Indeed. A while ago I was at a junior high school awards ceremony
where at least half of the students of a school of 400 received sme
kind of award. It made the few who received a genuine academic award
look ordinary. What was that line from The Incredibles - something
about 'celebrating mediocrity'?
When my #1 son made the Dean's List at Melbourne Uni. I did the sums
- top 2%. That had meaning. He got a sponsored exchange to an English
Uni. for 6 months - we never quite got him back.
Andrew Fildes
afildes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
On 06/05/2007, at 10:46 PM, Bob Whitmire wrote:
> We freely bestow all kinds of titles, honors and other such crap in
> this country. Nothing means anything anymore. There was a time, for
> example, when being on the Dean's List was an achievement. Now, I
> understand at places such as Harvard, the percentage of students on
> the Dean's List exceeds 50. It may even be more than that. (Unless
> publicity in the past few years has shamed them into giving it real
> meaning again. I dunno. Don't spend that much time keeping up with
> what's going on at Harvard.) They've raised pretentiousness to the
> level of high art down there.
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