BITTER LOSERS, SOUR FACES, UGLY MANNERS

Why Can't We Just Lose for Once

With my right heel partly swollen, I slowly ambled my way to school today. We had a very important matter to do - deliberate for the honor students. Usually deliberation for honor students took us the whole day to accomplish. There are just so many things to do to ensure the validity and integrity of the result. The top graduates and students for a particular school year are chosen based on a very complex looking yet simple procedure. The weighted average for all subjects are ranked and the respective ranks are multiplied by 70% to get the weighted rank. The other 30% comes from the weighted rank for extra-curricular activities. It is in this portion that some students think the teachers and the school become unfair.

One basis for extra-curricular activities is participation of the students to other academic work outside the school. Any travel away from the school for academic purposes guarantees the student points for extra-curricular activities. However, not all students vying for honor can be sent for outside events of academic nature. There are some loose criteria we have adopted in choosing who to send out. First, the student should be intelligent enough to understand the task in hand and the responsibility he has after doing such. Second, he should have consistently exhibited a promising leadership potential, or much better, he is already a good student leader. Third, he should have led a student life worth emulating because he is a person of integrity, modesty and of faith. Fourth, he should be physically pleasing or better, attractive.

More often, the better looking and intelligent students are usually sent out of the school to represent the latter for any academic endeavour. The selection may sometimes be subjective but the teachers and the school tried hard to rid the process of biases. I for one is fascinated so much with students who are sophisticated, good mannered and survivors. These three are what I am looking for in a person to consider her or him educated. With sophistication, you should be beautiful in appearance, in action and in word. Good manners come with intelligence, and both are needed to survive.

Points for extra-curricular activities matter so much in deciding for honor students. Therefore, points earned from travels related to academic work are also very important. Because not all candidates for honors can be sent out to travel for academic purposes, I am expecting that some students are complaining. However, if these students are really educated, they should have been more intelligent and better-mannered to think whether they qualify for the task to be done. More often, what prevents us from sending a student outside the school are the behavior and leadership potentials. If the student's behavior does not live up to the image of the school and if his leadership potential fails dismally in comparison with others, then he has to stay.

Well, we just cannot please everyone. Obviously, some may find the ranking of honors this year questionable to their standards. We always welcome, though, questions and clarifications as to how the honor system was done. We would like to believe that we have done our best to maintain the sanctity and integrity of the entire process. We have nothing to hide. It's just that, unfortunately, we cannot cater to everyone's whims. More unfortunately, I prefer so much honor students who are beautiful and well-mannered. Most unfortunately, only a few qualified this year. Bitter losers, sour faces, ugly manners.