Yesterday, we had a mid-week, end-of-the-day pep assembly and I wondered . . . Why do I have have so much more school spirit than 90% of the students at my school? Granted the trek down to the gym can be tedious, not only because my classroom is farther from it than most other rooms in the building, but because you can feel like a cow in a cattle drive, yet I still feel like stomping when I walk into the gym and hear the marching band. For the first time in my 11 years working at East, we finally have an MC that is funny and cool and a student body president who the kids respect and can really work the crowd and still the kids in the stands won't shut up! You know, the he-said-she-said just can't wait another 50 minutes until the assembly is over. Why are the teachers, and only some of them, applauding while the spring sports teams are making their way around the gym floor? The worst of it is when students just get up and start walking out of the gym from the stands while someone is still talking or making announcements from the gym floor. I loved assemblies when I was in high school and I still do. When I first started working at East, they were pretty lame, not to mention dangerous. I once got hit in the head with a flying pencil from the top of the bleachers and it HURT! Fights used to break out mid-rally. Now, they are so much more entertaining and yet, the students still don't care. I think it may all be a part of kids in today's society growing up too fast. It's just not cool to have school spirit.
Maybe that's why on red and black Fridays the teachers are wearing more red and black than the students.
