What's with this "everybody's a winner" mentality?

[Hyena Dandy]

There's a difference, though, between "The exact same award" and "A completely different award as a sort of 'thanks for coming.'"

When I was younger, I was in a youth soccer league. Everyone got a trophy, but most teams got "participant" trophies. The #1 team got a "league winner" trophy, and the #2 got a "Runner-up" trophy.

We didn't have any illusions that "Participant" meant the exact same thing as "Winner."

Despite that, all the kids totally knew that a participant trophy didn't mean you won something. It was just a nice reminder of your time at the league. I kept all the trophies I got (most of them were winner, one was a runner-up, and one was participant) and I liked all of them.

If your costume got a "Winner" and the person in a cat-girl outfit got a "Least dressed," I don't think that that would be the example of "Exact same award."

I got a "Best Costume" at my church youth group. I was very proud of this. Another year, I got "Best supervillain." I knew I was literally the only one who had dressed up as a supervillain, but I liked it anyway, because it reminded me of the fun I had had.

The way you wrote it, you implied that "Best use of a bedsheet" is a possible award. I don't think the person who got that would think "Ha, I beat all you guys in bedsheet use! THIS IS THE MOST PRESTIGIOUS RESULT POSSIBLE!"

I think they'd enjoy it, for what it was. A memento of the fact that they had been there, and a way to remember the fun it had been. Whereas you would enjoy yours, for what yours was. Which was saying "You had the best costume there."

[Amanita]

I really meant the honorable mention certificates- as it is now, those mean something, even if they're not the top awards. But if they start grasping at straws like "least dressed" and "best use of a bedsheet" so that every single person in the contest gets one, then that's no longer the case.

Now, if they handed out a nifty little badge or favor to everyone who participated, that had nothing to do with your costume, or if you won an award or not, that would be different- it would be kind of like a video game achievement awarded for participating in an event.
Something like "Convention costume contest 2013", perhaps. And if the con figured out a way to expand that to other areas- attend a certain number of workshops/panels, get an achievement, get a certain number of autographs, that's an achievement..that might actually be fun.

[Ginger Tea]

Get felt up by Harlan Ellison Achievement unlocked

You know it's going to happen.

Mind you I'm kinda a part of Festival Bingo, though the last 2 years have been low key due to my leg and prolonged standing, so one lady thought I had not shown till she saw me leaving the hot and slicy spider stall.

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[Andara Bledin]

There always has to be an even spread of grades, so a certain number of students always have to fail.

This is stupid. Failure should be about not learning the material. Not merely learning it less well than the rest of the class. By that same token, getting an A1 should be about doing the best it's possible to do, not merely doing better than the rest of the crop.

[Nyoibo]

Our grades at school were based on percentages, those percentages were made up from the average of your test scores and homework, we had classes where the lowest grade in the class was a B, which I think was 75% or so.

[Ginger Tea]

There always has to be an even spread of grades, so a certain number of students always have to fail.

Without more details it sounds like you have a class of 12 but only 10 exam sheets, so 2 random or intentional students would be shafted.
Not the best analogy but my brain is predominantly fudged these days.

You should fail because you failed, this reads more like you have 100 points to distribute to the class and after divvying up 75 of them you realise too late that you still have a lot of class members left to score.

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[QUOTE=Andara Bledin;139404]This is stupid. Failure should be about not learning the material. Not merely learning it less well than the rest of the class. By 1234567890

[Andara Bledin]

If everyone is doing well on a paper, they revise the grading plan to make it harder. If everyone struggles, they go easier on you and take it into account for next year. If loads of people are failing or getting straight A1s there's been a mistake somewhere.

See, this is crap.

If loads of people are doing well or struggling, it's a reason to look into things. To just assume that there's a problem because you happen to have a crop of people who all give a rat's ass (particularly if the test is the same as it was the last time through with different results) and penalize them for it is bullshit.

Test scores should never be a competition with fellow students. That's why I've always found grading on a curve to be distasteful.

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[smileyeagle1021]

That's why I've always found grading on a curve to be distasteful.

I have had only one professor who had a curve that I actually liked.
Any test/quiz where the average score was more than one standard deviation away from the previous combined averages would be a sign that the professor had done something wrong in their teaching (particularly if there was a certain set of questions that more students got wrong than would be expected) and would trigger a review class to go over what most people got wrong and an extra credit opportunity to correct the mistakes on the test.
An honorable mention for a curve system that I am somewhat okay with was the professor who was very blunt up front and said "without the curve, none of you will pass my class, if any of you get more than a 60% on any test, I will be amazed"... and for her class, it was appropriate. It was a tax class, and the school had a policy of all tests are closed book, end of discussion, and there is no way that you can learn everything there is about tax without having reference books (pro-tip, if your tax preparer never once checks some sort of reference material and you are filing anything other than a basic "EZ" return, find another tax preparer) and she was in no way going to simplify the tests for the sake of meeting the school's assinine policy. And at the end of the semester whoever had the most points became what the score became out of. Yes, it was competing against other students for a grade, but the alternative would be to not actually learn the topic, which I think would have been worse.


Now, back to the original topic. My elementary school did this, and it pissed me off. They had a student of the week from each class, every week... and class sizes were capped to the number of weeks in the school year... and no one could win it twice. Essentially everyone was guaranteed to win it at least once. Well then, what is the incentive to go above and beyond to try to actually earn it?
Though, I actually did earn it twice one year, only person I know of who did that while I was there... my teacher really did think I deserved it a second time, and she read the fine print in the rules regarding it and discovered that theoretically any staff member can nominate a student, so she got together with the librarian to nominate me for the second time... after all, she was following the rules to the letter, no teacher shall nominate the same student twice