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PSS, stop marginalizing poor, underachieving students
I went to my granddaughter’s 5th grade graduation at Koblerville Elementary School and noticed a few troubling sights I would like to share. Let me say, I am 100 percent against competition in schools, so that means I am 100 percent against awards in schools. By 1st grade, kids already know who has money and who doesn’t and the ones that don’t are already being marginalized by their economically better off classmates. By 1st graHde with the system we use, the smarter ones—and most of the smarter ones have parents that really take education seriously and help their kids—get awards which further marginalizes kids whose parents don’t really care or have to work 16 hours a day to survive. At graduation time, you see the same few kids getting all the awards, wearing the better clothes and having the most confidence. One look around at the kids and you can tell, just by looking at the ones that feel inferior, so PSS gives everyone a useless award like “citizenship” or “helpfulness” which doesn’t fool the kids at all. Let parents praise their kids, schools should concentrate on fairness, cooperation, and emphasizing how alike all children are and how much in common they have, not how much better some kids are, thanks to better opportunity, parenting, or more money.
Gary DuBrall
Chalan Piao, Saipan
