remember the perfect attendance award? there were always one or two uber-goody-two-shoes at the end of the year with the ridiculously large certificates with the words "PERFECT ATTENDANCE" plastered across the top.
why is this award a good idea?
first of all, it's only given to elementary school kids who don't know yet how to play hooky. which means other kids' IMperfect attendance is entirely dependent on their parents' judgment.
secondly, the perfect attendance award doesn't distinguish absences that result from illness from absences for frivolous things, like family vacations. umm... so we're going to award kids with better immune systems? or worse yet, we're going to reward parents who send sick kids to school (only to infect all the other kids in class)?
what if the kid catches chicken pox (although they have a vaccine for that now, you know)?
what if he falls from his bike, breaks his leg in pieces, and needs leg surgery?
teachers should really think about whether they want sniffly, fevered, germ-infested over-achievers in class to infect every single surface of the room with the cold virus. how many sick days does the school district award teachers each year again? i'm sure they won't be so enthused about handing out those perfect attendance award then...
4 comments:
HI~ thanks for linking me and visiting my site! =) and this post brought back memories of childhood for sure. My parents never let me miss a day of school no matter how sick I was. =P
Teehee. My mother's a total hippie and she never gave hoot about attendance. When I was in 5th grade, she went on a business trip to Chicago and she took me with her. Then she wrote a super silly 5 page "excuse" explaining why my trip to Chicago was a better learning experience than the 3 days of 5th grade that I missed!
Once I caught on to the whole idea of hooky and minimum days of attendance, I totally took advantage. Senior year, I think I missed at least one day a week...And my lame school still gave "Perfect Attendance" Awards to high school kids.
In all of my 20 years of schooling, I never quiiiiiite managed to get perfect attendance.
Shucks, in hindsight, I think it would have totally jazzed up my resume.
Wow-- where did that come from? Already trying to figure out how to get days off from your new job? : )
no days off for the first 90 days!
company policy.
the post actually came from something totally tangential. i got the hep a/b vaccine that day at work, which then led to a discussion of the chicken pox vaccine with paul, which then led to a discussion about chicken pox, and then a discussion into the perfect attendance award. and voila. the blog post.
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