I’m sure that many of you grew up watching classic high school, coming-of-age movies showing eager students in pep rallies wearing school colors and bright smiles. While some people got to experience this once they reached high school, our own student body has not. The issue isn’t a lack of opportunities, as we have spirit weeks and constant reminders of opportunities; the issue is the irrational fear people seem to have of making a fool of themselves.

   It seems like every year that a new wave of students come in, school spirit declines even more. I remember during my freshman year in 2021, people were more likely to go all out during spirit weeks and school events, the most memorable being anything but a backpack day. People showed up to school with everything under the sun; some brought strollers, lacrosse sticks, toy cars, and barrels, and one especially creative student brought in a canoe. It made me excited to come to school and look forward to the next chance to show my school spirit. As years went by, I noticed the decline of students engaging in anything school spirit related.  It was disappointing to see how only a handful of people joined in on this year’s homecoming spirit week.

   There’s also the problem of people no longer showing enthusiasm about the school itself. It seems like there are too many different cliques, along with the little interaction amongst the various grade levels. The result of that is the community not knowing anything about one another, leading to awkwardness and less of a drive to show support for one another. It also leads to a lowered sense of recognition of the school leaders’ efforts to keep school morale up. I get that it often feels like school is nothing to celebrate, but too many people forget that education is a privilege, especially at our school, which has so many opportunities. 

   While I understand the fear of being judged and ridiculed by people, the whole point of school spirit is to increase student morale and help connection within the student body. With the constant flow of complaints about how school sucks and the stressfulness of it all, school spirit is supposed to be something one can lean on. Knowing that the school community is a reliable source for help, understanding, and positivity can help relieve a lot of the distress caused by the academic parts of school. Seeing people include themselves in spirit weeks and pep rallies while maintaining support for the school’s various different people, teams, and organizations can help make school feel less like a miserable jail to a more bearable place. We spend a lot of our time in one place, so keeping it positive can help greatly.

   In the end, it all boils down to mindset. If one believes that it’ll be embarrassing to participate or interact, then it’ll feel embarrassing to participate or interact with the community. There’s a likely chance that with time, the individuals that felt this way will regret not participating in all that they could. A realization will hit that the worry over embarrassment was never that deep, and there were a lot of missed opportunities to make friends and create lasting high school memories. They say whatever goes around, comes around, so be the support you wish you had, you might get it back when you most need it.