Picture this: Smiling faces and laughter, flashes going off for photos, happy memories, and praise for a job well done.
This is what happens at a National Honor Society installation. Many parents and students eschew joining National Honor Society for a variety of reasons, and that is certainly their choice. By the time a parent watches his child walk across the stage for yet another award, it does seem rather anti-climactic.
Until that one last time.
At Muskogee High School senior NHS members are honored with a special blue and gold tassel, indicating their membership in the National Honor Society, as they are at thousands of high school across the nation. NHS membership may not seem important, and in the grand scheme of things it's not.
But commencement day is the one day in which all the awards and honors for a job well done are on display in regalia on caps and gowns, in tassels and stoles, honor cords and medals and pins. Graduation day is the one day when honor societies are important.
I can't tell you how many shocked faces of students I have seen when they arrive to line up for Pomp and Circumstance and see their fellow students decked out in these awards. I gave up counting the number of students who have said, "I didn't understand what it was for....I wish I had tried harder....I wish I had taken more honors classes....I wasn't really trying."
I feel sorry for these students, because for a brief, fleeting moment, graduation day is the only day this really matters, and they can never get it back again. Fortunately, life is not made on high school honors alone and there will be other awards, other graduation days. But, if your child receives a nomination for anything, from Academic All Star to Mr. or Miss Teenager, please make sure s/he follows through with whatever application process is necessary. They may not seem terribly important at the time, but they will be very important when it's all coming to an end.
Picture this: someone thinks enough of your child to nominate him or her for National Honor Society, Optimist Youth Leadership Awards, good citizen awards and scholarships. S/he may not be chosen in the end, but you'll never know what your child is capable of achieving until you encourage him/her to try.
*National Honor Society selects students based on its four premises of scholarship, leadership, citizenship, and service. Each chapter sets its own guidelines based on these four criteria.
3 comments:
Graduation day is indeed a great day for all seniors! Great write up!
Something that students don't think much about after graduation, that follows them everywhere, is their high school transcript.
Adults, who have graduated years and years ago, still have to have copies of their high school transcript to apply for jobs. Even though they have college transcripts and a resume.
If the student is on the honor roll it's stamped on their transcript.
National Honor Society tassels and the medallions around students necks are more than decorations. They are a symbol of a job well done.
Good point about the high school transcript following a person long after graduation. I hadn't thought about that, but it's true.
Graduation Day will be here before we know it! Seniors have only about five full weeks left! Exciting and sad at the same time! For me, anyway - I'll miss them!
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