Throughout the school year, Lake High School experiences numerous spirit weeks to gain enthusiasm for upcoming events. However, over the years the number of students that participate in these events have massively declined. Spirit week consists of having a new theme everyday of the school week to dress up, in order to have fun and show school pride while still being appropriate. Some themes in the past have been “Monochrome Monday,” where you only wear one color, or “Rhyme Without Reason,” where you would dress as an unrelated rhyme with a group of friends. Unfortunately, no matter what the theme is, it seems the teachers enjoy participating at a much larger scale than the students.
During spirit week there is typically at least one theme where you dress up with 1-2 other people. This can make spirit week even more clique like than it already is and makes students that do not have anyone to partner up with automatically singled out and unable to participate. Being unable to participate in one theme because of popularity causes embarrassment and leads to students wanting to opt out of the event entirely. If the themes were open and could apply to anyone then more people would be able to dress up without feeling like they are being put on the spot.
“Why does barely anyone dress up for spirit week?” has been a question from many, and it can be answered in a variety of ways. If you were to ask a student why they choose to opt out, most would say it’s out of sheer embarrassment to support their school. When the majority of students dread coming to school completely, they are just going to do the bare minimum to get through it, not dress up in silly themes that draw attention to themselves. If there was a poll to ask the students which themes should be chosen I believe there would be at least a small increase of people that participate because it would be a theme they actually enjoy dressing as.
Grace Artman shared that her reason behind not participating in spirit week is because she usually hears about it after the week already starts and at that point she does not have enough time to plan her outfits, and since not a lot of other students do it she chooses not to either to not stand out.
When spirit weeks are as rare as they come, most students have no clue when they are coming up. The only advertisements for the themes come through the morning announcements, that a large number of juniors and seniors miss from having first period privilege. It is true that the announcements are then repeated onto Schoology but with busy schedules and schoolwork it is not a regular part of people’s day to check the announcements unless they are expecting something specific.
Additionally, absences have become more common, with lots of students struggling with truancy; they also are not present for the morning announcements, or are too busy with catching up on school work to pay attention to them. If teachers did more to remind students that spirit week is approaching and showcased the themes so people had time to plan then it is likely that more students would actually participate.
Spirit week is supposed to make students excited for an upcoming event and gives an appropriate way to showcase that pride, but it has skewed away from what the students actually want. There are many issues that contribute to the reasons behind student spirit has diminished, but the most important is that spirit week is no longer centered around the children going to school and instead about the school itself, so it is necessary to bring back student involvement and choose themes that appeal to students to reignite the excitement for spirit week.
