Opinion: Is school spirit worth participating in?

We see it all the time in movies. Teenagers with painted faces cheering for their school’s football team, everyone rushing to participate in school events, and so on. But let’s take a moment and think here. Does school spirit really matter? What if we didn’t have pep rallies or cheer teams?

“I think that school spirit affects students here in many ways,” Mark Keppel High School senior Andrew An said. “It keeps the students here very happy for those who support and love the school.”

An also points out an opposing view. Some students might just have no interest in taking part of school spirit. Repetitive events may also affect student participation in school spirit.

“I wish some of the school activities would be different,” An said. “I feel like we’ve been having the same school activities so I wish it would change so that way it would attract more students to participate.”

School spirit can only be as lively as the students themselves. If students don’t take the initiative to have some fun and show school pride, then there’s no chance for any type of uplifting school spirit. But vice versa, if students collectively put effort into keeping school spirit alive, then the overall mood at school will be much more cheerful.

The Associated Student Body (ASB) works hard to keep the mood up.

“ASB wants students to feel as if Mark Keppel is their home, so school spirit encourages and brings in that feeling. Most importantly, we want students to have fun by participating,” Commissioner of Publicity Allison Quach said.

The pep teams play a large role in school spirit too. They proudly show off their school logos and colors on their uniforms and spend countless hours practicing to represent their school in different competitions and shows.

“Guard goes to home games to support our football and basketball teams, where we do routines along to our band’s music to hype up the crowd,” Color Guard member Arely Vargas said. “We join in with other teams to do cheers and that’s when the crowd gets to show off their spirit too!”

And there’s no limit to who can participate in school spirit.

“When we create events for school spirit, we take accessibility into consideration,” Quach said. “For spirit week, we create dress up days where most students will be able to participate in.”

In other words, school spirit does help– but only if you participate in it.