Nadya Negron Capstone
Throughout my time at SLA I felt my peers and I lacked school spirit; there was something missing from our high school experience. That’s what moved me to take it upon myself to bring more school spirit to SLA. Due to the upcoming move to Ben Franklin high school in 2019, the student body has become divided. I felt that it was my obligation to remind everyone why we chose SLA and that we are more than just a building.
First I had to form a spirit committee. After that, we got straight to work. We decided to plan SLA’s first-ever haunted house, which turned out to be a success. Unfortunately, we didn’t make as much as we spent on it, but it was ultimately a good learning experience for our next event. Next, we planned the first of two-spirit weeks. Usually at SLA spirit week isn’t that popular however this year we surprisingly had a nice amount of students to participate. My goal for the end of the year was to have a pep rally but unfortunately, we couldn’t find the facilities to do so. In order to compensate for that, we decided to have the second installment of spirit week with a twist, each day had a different lunch event rather it be wild 'n out or a international luncheon. Throughout this process, I learned that in order for our community to evolve there has to be unity throughout the student body.
Annotated Bibliography
Berkeley. “Steps to Building an Effective Team.” Steps to Building an Effective Team | Human Resources, Berkeley University of California, hr.berkeley.edu/hr-network/central-guide-managing-hr/managing-hr/interaction/team-building/steps.
Annotation: I selected this source because it provides me information on how I can strengthen my spirit committee. It starts with a fully detailed list on ways to improve the structure team and produce the most effective outcome. It also touches on the leadership aspect of team building. If you are not a good leader you can not have a good team. In order to build an effective team you must first begin with yourself. That’s the information I found most useful in this article. Other information that I found just as useful is establishing team goals. If we all set one clear goal then we all know what to work for. This also goes into assigning jobs, when there is a common goal you can delegate which person of your team could be best fit for each job. Using this source has helped me understand how to build the confidence and effectiveness of my spirit committee so we can be able to produce more detailed and planned events.
Deb, Samar. Unified thought on management. Kalpaz Publications, 2004.
Annotation: The source provides information on building morale and the importance of it in management settings. It references Napoleon and his philosophy on the necessity of morale to win a battle. In my case it would be a common goal. It also refers to the “Platonic Theory of State” which is said to detail the three elements of the human soul - reason, spirit and appetite. These elements in Plato’s Theory leads man to wisdom, courage and hunger, thirst and love. All of these aspects are essential in human morale building. With this new knowledge I’ve gained it has helped me develop a new understanding on how I can build the enthusiasm and school spirit at SLA. Not only at SLA but as well as in my spirit committee. I selected this source because it not only has historical evidence of the importance of morale but it also analyzes that historical evidence.
Greguska, Emma, and Rhonda Olson. “ASU study finds school environment can affect student behavior.” ASU Now: Access, Excellence, Impact, ASU News, 24 Jan. 2017, asunow.asu.edu/20161215-solutions-asu-study-finds-school-environment-can-affect-student-behavior.
Annotation: This source provided information about how a toxic environment in school can affect student behavior. It explores the physical and also emotional aspects of a healthy school environment. It helped me analyze how can I develop a different way I can approach spirit week and planning new events. It also provided the importance of having a healthy working environment for students. It can help improve test score and even the school spirit. It inspired to not only work on the psychological aspect of school spirit but the physical as well. Developing new places for students to hang out as well as being able to start building bridges to create healthy workspace.
Klesse, Edward J. Student Activities in Today's Schools: Essential Learning for All Youth.
Annotation: I selected this source because it provided me information on how building school spirit also builds respect. It also refers to careful planning of activities and making sure they relate to the overall school values and the community. It made me understand school spirit is not at all about the school but about the promotion of community. You have to be able to understand the students and teachers in order to create a productive community. It also provided me with a detailed list of different activities we can do in order to boost the self esteem in the community as well as the promotion of teamwork in all aspects of the spirit committee.
Northern Michigan University. “Running An Effective Meeting.” NMU Student Organizations, www.nmu.edu/organizations/running-effective-meeting.
Annotation: This source provided me information about how to run effective meetings. Recently, that has been one of the things I have struggled with when it comes to spirit committee meetings. They’re usually not as structured as they could be. This source gave me steps on what a good meeting should look like. I’m going to use these tools to run more effective spirit committee meetings so we can have more planned out events. This source also gave me different ways to approach group members on how to improve their work. It is sometimes difficult learning how to approach people who aren’t as active and this source provided me with a detailed list on how to do this.
“Importance of School Spirit becomes increasingly important.” School Themes, School Spirit, Official Yearbook Ideas & School Homecoming Themes, www.schoolthemes.org/importance-of-school-spirit.html.
Annotation: This source helped me understand the importance of spirit committee in schools. Recently, spirit committee and myself have felt as if we were underappreciated and not needed in SLA. But after researching this I’ve actually realized how needed we actually are. There is so much going on with the move and benchmarks I think the SLA student body needs us. So this source helped me uplift the spirits within my spirit committee so we can work to produce better events. It also provided me with a clear definition of what is school spirit. This will help me measure the school spirit at SLA and what I can do to improve it.
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