Monday, May 30, 2016

Top of the Class

Our niece graduated as Salutatorian of her her high school class, with a cumulative GPA of 99.48%.  Congratulations to Laine!

Quinn asked, "What's a Salutatorian?"

We were initially shocked at this recent graduate's ignorance of the term.  Then we realized that his class did not have a Salutatorian or Valedictorian.  It had four "Top of the Class" students.  A friend told me that her daughter's class will have 17 students honored for their academic achievement.

Seriously?!  What happened to winners?  What happened to honoring people who did the best?  Once again, political correctness has gone too far.

So I told my friend that if I were the administrator and was forced to honor the top 17 instead of the best two, I would make them ad lib a single commencement address that required each of those 17 students to say one word at a time.  Each word must build upon the next to form a cohesive, inspiring, emotional send-off for their fellow graduates.

"That's why you're not an administrator," quipped my friend.

1 comment:

Whitney said...

Hank played his horn at graduation last night so I went along to watch the festivities. The graduating class was just under 200 students. Fwiw, there were 14 valedictorians (4.0) and two salutatorians, and then a bunch of honor students. All the honor students were identified and recognized. The valedictorians all gave a brief "reflection" that amounted to 1-2 min talking per kid.

We were in and out of the gym in 1 hour and 15 minutes. Speedy and efficient.