Samantha Flores
Staff Writer
School spirit is something a lot of schools want for their students. It’s amazing to see 2,000 of your own peers come together, with painted faces, glittered hair, confetti launchers, and matching colors, cheering for the same team. It’s so much fun at sporting events and pep rallies to be doing your school’s own traditions and chants, but some of these traditions are very crass and looked down upon by the community. People from the outside are watching our school in shock of what we’re doing in the student section in the midst of cheering on our own team. School spirit is great, but is it as beneficial to the school as it claims to be?
Intense school spirit can take over a campus and disrupt the environment. The chants and distractions of showing spirit take away from the meaning behind a school day: to learn. During pep rallies at Lassiter, many teachers have been complaining about how the sophomores, juniors, and seniors chant “Freshmen suck”. They also hate how we scream “You suck” (directed towards the opposing team) at the kickoff during the football games. From a different perspective, these things we as students say are NOT the best choice of words to show our spirit. There’s no need for us all to come together and boo the other team because at that point we aren’t showing spirit, we’re showing hatred. It doesn’t reflect well on the school when the students exhibit this behavior. School spirit can also excite students to the point where it becomes mad chaos. This is shown at every single pep rally, and often in the student sections of games. For example, this year at the patriotic game we had an enormous paper flag rolled over the student section. Teachers and students worked hard to craft this flag. Kids were so excited about the game that they began to tear at the American flag, and they ended up destroying it. Not only did that look bad, but then the fact that students were bashing the other team with the hateful chants just added more negativity to that night. Sometimes, school spirit can be detrimental instead of helpful.
From another point of view, school spirit is amazing. Kids show their spirit through dressing up for the themed games, being loud at events, participating in the pep rallies, and so many more ways. These traditions that schools build upon (Lassiter especially) make the school more unified and positive. For a lot of students, these spirit events are where they have the most fun. Students who participate in spirit prove to be happier, more engaged, and perform better academically then others. Being involved in school activities is so important and brings you closer to other people. Sports teams are known to do better in front of an audience, and when the whole school is involved in cheering the teams on, those teams WILL be more successful. School spirit reflects pride, achievement, and determination.
School spirit has its pros and cons. It is good for the students and the school, but it can end badly. It can end with kids in trouble, jeopardizing their future, or it can end with kids happier and more involved in school. It’s all about the choices each of the individuals make themselves that shape whether school spirit is good or bad.
Trojan Times 