Rallies, parades, games and merchandise galore! Spirit week has ended, and those who gave it their all have gained new memories to cherish. 

For others, however, Homecoming Week was a lukewarm experience. 

While the idea of standing proudly aside your school and being a model representation of the building and the values it teaches might seem a heartening proposition to the athlete, star-student or anyone at the top of their class, the student who finds themselves walking the middle-line may very well find themselves something of an outsider to this energetic cacophony of school pride and amour-propre.

This disenfranchisement fully has the possibility to render a warm student cold. As the school years go by, and the years, too, leave him behind, that seed of bitterness will bloom into dispassion and a lackadaisical attitude toward their school up until they either walk the graduation stage, or begin studying for their G.E.D.

When one looks at something as popular as the Homecoming Assembly, perhaps they should reflect on who’s involved in the center-stage or who isn’t. When the celebrations are brought to the streets for the parade, perhaps they should consider who’s waving to their peers from the top of a float, and who’s receiving cheer, or who isn’t.

At the many football games throughout the season, perhaps everybody should ponder why some come wrapped in Superior Spartan blankets. Or why some just crack jokes at everybody else’s expense. Is the Spartan pride and highschool spirit a common, single moving force, or is it a method of gaining income for new benches on campus?

The empathetic practice of peering into a different point-of-view is scarcely an easy undertaking. For those who have been on both sides of this rift, the view is a little more clear. Students can find commonality among their peer groups and hold a sense of purpose and value within their school and wider community.

It’s a humorless joke only understood by a specific demographic of students. However, school pride can bring somebody up and give them the satisfaction of winning, and contrariwise. It can be a grey-weight serving as another variable for them losing.

The tug-of-war between these two sympathetic view-points is often represented in movies, television shows, and books, but it remains largely an intrapersonal struggle, one that shouldn’t be forced upon or exorcised by the whim of a group and their social pressure. 

To live and let others live will always be the best path toward coexistence, and the destination toward it is closer than it is far. Do you feel the school spirit in the air, or is it a stranger to you?  (Click on the hyperlink/blue to take our survey.)