- published: 20 Nov 2013
- views: 3726
The National Honor Society (NHS) is a recognition program for high school students in grades 10 through 12 in the United States and in several other countries. NHS honors those students who have demonstrated excellence in the areas of scholarship, leadership, service, and character.
In 1921, the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) officially established the National Honor Society. Under the leadership of Dr. Edward Rynearson, principal of Fifth Avenue High School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the organization grew from the original Alpha Chapter at the Fifth Avenue School to more than 1,000 chapters by 1930.
Based on the NHS constitution, four purposes are said to guide NHS chapters. They are:
These purposes are supposed to translate into the criteria used for membership selection in each local chapter.
NHS is sponsored and supervised by NASSP, which appoints a National Council, the controlling body of NHS. In addition, National Council members serve as the selection committee for the NHS Scholarship, which has been administered annually in schools with NHS chapters since 1921.
In the United States, an honor society is a rank organization that recognizes excellence among peers. Numerous societies recognize various fields and circumstances. The Order of the Arrow, for example, is the national honor society of the Boy Scouts of America. Chiefly, the term refers to scholastic honor societies, those that recognize students who excel academically or as leaders among their peers, often within a specific academic discipline.
Many honor societies invite students to become members based on the scholastic rank (the top x% of a class) and/or grade point averages of those students, either overall, or for classes taken within the discipline for which the honor society provides recognition. In cases where academic achievement would not be an appropriate criterion for membership, other standards are usually required for membership (such as completion of a particular ceremony or training program). It is also common for a scholastic honor society to add a criterion relating to the character of the student. Some honor societies are invitation only while others allow unsolicited applications. Finally, membership in an honor society might be considered exclusive, i.e., a member of such an organization cannot join other honor societies representing the same field.
A society, or a human society, is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Human societies are characterized by patterns of relationships (social relations) between individuals who share a distinctive culture and institutions; a given society may be described as the sum total of such relationships among its constituent members. In the social sciences, a larger society often evinces stratification and/or dominance patterns in subgroups.
Insofar as it is collaborative, a society can enable its members to benefit in ways that would not otherwise be possible on an individual basis; both individual and social (common) benefits can thus be distinguished, or in many cases found to overlap.
A society can also consist of like-minded people governed by their own norms and values within a dominant, larger society. This is sometimes referred to as a subculture, a term used extensively within criminology.
Sixteen years old, only just found out today.
Nowhere to go but she's leaving anyway.
The taxi waits outside as she turns the key.
Leaves a note behind that he'll never read.
And as the rain pours down, the meter starts to read.
She looks back one last time in tears from the back
seat.
House on the hill, fortress on solid ground.
Is now shuttered and still, a ghost of its former self.
Kneel at the altar, this pantheon covered in dust.
Sing Hallelujah…
Eighteen years old, enlisted and boarding a plane.
He bought what they sold, just like a moth to the
flame.
He's scared and all alone, in a distant place.
Don't wanna let it show, but the fear's on his face.
Got a girl back home, that he'll see next May.
What he doesn't know is, there's one on the way.
House on the hill, fortress on solid ground.
Is now shuttered and still, a ghost of its former self.
Kneel at the altar, this pantheon covered in dust.
Sing Hallelujah...
And so she waits and breaks inside her shell.
He wrote a note, that got delivered to her old address.
She’s not coming back.
He’s not coming back.
House on the hill, fortress on solid ground.
Standing here still, make this a solemn vow.
Here at the altar, this pantheon resurrected.
Sing Hallelujah...