Shouldn’t Shane Be Eligible For That?
I got an email from Shane’s school, announcing upcoming events this week, including the induction of all the 8th grade National Junior Honor Society members.
The induction is taking place? I thought. Shouldn’t Shane be eligible for that?
I looked it up. From what I could gather, Shane would need at least a B average, and would need to earn at least 25 hours of community service per year.
Shane has well above a B average. And in addition to his dog rescue work and other volunteer positions, Shane gets community service hours from being on the school’s Morning Show. He has so many community service hours, in fact, that – if service hours were the only requirement – he would have been eligible to graduate from high school in the middle of 7th grade.
So I asked Shane. “Did you get invited to join the National Junior Honor Society?”
He was playing Germs.io on the computer. “Yeah,” he said.
“You did?” I asked, incredulous. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I didn’t think it was a big deal.”
“It’s a very big deal!” I wailed.
“Well it didn’t seem like it. And I didn’t want to fill out all the papers just to join some club.”
“You didn’t want to fill out the papers.”
“Yeah,” he said, not even looking up from his video game. “It just seemed like more work.”
“Son,” I said, trying to remain calm, “It’s an honor to be invited to join the National Junior Honor Society. The word ‘honor’ might have given you a clue.”
He still didn’t look up. “Well practically everyone in the school got invited,” he said, likely referring to all of his close friends, who happen to be hard working, intelligent students like Shane. “It didn’t seem like any big honor.”
“It is a big honor,” I said. “And next time you get invited to join anything, please let me know – particularly if the word ‘honor’ is in it, and even if it doesn’t sound like a big deal.”‘
“Okay,” he said, and continued playing his video game.
The induction went ahead as scheduled, without my honorable son.