If you informed me freshman year that school spirit was on the decline at East, I probably would have taken it as a cause for celebration. Isn’t it just an excuse to ignore the academic nature of school in favor of irrelevant intangibles?
Now, however, I would at least be slightly disappointed by any news that our school spirit is going down the drain. Although it can still be a meaningless and even obfuscatory buzzword at times, I must confess that I have come to find some value in the vague notion of “school spirit.”
Before the pandemic, it certainly felt like there was a predominant meaning of school spirit. School spirit was cheering on the athletic teams. School spirit was why we had pep rallies. School spirit had pretty much nothing to do with the value that I actually found from school.
Then the pandemic marched in. A flurry of changes struck at once. Athletics was gone, school was online, and seniors were graduates and juniors were seniors and so on. Somewhere in this muddle, the old meaning of school spirit slipped away. Nobody seemed to worry any more that the school’s cheers were insufficiently loud.
Good riddance to it. I have nothing against athletics, which does bring great meaning to many students’ lives. But a pep rally isn’t a triumph of communal feeling; it’s people packed uncomfortably in a gym, awkwardly watching whatever supposed entertainment is going on.
In the liminal spaces left by all these changes, school spirit brought forth a new definition. I heard a lot more than ever before about whether students felt connected to each other. Teachers acquired a newfound interest in checking in with students. Most importantly, everything felt focused more on achieving goals and objectives rather than staying within the lines and rules.
The core of this is that we students cheer for each other’s successes and help others through their problems. We should be working to maximize the amount of good work at this school, not trying to hoard it from others. This is what real school spirit looks like.
This isn’t always called school spirit, but that is no problem. Call it togetherness or school identity or school feeling or whatever else. But it does fill the same niche of meaning when discussing school performance.
This definition is not perfect, but it is a definite improvement. Most importantly, it does have a relevance to accepted and valuable educational outcomes, such as preparing students for the collaborative nature of the real world. And I hope it’s obvious that feeling invested in the same project as fellow students helps people learn together.
It is, however, not without its flaws. It can be unfortunately subjective and can lead to hokey, faked togetherness, although the other version of school spirit is no better on that count. And it doesn’t mean that we should tolerate immoral behavior, like cheating, out of a desire to preserve a common front.
This is a critical juncture for what people want to call school spirit. COVID isn’t dead, but we’re getting back into our old habits. Even pep rallies, unfortunately, may not be far away. I fear that we will slip back into lazy habits of associating school spirit solely with sports. Let’s all make sure to focus on a much better measure of school spirit: helping others thrive in the school community.
Photo by ECHO staff
