<body><div>When I, a junior, walk through the cafeteria doors each morning, I don’t feel a sense of pride, nor a vivid excitement to be at school. Those ideas are foreign to students at South.What I’ve found, after reflecting upon this feeling, is that I don’t feel like a Titan. I, like my peers, possess an identity, but that identity is independent of the school. We don’t have a collective pride of South, but rather just feel like we coexist at South.This, of course, isn’t an isolated conjecture. The events regarding this year’s Homecoming embody the lack of spirit – collective dignity for representing the school – throughout the community.Students at the Homecoming Pep Rally didn’t see enthusiastic cheers, passionate cheering, nor any<figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=1WVwFA_1H1cw09G00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=1WVwFA_1H1cw09G00" width="442" height="241" ></figure>excitement to represent their grade amongst the entire student body. Instead, they were witness to haphazard dances, lifeless scripts, and apathetic chatter, questioning why they were forced to sit in the crowded bleachers to begin with.When kids were asked to scream for their grade, they didn’t (though some probably were on the inside). When volunteers were needed, minimal hands were raised. And even when teachers were asked to join the class officers at half-court, almost all of them hesitated for at least a minute.I’m saying this as someone who’s involved. As I continue to hear alumni and teachers alike reminisce upon school spirit, I want to know what it looks like. What it feels like. But feeling anything and expressing it is now so frowned upon that it has become socially unacceptable.Even the cheerleaders and class officers – people there to hype the crowd – performed (performed being generous) half-hearted motions or recited robotic calls to action. And I don’t believe that this is because they don’t care, but rather because the standard in our school has become to not care.And that’s a problem. As a school and community of young individuals, we should be able to possess a collective purpose and identity that unites us together. This was a vision that many previous classes have achieved.The reason for how the status quo has developed, however, is unclear. It can’t be realignment or reconstruction since that all started this year, and school spirit was already an overwhelming problem last year.A more feasible root of this weed, though, is detachment. Students feel disconnected from the school because everything is based upon isolated Titan Forums (homerooms) which rival one another. We are encouraged to compete and focus on our personal agendas rather than cooperate based on a shared culture.We don’t have many assemblies, either. In fact, the only times in which the entire school is in the same room are the Homecoming Pep Rally and Clash of the Titans. Sure, there’s graduation and football games, but students are only forced together two times out of the 180 days of each school year.“Of course,” you might say, “We don’t need to be together every other week.” But you’d be missing the point. The fact of the matter is, and will continue to be, that students are divided because they are never forced to interact. To engage with one another. To talk (another foreign concept).This isn’t the only factor. Of course, social media has played a major role in how we communicate. With the thought of being recorded (or worse, noticed), students have developed the idea that “standing out” (which the bar has become very low for) is heresy and punishable by conversation.Plus, social media has formed a network of individual profiles. People, feeling a need to uphold their reputation – both online and offline – fear that thought of “standing out” because it would hurt the personality which they are so adamantly trying to conceal. By concealing personality, you conceal spirit.Maybe it’s none of this. Maybe it’s everything to do with us – the students. We live in a great district with educational facilities and programs far superior to that of other districts. So why do we still feel nothing?It’s like we don’t know how to feel anything. Maybe if we took a moment to consider ourselves and our district – maybe, just maybe – we could find some spirit. But that will not happen unless we do it together.So, the question isn’t simply as to who will be the first to take that leap, but rather if anyone in this school is even willing to be the first to take it.<figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=3sKstw_1H1cw09G00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=3sKstw_1H1cw09G00" width="936" height="471" ></figure></div></body>

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When I, a junior, walk through the cafeteria doors each morning, I don’t feel a sense of pride, nor a vivid excitement to be at school. Those ideas are foreign to students at South. What I’ve found, after reflecting upon this feeling, is that I don’t feel like a...

School Spirt: Doing Nothing has become Everything

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When I, a junior, walk through the cafeteria doors each morning, I don’t feel a sense of pride, nor a vivid excitement to be at school. Those ideas are for

School Spirt: Doing Nothing has become Everything

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