Valedictorian: honor or farce?

Pro

By Dibya Subedi
Cabell Midland High School

As their high school careers near the end, the seniors of 2007 are preparing for graduation, a day when their achievements will finally be recognized.

Special recognition will be given to the valedictorian, ranked first in the class, and salutatorian, ranked second, in high schools across the nation. As the top students of their graduating class, the valedictorians and salutatorians may be asked to give commencement speeches and lead the students across the stage.

Lately, this practice has been subjected to debate. Some argue that it would be better to do away with the glamorization of the valediction because it undermines the achievement of the rest of the graduating class.

But Jacob Lyon, a Cabell Midland senior, sees it differently. “It gives the students something to strive for and the competition to keep them motivated” he said.

Lyon compares healthy competition in academics to the widely accepted competition in sports. Most sports teams recognize their most valuable players, but in doing so they do not lose account of all other contributors. They are simply rewarding the efforts of the one person who stood out the most.

Similarly, in a graduating class with hundreds of students, it is nearly impossible to declare one student the absolute best. However, grade point average allows for an objective ranking of academic achievement.

And while the accuracy of that judgment can be rather ambiguous, it’s far better to maintain the recognition of the top position than to do away with the tradition completely, which is what some people propose.

Academic competition is necessary for students — especially in high school. The more students strive towards a goal, the better prepared they will be for college.

Additionally, high school students are at the point in their lives where they should be able to recognize that one person’s victory is not another person’s loss. True, out of all the hard working students, only one will be valedictorian but Lyon argues, “The valedictorian should not be viewed as an elitist status that steals attention from the rest of the class but rather as a representation of the best academic attributes of the class.”

So, as you’re preparing for graduation, be generous with your applause — for the valedictorian as well as the rest of the graduating class.

Con

By Nicholas Rader
Richwood High School

When you hear the world valedictorian, you may think of the smartest person in the class. But in reality, are valedictorians always the smartest?

Do they take harder classes like Calculus and AP or honors classes or do they take just what they need to graduate? Do they take more difficult electives or easier ones?

What if the valedictorian takes easier classes and the salutatorian takes harder ones? Or what if the salutatorian receives more merit-based scholarships, like the Promise, than the valedictorian does? That’s not unheard of.

Because of instances like this, I think the title of valedictorian should be done away with. It’s not fair that not all students who receive this honor have taken hard classes and that they get looked upon as the smartest ones in their class when sometimes they aren’t.

If we just have rankings without a valedictorian and salutatorian, maybe students will try harder to excel because it will recognize more people. Only two people can be the valedictorian and salutatorian, but with rankings, students can be proud to be in the top 10 or the top 20.

Also, in my class, there are two students who are fighting to be at the top of the class. Both of them have worked hard and taken basically the same classes, but with the valedictorian title, only one of them will be recognized as the best.

It’s been rumored that at Richwood, my class - the class of 2008 - will be the last to have a valedictorian and salutatorian. If that happens, our principal has said that the student council and senior class president will speak at graduation in place of the valedictorian and salutatorian.

I think that’s a good compromise.