This year the McCallum hallways and environment have been majorly lacking in school spirit. In past years spirit dress-up days had tons of participation, bringing in lots of different outfits to each theme. Spirit days have lacked energy, but that’s just the beginning of the problem. Pep rallies are another major spot of weakness. Students either don’t attend the rally or don’t participate in the cheers and chants. These things are slowly changing the culture of our school and could continue to worsen in future years.

Homecoming Week could have been seen as any other week. The hallways were decorated, but the spirits were low. The themes for the week, western vs. West Coast, USA, color wars and disco, were largely unengaged. Going around looking for people dressed up, to take pictures for the MacJ Instagram, yielded very limited options. This poor participation could have been due to unawareness as there has been much less communication on themes than in prior years. It might also have been because the spirit week and the homecoming game occurred a week before the dance. This time gap just made for more confusion. But that’s no excuse. Homecoming spirit days are not a surprise. They happen every year. People could have searched for the themes if they wanted to participate.

Dressing up makes going to school more fun. It fills classrooms with unique outfits and helps take away the stress of being embarrassed, but only if everyone is dressed up. I get it, that you don’t have anything to fit the theme, or you are worried about being the only one, or maybe you just don’t have the energy, but it can bring together our school. It gives you something special to do on what could be just an average day of school.

Similarly, pep rallies have shown much less engagement this year. The first pep rally of the school year for Taco Shack did have a good outcome, always popular among students. However, an announcement afterward, stating that booing of other grade levels during grade level chants is discouraged, partially killed the enthusiasm.

As the year has gone on, fewer and fewer people have attended the rallies, choosing to stay in the cafeteria, or with the new policy, in their classroom pods. This is understandable as pep rallies can be overwhelming and not as enticing for some. Pep rallies are a classic school experience, that is, if they have pep. That relies on the students engaging with the provided cheers, chants, songs and games.

Another place the lack of spirit has been noticed is in school events. The Taco Shack game did have a large turnout, as always, but at other football games, the size of the student section has been dwindling. Volleyball, as well, often had small support in the way of the crowd.
In other events, not games, people have shown low interest and attendance. The homecoming dance even had a large amount of crowd leaving around 9:30, not close to the end of the dance, which was planned to be 11. Supporting your school in its other activities, not just classes, is an important thing. Many students would rather be doing other things, instead of participating in school functions.

This lack of spirit can be blamed on the way things are run and advertised, or even the events not being interesting themselves.
I think a large majority of it has to do with students seeing anything in connection with school as boring. We have been conditioned to connect boredom, work and exhaustion with school, so why would we put in extra energy when it takes just the bare minimum to get up and go every day?

Also, teenagers, especially today, have a particularly negative outlook on anything and everything. High-schoolers tend to use negativity and complaining to connect with their peers. If dressing up for spirit days is seen as embarrassing and boring by one, the others will follow. It is all part of a follow-the-leader mindset. This lack of school spirit isn’t just a small thing, it can affect student engagement, community and morale.

So, McCallum students need to step it up and bring back the enjoyment of participating. Whether that’s by encouraging their friends to dress up with them on spirit days or by expressing pride for McCallum at games and events. School is a lot of people’s main community, and community is so important to have.

When it lacks excitement and fun, it can be easy to be negative about lots of other things. Let’s start with spirit days, dressing up and creating an environment where it’s OK to have fun.