Where’s The Pep At AISG Pep Rallies?

In recent years, I have noticed that the pep rallies at AISG are very dull. There is not much cheering from the crowd and the rallies are  not very “hype”. This lack of spirit may also be the athletes’ fault. From what I have seen, no one wants to stand up in front of the school. The APAC  athletes are not willing to celebrate before they leave and be wished good luck. I, myself, have been in the wormhole of social media, and every now and then I have come across videos of a pep rally in a public school in America. And from what I have seen, there is a great deal of cheering and celebrating. Also, they’re a very school spirited school. Our school community doesn’t really have an interest in our sports programs. I say this because when there are games after school, no one attends them. The only time they attend these games is when our school is hosting a tournament during the school day. I think another reason why our pep rallies aren’t peppy is because,  our school is a small school with about 300 students in high school, and many of those students aren’t very interested in our sports community.

I have asked a couple of people why they think our pep rallies are unenergetic. According to Mr. Kydd, “I can’t speak for the High School but I can speak for Middle schools pep rallies. They are very energetic, and school spirited, which is encouraging others to participate in the sports programs.” If the middle school can bring the needed energy to make a pep rally interesting, so [use “then” instead of “so] why can’t high school bring that same energy?  Sameer S. The StuCo Executive treasure said ” No I don’t think our pep rallies are exciting because the audience does not get involved. They do not show the school spirit we need to make it exciting. We could make it better by trying to involve the audience with the sports teams to create a connection.” Another student by the name of  Jacky L. also agrees with Samer’s statement saying, ” I think that pep rallies aren’t engaged and cheerful enough, but holding them in the theater may make it too formal of a setting for students to be enthusiastic. The gym would probably be a better place to hold them, as it is a place that encourages being loud and vocal.” And for my last quote, I interviewed Chloe I. and she said, ” Yeah, they’re exciting because they’re our friends and we want to support them.” This quote is obviously the opposite of what Sameer S. and Jacky L. said. I personally can agree with all three statements because it is fun to see your friends succeed in something they enjoy doing, but at the same time, the energy is not shown through the audience.

The year before, the pep rally was hosted in the gym and was only moved to the theatre this year. In my opinion, it doesn’t matter where the event is being hosted. It’s the audience and the athletes who have t0 adjust and try to create a more spirited and motivating/encouraging environment for the rally. And a way in which we could do that is to host a competition of which group of classes could cheer the loudest or which homeroom could be the most spirited on the day of the pep rally. we should try to create competitions involving/regarding school spirit. The team which contains the most amount of people with school spirit should win a prize