I went to my niece's HS graduation last Friday, the first I'd been to since my own 26 years ago, and was pleasantly surprised that they recognized the salutatorian and valedictorian as well as had a moment of silence during which the superintendent said was for prayers and well wishes for the graduates. But we also live in small town, NC. Still a very conservative area. 

 

I didn't excel in school other than being really good at track and field. The only ribbons I ever got was during Field Day. Oh, I was good at spelling and won some spelling bees so got some ribbons for that too. It never occurred to me to expect something for nothing. It is certainly not how I was raised and was not the mindset in the 80's. Not where I grew up. If you did well you were recognized for it, if not well.....not so much. And no one cried and moaned about it because it never was even a thought in our mind to do so. Me, I've never been competitive per se. I don't like attention nor have I ever felt the need do anything in any way that called attention on myself. I prefer to be a background person just doing what needs to be done. Definitely not type-A. And I'm fine with that. 

 

If you take away the incentives for people to actually apply themselves and do well then all we will have in the future is a bunch of mediocre people and that will be tragic because the people in the world, and in this country, who have made things happen for the advancement of anything you can think of were/are not mediocre. 

---