Rethinking Awards Ceremonies

Here is a list of thoughts from me and many other bloggers on the topic of Awards Ceremonies in School (if you know of a post that should be included in this, please email/tweet me):

  1. Death of an Awards Ceremony | The Wejr Board
  2. A New Era of Ceremonies | The Wejr Board
  3. Recognizing ALL Students – The Movement | The Wejr Board
  4. Is Learning A Sport? | The Wejr Board
  5. Questioning Awards and Grades | The Wejr Board
  6. Honouring A Student’s Strength: Story of Daniel | The Wejr Board
  7. Awards Prepare Kids For The ‘Real World’ – Really? | The Wejr Board
  8. The Wejr Family Awards | The Wejr Board
  9. Awards Day – A Poem | The Wejr Board 
  10. Questioning Honours: The Wejr Board
  11. Starting the Conversation on Rethinking Awards Ceremonies | The Wejr Board
  12. Is a School Awards Ceremony the BEST We Can Do? | The Wejr Board
  13. 13 Videos for Starting Dialogue on Rethinking Rewards, Awards | The Wejr Board 
  14. 10 Secrets to Raising an Award-Winning Student (a slightly cynical post) – The Wejr Board
  15. 5 Reasons to Rethink Awards Ceremonies – The Wejr Board 
  16. Changes to Awards System at Mt. Scopus College | The Wejr Board
  17. How a School Ditched Awards and Assemblies to Refocus on Kids and Learning | MindShift
  18. for the love of learning: The Case Against Rewards
  19. for the love of learning: Abolishing Awards
  20. for the love of learning: Unconditional Recognition
  21. Honouring All Students: The Principal of Change
  22. The Impact of Awards: The Principal of Change
  23. Against the Wind: Another Intrinsic Killer: Awards Ceremonies
  24. Read This: Death of an Awards Ceremony – The Tempered Radical
  25. And the Award Goes To… | Upside Down Education
  26. The Bearded Teacher: …But awards feel so good
  27. Are academic awards losing favour in B.C. schools? (UPDATED) – Report Card
  28. Awards in Schools? @MrWejr has got me thinking. | Building the Future
  29. The Problem With Award Ceremonies | 21st Century Educator
  30. Awards, Grades and Competition | Mr. Gonzalez’s Classroom
  31. The Case Against Awards | The New Republic
  32. A Principal’s Reflections: Recognizing the Valedictorian in All
  33. The Honour Roll – Webb of Thoughts
  34. “The deleterious effect of gradings and its offspring” « Ideas and Thoughts
  35. Against the Wind: A short conversation with…Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn
  36. Alfie Kohn: How Not to Teach Values
  37. Two Schools: Which one builds a better bully? – THE DAILY RIFF
  38. Stump The Teacher: I Like to Compete
  39. Figuring It Out: Walking the tight rope of student recognition
  40. Figuring It Out: Don’t Let the Sorting Define You
  41. Burlington High School Principal’s Blog: What About Doing Away With Grades?
  42. Awards at St. Gregory: Changes We are Making to Recognize All Our Students
  43. When Competition Fails Us | Avenue4Learning
  44. Let’s Bring More Students to the Awards Table | Edutopia
  45. Awarding Achievement | Canadian Education Association 
  46. Stump The Teacher: The Stumpies
  47. Success Night | Responsive Classroom
  48. The Matthew Effect Meets the Graduate « The Smaller Office Blog
  49. Parenting is Political: A Grade 6 Graduation Ceremony: Awkward
  50. Mr. Gonzalez’s Classroom – Awards as a Habit
  51. Mr. Gonzalez’s Classroom – Craving Acknowledgement [Revisited] 
  52. What is Intelligence? | The Teaching Experiment 
  53. for the love of learning: Abolishing Awards Ceremonies and Honour Rolls 
  54. Transformer Gramma: Idiots, Losers and Non-Achievers 
  55. Savouring the Ish: Thinking Through the Awards Debate
  56. Awards for All Means Students Still Lose – No Matter How Well Meaning They Are | Blogging Through the Fourth Dimension
  57. When Your Child Receives an Award | Blogging Through the Fourth Dimension
  58. Student Power Rankings | Culture of Yes
  59. Farewell assembly: the farewell to our grade 8′s and Awards | technology4engagement 
  60. Awards, Rewards and The Bigger Picture | www.paulgenge.com
  61. The Need For Recognition: School Award Ceremonies | maelstrom
  62. Honor Roll? Really? | Assoc of Middle Level Education
  63. Amber Teamann | When Awards Go Wrong 
  64. A Terrible Thing Happened on Awards Day: Here’s What I’m Doing About It | @CoolCatTeacher
  65. Judgment Day: School Awards Revisited – maelstrom 
  66. Let’s Hear It For the Average Child – NY Times Opinion
Print Friendly, PDF & Email

20 Comments

  1. Hey Pal,

    Thanks a TON for pulling this list together and for maintaining it for us. Your thoughts on this issue always force me to reconsider my own practices.

    While I haven’t found a middle ground between ditching awards ceremonies and our current practices that my peers are totally comfortable with, this collection will certainly push us in that direction.

    Rock on,
    Bill

  2. Great list. I can’t stand school awards ceremonies, but maybe that’s because I once headed up the planning committee for one of them.

  3. I have NEVER been a fan of awards ceremonies. There ARE alternatives to recognize and build relationships with all students!!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *