MS Editorial: School Spirit (Print Version)

As the winter sports season begins, many people participate in them, however, only a few people show up at the games to support our players. This situation has become so problematic that several teachers have to make announcements to motivate us to go to the games. Therefore, when people reflect on this, the question arises: are we lacking in school spirit? If so, how can we nurture it moving forward?

School spirit is defined as “the feeling of being proud and enthusiastic about the school that you go to.” According to this definition, the majority will agree that we do have school spirit. But only having this feeling is not enough, what we really lack is action, and only through our actions can we reach other people and let this feeling unite us as a community. Our school spirit has actually been shown through our actions in some events such as spirit week; everyone is eager to dress up and enjoy other people in this school’s company. The reason why more people participate in spirit week is because it is easier to do; one just needs to dress up and that is all, but the games on the other hand take a really long time to play, so instead of spending two hours on the bleachers, more people will choose to go home and relax. We do get proud and enthusiastic when our players win, but this spirit is too little to deserve their efforts. Therefore I think we do have school spirit, but sometimes we do not act it out to let it bind us together as a strong community.

We cannot require everyone to be exceedingly proud and enthusiastic about our school, but I think it is important to understand the purpose of school spirit. We are never alone in the community as we interact with people every day. It is our responsibility to support others to move forward, instead of ignoring them, and enjoy being in a community. Oftentimes people push this responsibility away to other people, thinking that it is okay to not to take actions because someone else will, but if everyone thinks that, no one is going to do anything at all, and our school spirit can only be a feeling to ourselves instead of toward others in our community.

Finally, I think that each one of us is responsible for turning our school spirit into actions, and showing support, care and love to our school and every individual in it.