IME, these awards are silly and harmless—for example, I had a girl in one class who would wear different kinds of nail polish on each fingernail—she got the “Most Likely To Buy All The Nail Polish at Walmart” award, which tickled her pink. :-) Suffice to say, I don’t think she ever had to go to counseling for it. I remember once a fellow teacher had an absolutely horrible student and the teacher had a terrible time coming up with an ‘award’ for the student—the kid was always getting into everything despite directions, and finally the teacher’s award was “Most Persistent and Curious” for the kid. :-)
These teacher/s in the story crossed a line, agreed, but to condemn each and every teacher for each and every silly award is going way overboard.
I don’t understand any of the silly awards. I’d rather reward hard work and good behavior. I’d rather reward good qualities instead of poking fun at bad qualities.
I look at my daughter who has brain damage. Someone could easily poke fun at her always being late, messiest hair, and a whole slew of other things. They wouldn’t really hurt her, but they also wouldn’t build her up. It also wouldn’t stop her from being slow. She’s always going to be slow.
Now, if she got an award for being the Hardest Worker or the award for always Trying her Best, maybe those kinds of awards would build her up and encourage her to keep on working hard.
Keep silly awards out of the schools.