Your post reminds me of some button envy I experienced in my days as an apprentice technical editor. Someone who admired my boss gave her a pin that said We never guess; we look it up. The person who gave her the pin treasured it as an emblem of her membership in the unofficial guild of editors. Giving it to my boss was a tribute that I wanted for myself. I really wanted that pin, but of course I never got it. My boss treasured it, too. It signified membership and recognition of a special skill set. Kind of like the ring that professional engineers wear. Badges can be quite powerful that way. To this day that saying We never guess; we look it up reminds me to uphold my personal editorial standards. Badges and mottos--good stuff.
I agree- there was a lot of button envy. And you are right...there were a few buttons with great expressions that I treasured. I remember there was one with a water stain on it for a track event. I didn't "achieve" the badge, but i foudn one of the ground - a waterstained one, which was "gold" to me...it gave me inspiration to get a "clean and shiny one" the next year. Although the water stained one stayed in the collection as well. Great point about how we put values and mottos on our "badges". There is a lot of personal identity in a badge. What means one thing to one person will mean something else to someone else. That doesn't work in our education system though...and I think that's a problem.