School spirit is an integral part of high school experience
By Jack Cahill ’17
THE ROUNDUP
School spirit plays a much larger role in the success of a high school community than a person may initially believe.
It is no secret that intense school spirit can pervade our campus. Whether it be the chants at football games, or the pride one feels when they say they go to school, our school is full of spirit.
This raises an often overlooked question, which is, is school spirit important? After all, why should we be proud of our school simply because we attend the school?
I believe that all students should take pride in their school for a variety of reasons.
Most importantly, we should have pride and spirit because of the school community. Every school community is unique, each with it’s own diverse group of clubs, teams and students.
The community and students attending a school is the glue that holds every school together. Without a common sense of unity and pride amongst the students of any school, the school might as well not have any community.
When a school is proud of their community and accomplishments, they can achieve great things.
It’s easily apparent that our school has high levels of pride, which can be seen at sports events and just around the campus. This sense of school pride creates a sense of unity and brotherhood among the students.
Our academic and athletic success as a school can be partially attributed to the school spirit we have.
To say that school spirit creates a positive school environment is not a baseless claim, as it has been documented by many studies.
“Identifying with the sports teams at one’s school may also be good for boosting students’ social/friendship connections and reducing social isolation,” according to psychologytoday.com.
Other studies noted that school spirit can encourage students to perform well.
The National Federation of High School Students found the following information; “In addition to showing support for their school, high school students with ‘school spirit’ perform better academically, are more engaged in social and civic matters, and are happier in general.”
School spirit may seem like a pointless concept, something that fosters needless hostility against other schools. However, school spirit, as abstract as it is, is an important concept that fosters competition and a sense of community and solidarity amongst students.
School spirit illogical, divides schools
By AK Alilonu ’16
THE ROUNDUP
Not a single high school in this country doesn’t devote some of its budget to banners, air horns or colorful mascot costumes, all for the purpose of boosting “school spirit.”
The Student Council exists in part to make sure that Brophy isn’t an exception.
A library of football cheers proves they’ve succeeded.
But not all trends serve a purpose, and some don’t even make sense to begin with. The educational system has entirely bought into one of them.
To take a look at school spirit, one has to know what exactly it is.
When someone has “school spirit,” it usually means that he or she is proud to go to his or her school.
Clearly, there must be a reason for a person to feel that way, whether it’s the football team, the teachers or the student body.
But are any of those things objectively better than those at any other school?
Probably not.
Students convince themselves that they are because they happen to go to one school or the other.
Why root for the football team unless you’re on it, or know someone who is?
Feeling solidarity with someone because he or she is enrolled in one institution or the other makes as much sense as being biased towards a race or a nationality, because no person can choose either.
While the students and teachers at Brophy all earn their right to be here, they wouldn’t even be here if they lived in Yuma.
Being part of this community is mostly by chance, and the aggressive sectionalism that many high schools feel among themselves ignores that fact.
On the other hand, self-identifying with a school encourages students to represent it well when off-campus.
It brings people together who wouldn’t even meet otherwise.
But using those reasons to defend school spirit is very limiting to those who would say that they’re school-spirited.
If representing a high school is the only thing keeping people from doing things they’d regret, that means that no one is able to evaluate how their decisions affect society as a whole, something that the education system should be teaching in the first place.
And while students are brought together through school spirit, they’re also ripped apart from other groups of students that are like them in everything but the colors they wear.
To be clear, there is no imminent danger in having a little school spirit.
Doing so is what makes football games fun and dances loud.
But the Brophy community can’t prove there is any logic behind rooting for the Broncos whenever they take the field.
