Montgomery County Maryland Bans Gold Stars
[September 15th] - I grew up in Fairfax County Virginia, part of the southern Washington D.C. suburbs. If you were to take a trip around the D.C. beltway, you would travel through several Virginia and Maryland counties, each new one just like the one you left. All of these counties are densely populated, quite wealthy, and very liberal. My Fairfax County Public Schools education painted an image of the world from a decidedly liberal perspective. It wasn't that my teachers scoffed at the conservative version of life; they simply never discussed it. I was told over and over that America was being "paved over," that soon there would be no forests left and no wilderness to enjoy. Because my little corner of the world reflected my teacher's warnings, I had little reason to question them. But I was astounded the first time I took a trip west. Once outside of the beltway, huge expanses of open space were only occasionally broken up by a town or a small city. It was at that point that I realized that I wasn't taught. I was indoctrinated.
Montgomery County Maryland borders the northern side of our Nation's Capitol, and reflects the same values and morals of my own Fairfax County. So it comes as no surprise that the Montgomery County Public Schools announced this morning that teachers would no longer be allowed to hand out gold stars to students for a "job well done." The school administrators are concerned that students who don't earn gold stars will feel slighted and offended. So to make sure that no one feels badly about themselves, no one can feel good about themselves either.
Oh brother.
Throughout my years in public education, I was the kid who never won an award, never was singled out for a job well done, and never, never earned a gold star. Did it bother me? You bet it did. But I didn't sit in the corner of my classroom and sulk at my mistfortune. Rather, I worked harder, listened more intently, and tried to be recognized for my stronger effort. It never happened in high school. Not once. But my adult life has been one continuous gold star.
I took that drive to succeed with me into the business world after graduation. I was an assistant manager at People's Drug at 19, the youngest ever. In 1982, I was the youngest Ritz Camera manager to that time. When I left management for sales, I seemed to always rewrite the records for most sales, highest customer satisfaction rating and was the "salesman of the year" more often that not. In 2002, I went back to college to become a teacher, and my GPA is in the top 2% of my class. I am or have been President of several organizations, and three professors have asked me to help them in creating lesson plans for their classes.
Had I grown up in an academic environment where my below average effort would not only have been tolerated but even appreciated, I would have entered the "real world" continuing to work "just hard enough" to get by. I would never had learned that effort below my capability was not acceptable, and that I could become better by working harder.
All those kids in Montgomery County who don't have parents pushing them to do their best will learn from their teachers that just "showing up" is acceptable. Another new rule says that a student who answers at least one question on a homework assignment [It's perfectly OK to get it wrong] can get no lower than a 50% grade.
I guess this would make sense to me if I still believed that America was only one year away from becoming a parking lot. But having left the intellectual confines of the beltway, I now know that this "feel good" style of education creates adults who aren't ready to take their place in the "real world." Employers are going to see the "Made in Montgomery County" label on these kids and look elsewhere for their labor needs.
And these school administrators should know this. Shame on them
