Editor’s Note: The following article is an opinion piece that reflects the views of the author.
Student of the month awards can be a hot topic. Some kids look forward to them, and other kids dread them. Why should they get excited when voting can be rigged, and popularity becomes a major factor? This year, the Student Council started a student of the month award, where students vote for a peer to receive a certificate of acknowledgement each month.
Awarding student of the month awards based on peer opinions is trouble waiting to happen. This award has nothing to do with their accomplishments. It has to do with how many kids they know, how many people they’ve talked to, and how well they’re known in school. If it were an award given by teachers to students who have faced a hardship and overcome it, brought up their grade in a hard subject, or shown their dedicated work and strength both in and outside of school, these are accomplishments that deserve to be awarded. All of those deserving students are being overlooked by relying on peer voted awards.
According to Mark Berkowitz, a professor at the University of Missouri, students watching peers receive awards does not inspire them to dream big and do well in school. It makes them feel bitter. At a school like GWUOHS where every student is encouraged to do their best and work hard, an award that’s essentially formatted as a popularity contest seems counterproductive. Student of the month awards could be given out in a manner that encourages growth, which we are not getting from peer voted awards. Students can rig the vote and vote for their friends or people they know. That doesn’t mean that they don’t deserve the awards, but it does make the awards a popularity contest.
Teachers should be the ones voting for students. Teachers see all of the students’ hard work and can acknowledge the students who might not be as social as others. This would be more beneficial because students would be recognized for their hard work rather than how many of their peers know them enough to vote for them. The end of semester awards are a good example of how awards can be given out fairly. Teachers and advisors nominate students based on their hard work and academic improvements. Those are not peer voted but are always fair and encourage growth and change, instead of focusing on being popular enough to win.
What sounds like a fun contest can be detrimental to some students’ self-esteem. GWUOHS’s mission statement encourages community, but peer voted student of the month is pushing us further apart. The Student Council’s student of the month contest is not effective in the way it was intended to be. Student of the month awards should not be peer voted. The whole idea needs to be revamped and planned with consideration for every member of the school community, not just the well-known students.
