Never Too Old for Gold Stars

When I taught a creative writing class to high school juniors and seniors long ago, journaling was all the rage.  I suppose it was a precursor to blogging  So, of course, daily journal entries were part of my syllabus. My kids (perhaps not the PC term, but that’s how I thought of them) seemed to like it.  They could do up do N private entries where they folded the page of the notebook over and I didn’t read that entry, but I read most of the entries when they turned them in—monthly? Every six or nine weeks? I don’t remember.  Side bar: Multiply those pages by 30 or more students and then go thank a teacher who still “makes” students write.

The truth is, I didn’t mind the workload because the entries provided a window into their lives long before Facebook provided too much information to caring adults.  As a joke, I bought a pack of those gold gummed stars that elementary teachers used when I was in school.  Every now and then I’d stick a star (or two) on an entry that touched me or made me laugh.  When I ran out of stars, I used a purple or blue or green (no red, for this sensitive teacher!) pen and marked the entries.  Sometimes I’d write a comment or “Good!” but usually it was a star (or two or three).

I didn’t think much about using that system (after all, they got credit for writing whether I liked the entries or not) until I noticed one day there was much ado when I returned the journals.  Frantic shuffling of pages, silence, and then more shuffling.  After a bit, “Dude, she gave me three stars!  What did you get?”  “Ms. Evans, you gave Jimmy three stars and I only got two!”

That’s when I realized that the starting line-up of the football team (ok, it was an elective and they thought it was going to be an easy class—WRONG!) thought the gold stars they got in elementary school were still something to cheer about.  These huge hulks who seemed to only care about their Friday scores (on the field and off) were, deep down, excited to know that their journal entries warranted a two- or three-star rating on my highly unscientific scale.

If we’re honest, all of us care about gold stars, but they quit coming, for the most part, after we aren’t kids any longer.  In my tiny corner of the world, I decided that I’d do my best to hand out gold stars whenever I could to folks who are well past the age when it “should” matter.  I haven’t always done a great job, but I still try to tell folks when I see a gold star moment.  Sometimes it makes a difference, sometimes I don’t know.

It’s what I wish the world writ large would do.  Got a gold star to give?  Just do it.  Now.