School spirit is a necessity for the student body to connect, subsequently enjoying more time spent together as a community. There is great potential for an emerging, energetically charged high school that can only be accomplished through the willingness to be more spirited. School spirit excites the academically drained, supports and acknowledges  hardworking Blake members outside of the classroom, and fosters a greater sense of community. Spirit is a necessity, and it must be raised to improve the wellbeing of our social environment.

The prioritization of school spirit reflects the energy that the student body feels apt to give. Lauren Mohan ‘25 expresses, “I feel like school spirit gets higher during united times… Homecoming was the most school spirit filled week because it’s a thing a lot of people look forward to.” Mohan further states that the extremely college based culture of the school doesn’t allow time for school spirit in students’ lives, “[Blake is] such an academically focused school and everyone is stressed out with their work… and still maintain a social life. You have a lot to do being a student in this school, so it’s hard to be excited and motivated to go to school.” 

Spirit manifests itself as the pride that students have for the school, further providing an avenue to support members of the community outside of an academic landscape. At sports games, student athletes have noticed little support from the Upper School Student Body. When asked about what athletes have noticed about school spirit, boy’s basketball player Ian Schnabel ‘25 humorously remarked that, “we notice a lot of nothing because there’s no people there.” Similarly, Omar Kaba ‘25 notes the lack of engagement from the community also as a boy’s basketball player, “Blake kinda sucks with [school spirit]. Depending on who we play there’s noticeably less people.” Kaba, however, notes that there has been some improvements in spirit this year, and that the turnout can be subject to who the opponent is. Unfortunately for Kaba and Schnabel, turnout for sports in general—other than major events like Homecoming as Mohan mentioned— feels lackluster. 

Despite the community’s lack of it, spirit is something that needs to be raised to uplift athletes and the general student body alike, and to ultimately just have fun. Mohan emphasizes the necessity of having more fun and diverse activities during the middling months of the year encourages student participation, “the Sweethearts dance is a good example of having more events that are different and fun, especially during that time of year, like the winter period… second semester is really hard to get through.” An impactful and simple solution towards raising more school spirit is suggested by Kaba, “Just talking about it more.” To continue to raise discussions of encouragement for students to participate in spirited events creates an environment where events themselves are actively being circulated through the student body. By creating currently non-existent conversations surrounding spirit can lead to its prioritization. Leaders in the community can initiate exciting, new dialogue to ramp up the energy of the community. Kaba not only urges the need for action among his own team, “It’s on us to tell people about our games,” but also the effort required from the whole community, expressing that raising spirit will come from “just trying harder from all of us–from people trying to make it to games and athletes talking about our games and getting the word out.” There is a growing want for change, to move away from our current lack of camaraderie and become a closer community which is wound through support and excitement provided only through a communal sense of spirit and pride for our school. Just by simply starting a conversation of how we can improve is where we begin accomplishing the goal of a new and electrifying spirit.