LETTER: Coddling our students to promote self esteem

If our esteemed educators feel that recognizing intellectually gifted students — e.g., National Merit scholars — harms those who don’t gain such recognition (Saturday editorial, “Facile nonsense”), then the same logic requires that schools also stop recognizing athletically gifted students. No more “lettering” or trophies in any sport. After all, if recognizing National Merit scholars hurts the feelings of students who did not earn the distinction, recognizing outstanding athletes must equally hurt the feelings of those who are not sport standouts.

Heaven forbid that our students’ feelings should ever be hurt while they are in school, because that never happens in the wide world outside of the school.