nickd007 said:
I'm not familiar with the show. Could you describe the decision he made?
I feel sorry for us, too, actually. Just the other day, I was at my high school graduation, and they were giving out several $200 prizes for perfect attendance. It was unsettling to me that the administration was essentially paying kids to show up to school. It seems to enforce the wrong reasons to go to school. It just...bothered me. You know?
Be glad they are giving out anything at all. I despise how our school systems are devolving into a dens of mediocrity or worse. Most are going to a system where success and proper behavior isn't rewarded at all, where the good students are treated the same as bad students.
It is one of the main principles of success, if people work hard and succeed, they get rewards for success and proper behavior. It is a cornerstone to show students what can happen if they work hard and succeed in life in the real world and in a job or career.
My dad went to work every day and worked hard, if he was sick, he still went to work. Only if he was really sick would he use one of his appointed sick days for what it was meant for, not to play hooky from work. He ended up getting raises for his hard work, dedication, and attendance to work. When he retired he even got excepted back as a contractor, because he wanted to come back for something to do on the side to keep him busy in his retirement.
Students need to learn that there are consequences to their actions. If they don't attend school, their grades will suffer and they will receive penalties, though it takes a great deal more absences to get thrown out of school than it does to get fired from a job. They also need to know that keeping regular attendance in the important things in life can produce rewards for them.
Now I think 200 dollars is a bit much, 100 would have been more reasonable. Now I don't know how your school counted the perfect attendance, but if they did it properly, they didn't count legitimate sick days against the perfect attendance, because I know my grade schools had a set number of allowed days for people to be absent for sickness, like 5 excused absences with a doctor's note. I remember people that were absent 4 times for legitimate illness and still got perfect attendance, because the school system knew that such things aren't counted against attendance in a proper work/job environment.
The problem with schools these days is that many of them are going under rule that rewards are bad because it looks like preferential treatment to certain students and that it waves a flag in the bad students' faces that they aren't doing well.
Not having rewards for success and proper behavior in schools is stupid. The bad students need that constant reminder that they are doing bad and that better things can come if they try harder. Though we don't just, need the rewarding, we also need special attention as well for the bad students. Schools need teachers that can pinpoint problem students and reform them.
Back in my days in elementary school, all students had sticker cards with fifty places on them. A student got a sticker on and empty places if he or she got an "A" on an assignment. For every five sticker spaces filled, the student would get small candy bar or some other piece of candy, it depended on what the teacher had purchased for the class. Students that got a full card filled, got a king-sized candy bar.
I also remember students getting money rewards in my junior-high school for honor-roll and attendance. Now it was nowhere near 200 dollars, because that is just silly, but there were 20 to 100 dollar rewards for various things.
Another part of the problem is that now from several cases I have seen, like with at my little nephews school, the only kids that get special rewards are the bad students that do slightly better on assignments. My little nephew came home and showed us a little smiley face that was drawn on his paper by the teacher for a 95%. He then proceeded to tell us another boy in his class got a piece of candy and a smiley sticker. I asked him if that kid got a 100%, he said, "No, he got a D. He got rewarded because he didn't get an F this time."
If anybody should have got a sticker and candy, it should have been my nephew. The "D" kid should have just got some words of encouragement and that he needs to work harder. People in real world jobs don't get rewards for finally doing their jobs at least half-assed.
The system going backwards and falling apart, the successful don't get the recognition that is due to them and the slackers and failures are getting rewards at least trying once in a blue moon. This seems to move along with the trend in non-academic society where people that are successful have a stigma placed on them that they must be bad people to get where they are, so they must be punished in some way.
Success should be praised and rewarded, if the failures don't want to keep trying and actually make something of themselves, they should be ignored and receive nothing.