River Dell lacks a strong cultural sense of spirit. December 15th through the 23rd was spirit week, plus a few days in between. While one would imagine students throwing together outfits to participate, there was an eerie lack of participation. Less than 20 of River Dell’s 1,100 students wore something for most of the days, with the only exceptions being pajama day, class colors day, and ugly sweater day. Even then, participation was sparse.
Freshman Iwan Lee observed, “There is no spirit. There is none in my class who wore anything.” He has not seen anyone from his class who bothered to participate. While Iwan didn’t buy in himself, he still noted the distinctive lack of spirit.
On top of the lack of spirit, the pep rally struggled to get volunteers for the games, with a host of emails asking students to sign up. In the end, there were participants, but the struggle to get their help illustrates more deeply rooted issues with participation and school spirit at River Dell.
When Ms. Cuccio, the spirit week planner, was asked for her opinion on the decline of spirit in the halls of the Hawks, she stated, “School spirit is multifaceted, with students expressing themselves through different avenues. Sports, drama club, choir, and the television program are all ways for students to express their spirit. This past week failed due to oversaturation of events.”
Through polling the SUPA Psychology classes, 21 of the 24 students who responded answered “no” when asked if they participated. When asked why, a majority responded with something along the lines of, “Since no one else is doing it, I don’t want to because it is embarrassing,” or “I just didn’t want to do it.” The rest either didn’t know or didn’t care, further highlighting the disregard for school spirit.
The exact cause of why students don’t participate is up for debate. Fear of embarrassment is one possibility, and a lack of prizes is another. A common trend for Halloween and ugly sweater day is that students are awarded a prize of some sort. It seems that spirit days become more appealing when there is a reward involved.
Junior Kevin Kochain claimed, “The school doesn’t do much to promote school spirit itself. With a lack of the Lip Dub and major school-wide events, the idea of school spirit falls flat.” He furthered his points by discussing the decline in quality of the pep rally compared to previous years.
Buying in wasn’t something teachers excelled in either. Not many, if any at all, participated in December’s spirit week. This is an unfair comparison, though, because earlier in the year during teachers’ spirit week, there was decent participation.
Sophomore Sajen Apanich was quoted saying, “It’s sad to see the decline, but it makes sense because as we get older, we care more about how we look.” His response resonated with others when asked about their willingness to dress up.
This wasn’t the case in the past. One of the largest events the Hawks participated in was the Lip Dub TWIRD special, which had massive buy-in. There was no award at the end, but people still participated and supported the idea.
The difference from what spirit once was is more than apparent. The only time spirit seems to show is during games in the student section. Senior James Cannon stated, “The school should force us to engage in school spirit,” when asked about his thoughts on the decline.
The conclusion about River Dell’s spirit seems to lie in the fact that the school does not do much to promote it. Students also aren’t motivated to participate due to fear of embarrassment and a lack of incentive during a conventional spirit week, even though school spirit continues to express itself in other ways.
