Gratuitous award giving is the worst way of meriting achievement. Not only does insult the accomplishment of hardworking students by forcing them to work towards wasteful globs of plastic and synthetic ivory, but it also becomes a less special accomplishment.  Every time a student achieves the greatness of winning, they get a three pound trophy thrown at them, which screams, “We commend you for your hard work by giving you this worthless, mass-produced, memento or our appreciation.”  The human sense of deception makes us think that the shiny gold plastic on these devils are worth something, but it isn’t even worth the oil required to make it. 

Think of the materials used to create these vile things: plastic, marble, paint, dye, electricity, time.  So many Americans are so tuned into saving the environment that they forget the waste of materials that went into making the trophy that commemorates them picking up the most trash in the community.  Trophies have no useful purpose, except maybe as potential weapons.  They sit on a shelf and gather dust, which leads to a rise in allergies.   Paper certificates can at least be burnt to produce heat.  Trophies do nothing.

Trophies also artificially stimulate the economy.  Schools pay near a thousand dollars for this investment into the destruction of the environment.  Schools put this money into the local economy.  However, all of this money stays with a few businesses.  Even the money that the trophy shops use to pay for supplies do not stay in the United States.  Most trophy bases are made in Italy.  Italy’s economy must be booming.  However, the US’s economy is currently in a slump.  My plan to stimulate the economy is simple.  Get rid of trophies.  Why should we support Italy’s economy if we can’t support our own?  Of course the schools should not keep the thousand dollars, because we will have nothing but rich schools.  A good economy should have the money divided throughout the people.  Therefore, the money that schools use to buy trophies should be given to the people who would earn the trophies.  Since most trophies go to teenage students and children, they money would quickly be redeposit back into the US economy.

Not only do trophies ruin the economy, they also ruin children’s self morals.  Students find themselves jumping like dogs trying to get it a rubber treat.  I am sure I am not the only one who is repulsed by this begging.  Many students say, “Let me take this test for a chance to get a big trophy that can sit on my shelf.”  This makes kids conceited.  Once children get infected by this Trophy Envy(TE), they become part of some of the worst fads and “Gotta catch them all.”  TE is a much more serious syndrome, with many harmful side effects, than it sounds.  People diagnosed with TE become extremely greedy and award oriented.  TE causes people to stop caring about anything, unless there is a trophy involved.  Once someone has been diagnosed with TE, it is a matter of time before they will be cured.  However, though it is a matter of time, it is not time alone.  Curing TE requires enough trophies to be earned to stop caring about them.  This is a very vital stage though.  One day the infected person will be counting his trophies and realize that he has, say, 50 trophies.  He has a few choices of what to do then.  He might go brag to his friends that he has 50 trophies.  If any of his friends have any number of trophies close to 50, then he will be catapulted back into the dungeons of TE.  He will once again start trying to beat his friend in the number of trophies.  Rarely will the infected person realize that he has too many trophies and decide to stop caring, but this is one way to cure TE.  Another simple way to cure TE, is to run out of space to put trophies.  Once the infected person’s house is full of trophies, he will start hating them.  Because of this, TE is much harder to cure when it infects a wealthy person.  Likewise, when TE infects a poor person, they will be fooled by the deceit of the trophies, and think they are worth something, making it harder to cure them.  First generation TE’s are also harder to cure.  The first step to curing TE is realizing that you have a problem.  If you think you might have TE, say the following phrase: “My name is Your Name, and I have a problem.”