The week of Monday, September 19 through Friday, September 23 was our school’s annual Homecoming spirit week! Throughout the course of this week, I had started to notice the lack of school spirit within the student body. On Monday, the theme was “dress up as a teacher” day. Tuesday was “Country Vs Country Club” On Wednesday, the theme was “Zoom meeting”. Thursday was “90s and early 2000s day” many did not dress up while others went all out. This is true for many of the other days, while some showed up to school in full country apparel, others wore daily uniforms. Lastly, Friday was “Blue and white day” in honor of the homecoming game that evening. Many dressed up in their spirit wear, specifically blue and white spirit wear. Although these themes were very creative, I think that if they had been more straightforward, more students would have participated. 

“I think the themes were really creative and I especially liked the zoom meeting theme,” said history teacher Anthony Hoy, “so far, I think I’ve seen a lot of spirit within our school, however it seems that the spirit grows as they get older. Most seniors are more spirited compared to some freshman and sophomores and one way we could all be more spirited would be by having class competitions to engage the student body with one another”

Moving on from homecoming, in general, I believe that our student body could be more spirited. I do think that a big part of the lack of spirit is because we have students from so many different countries and cultures that have different traditions and aren’t used to our “traditional” spirit weeks and practices. I think one way we could use this to our advantage is we can learn about other cultures’ practices to show spirit. Students from all around the world can teach others about their traditions and we can incorporate it into our spirit weeks or even create new ones to ensure everyone feels represented and can show off spirit.

Another reason our school lacks spirit is because some themes aren’t as strong as others. I think that if there is a way that the student body can help pick the themes, they would be more involved and excited to participate. If the students are more involved, they will want to participate more because they were part of the cause. The students are creative and have a lot of ideas and if we fuel those, we can have a more involved community. 

“We both agree that the spirit weeks are fun and a chance to free dress but there could be more themes that the student body chooses,” says freshman Ece Gurses. 

“There is a significant lack of school spirit in our community and that we need to show off our support more often,” added freshman Isabel Chona,“One way we could improve is by making new customs at our school along with more student-led spirit events and weeks.” Let’s make Village a more spirited, prideful and active school!