I feel this needs to be said...(Grades & FIRST Dedication)

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall

As a matter of fact, I'll go out on a limb and opine that if there's one worst thing that a team can do, it's preventing students from going to competitions, because of their marks...a left-behind student has to accept the fact that they're not being permitted to go, not because of their actions as a member of the team, but because of something unrelated...it's got real potential for making them resentful. That's not going to help the team, the student's marks, or the excluded student. And if it's not helping, why do it? Because of the perverse (but pervasive) belief that by punishing an individual (and especially a teenager), they will come to accept and live up to your expectations? That is truly outrageous, and flagrantly ignores the natural tendency to learn better when having fun, than when being punished.

I consider going to competitions a reward. Letting a student travel with the team only when they've earned the privilege is conceptually different from punishing them when their grades don't meet the standard. The overt result is the same, but the underlying reasoning isn't the same as yours. Carrots don't make people resentful the way sticks do.