I’ve seen some posting lately about honor roll recipients. It is a joy to celebrate progress and achievement as sometimes indicated by one’s grade point average. At the same time, I would love to find a way to celebrate the other storeis as well:
the student who got a 3.0 while looking after a sick family member or struggling through personal health challenges,
the first generation college student who might not have the highest GPA but survived the first semester and is gettting a bit more confident and competent every day,
the incredibly hard-working student who is putting in 20+ hours of work a week to pay tuition plus room and board and is 100% committed to graduating debt free,
that deeply curious student who is passionate about her studies, reads and studies above and beyond the assignments out of a pure desire to learn more, but as a result might not always get the highest grade in every class,
and those students who are truly focused upon learning and growing as much as possible, and are less focused upon simply earning the highest possible score on every assignment.
You get the idea. Grades are a commonplace part of most modern schools, but they only show us a small part of a student’s life, growth, and learning. I see immense value in celebrating other parts of that growing and learning as well.