Last week, North Carolina's Wake County school board voted to remove the titles of Valedictorian and Salutatorian from the schools' graduation ceremonies. In order to lessen the feeling that they're completely revoking and semblance of competition among students, they argue that students will receive Latin titles for obtaining certain GPAs.
You know, Latin titles that have been given out at graduations for a long time alongside the distinctions of Valedictorian and Salutatorian.
This is only one of the many examples of organizations who are "helping" to raise the children of America who have come to decide that keeping children on a level playing field and making them feel special simply for participating in something is somehow more important than teaching them to compete and to strive for more than what is average.
For example, youth sports teams are notorious for giving out participation trophies and ribbons, something that, for kids who are still just learning to grasp the concept of running and not falling down, are effective in making them smile. But at that point, it's almost always impossible to point to one child as the MVP, as they mostly just run around in circles.
But once children develop further and there is a clear divide established between those who are just there to have fun and those who are there to develop the basic skills necessary to be successful playing the sport at a higher level, it's time to stop with the participation ribbons.
The same is true for high schools. There is a difference between the students who are there because they have to be, and the students who realize that the things they learn and the habits they develop, good or bad, will carry over into their college careers and the rest of their lives.
And those kids who realize the importance of whatever they're doing, and who stand out to their teachers and coaches as striving for the highest form of excellence, deserve to be recognized. And not just in a group of other students who worked almost as hard as they did, but as the ones who did the absolute best out of all of their peers. Because in every group, someone is the best. That's just how it is.
The deterioration of the Valedictorian and the MVP fosters a sense of entitlement in this new generation. The attitude has begun to be that if you do your best, you'll still get rewarded, even if you're not the best. It tells developing minds that the highest standards they must reach for are their own, thus limiting their growth and their desire to aspire to bigger and better things.
In allowing schools to remove these distinctions, and in telling kids that their best is all they ever have to be, we remove the drive to compete from the basic makeup of the minds of the rising workforce. We tell the future leaders of companies and industries that simply doing what they're supposed to do is good enough, and that they should be rewarded simply for doing their jobs or homework. Translation: Why work your ass off to be the very best when just being your best is good enough? Being your best is easier!
This attitude destroys the desire to be constantly improving, and to be constantly competing with those around you with the intention of being the best. Not one of the best, the best.
In this day and age, when the participation ribbons have been given out and the parents have been demanding that their average kids be made to feel special, it's even more important that we recognize the students and athletes and workers who are not content to do what they have to, and who strive in every aspect of their lives to do all that they can in the hopes of being the best. The ones who go above ad beyond, and who don't expect that anything be handed to them.
We should be applauding the very few who don't have to be asked or told to do everything they possibly can, and who simply do so not to be recognized, but for the very purpose of being the best, learning the most, and beating the competition. Not many possess the drive to do that, and that's why we have MVP awards. That's why we have Valedictorians and Salutatorians. Our society lies, breathes, and thrives off of the work of the best. And that is true across industries. The best make the most money. End of story.
We should not be a nation of participators. We should be striving to be a society that is led by only the best, brightest, and hardest working.
In a perfect world, everyone would strive to be the best, and every school would have hundreds of students with perfect GPAs. But that's not the case, so we have Valedictorians. Every team would be stacked with players who challenged each other and got better and better only to keep their spots and defeat their competition. But that's not the case, so only the very best athletes continue on to play professionally, and to play in the Olympics.
If we allow new generations to be complacent, and to believe that they don't have to push themselves and fight tooth and nail to be the best, we deny not only those generations, but ourselves, of a future that is progressively better because of the MVPs and Valedictorians among us.
