still don't have one today...but that's exactly what some folks would have us do in all areas of student endeavor. Bleah.
The simple fact of the matter is this: for the overwhelming majority of endeavors we might care to discuss, we will never all perform at the same level. Very, VERY few people can claim to be "the best" in any particular activity; as Max Ehrmann wrote in Desiderata:
If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Nonetheless, those who say "yeah, there are rules, a process and a lot of hard work involved in earning that recognition, and kids who don't work through that shouldn't wear recognition they haven't earned" are accused of being heartless and soulless. As far as I'm concerned,
this is life, and it's part of my job as a parent to teach my kids that they aren't always going to win a trophy, pick up a medal, or earn a letter. (Yes, I've been there several times; in one case, one of my daughters spent an entire season on the varsity softball team and didn't earn a letter.) That isn't soulless or heartless; that's teaching young adults about real life. What was it that Browning wrote?
Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what's a heaven for?
So let's look at it from that perspective. We're over here teaching our kids to work hard, understand the rules/process, and try their best - but when they earn recognition for the results of doing just that, there are folks saying that the standards don't matter (or are too high), that any kid should be able to wear those same symbols of recognition, that we're "elitist" because such recognition requires standards that not everyone can meet, or we're "soulless" because we don't see value in changing the rules (sometimes retroactively) so that others get the same recognition/distinction without doing the same work or enjoying the same success.
In the end, here's the funny thing - folks suggest that we're going overboard on behalf of our kids, but what they're really doing is advocating for lower standards so that other kids (including, in some cases, theirs) can get the same recognition without the same level of ability, effort and/or success.
Whether we're talking about academics or athletics - where's the sense in that?