A school is defined by its spirit and culture. From its mascot and sports teams, to its community involvement and student events, it is all defined by these things. For McDowell however, I’ve found that our culture is not clearly represented. Yes, we have a mascot, and yes, we have sports events, but what defines and separates us from any other high school?
Other Erie schools like Mercyhurst Prep or Collegiate Academy are great examples of how schools have a type of culture that they represent through the student body and the events they hold. They do talent shows, food drives, in-school band or chorus concerts, multiple dances a year and events where countless students get involved such as the annual “Beach Walk,” held by Collegiate.
As a student at McDowell, I feel we are missing out on something. Our two main events of student interest and participation are the fall homecoming parade and our Walking For The Cause fundraiser. Only two events per year. Spirit weeks are run by the student council but it is rare to see students actually participate. If nobody takes part in the fun, why would someone dress up only to feel embarrassed?
Assemblies don’t even serve as a proper school event anymore. As a child, a group assembly was the most exciting way of getting out of class. Now it seems assemblies bore most kids. It’s not necessarily because they are boring, but because most assemblies now are not about connecting the school and community, rather just disciplinary speeches or guest speakers that are only there for college recruiting. It’s disappointing that we don’t even gather as a collective class anymore to listen to the band play or chorus sing, especially during the holiday season. Our McDowell chorus and bands went to the middle schools this holiday season instead of playing for McDowell students.
As expected, most kids only like assemblies because it’s a time of day besides lunch where they can sit next to their friends even if they have to be quiet. But due to common disruptiveness, they don’t always get the chance to. It is also a chance to get out of class, as bad as it sounds.
The problem spreads further than monotonous assemblies though.
School culture is defined by not only the students, but what the school does to promote what they want to be seen as. McDowell promotes their sports heavily, such as in daily morning announcements that state how each sports team did in a game the previous night. There are rarely ever any announcements about competitive academic club achievements though, such as Academic Decathlon, Speech and Debate and Model UN.
However, it is the responsibility of the coaches to submit victory announcements to the media club. Media is able to make these announcements happen but it is difficult to pinpoint and get a hold of coaches and students when the tutorial schedules are changing every day. Without a constant homeroom tutorial, students never have a constant state of familiarity with their original tutorial instructors. This especially affects students in clubs, who may only get to see their club manager once a week.
What we need is more representation of all students in McDowell. The problem is that most events are separated between 9-10th grade and 11-12th grade. This issue may derive from the fact that we have two separate buildings for both grade levels where the intermediate high school is reserved for 9-10th grade and the senior high is for 11-12th graders. Furthermore, McDowell doesn’t even have a senior high auditorium for 11-12th to gather, while the intermediate does. Either way, there really is no place big enough for all grade levels to gather as one. Just the name of these two buildings creates a rift between the two pairs of grades, where it sounds as if the intermediate is just a next level of middle school.
Getting more involved and creating more opportunities for students to unite in exciting functions would help students look forward to coming to school. Getting up at five AM almost every day and immediately having to get ready to sit in a classroom for the next six hours is a routine that eventually burns out a student. However, when they have something exciting to look forward to at school then they are more likely to act eager to go or at least regularly show up.
We need to work to build our own culture in ways that actually work. Whether it’s representing our academic clubs more, holding more events, getting students excited about spirit weeks or showing off our amazing band. At the end of the day, when students graduate, they won’t remember how many games our football team won. They will want to remember how many good times and experiences they had and they want to be proud of the school they came from.
