How many people participate in Spirit Week and about how many don’t? Spirit week usually follows the upcoming dance. For example, the first dance of the year, Warped Welcome here at Canyon! Whether students participate in Spirit Week or not, it can still be fun for everyone. The themes are usually fun and silly, like earlier in the week, Mix It Up Monday where students could bring anything, but a backpack! However, how many people participate in these events? 

Let’s ask Mrs. Elliot, Mrs. Blanco, and Mr. Kleponis! Mrs Elliot responded with “5-6 students in my class and 1 in Avid.” Mr. Kleponis averaged about “10 kids out of a class of 40 or 25% of students.” Finally, Mrs. Blanco estimated “50% in total of all of her students, so about 10 per class.” Overall, it seems that approximately less than half a class of 40 students participate in Spirit Week at Canyon. The numbers would be different if the class was instead out of 20 or 25 rather than a whole class of 40 students. Overall, approximately less than half of the class participants in Spirit Week themes, per class. 

There are different reasons why students might not participate, but one of them could be that they don’t know what’s going on. For example, most of the time it is posted on the tribe’s Instagram, and if a student doesn’t have Instagram or doesn’t check it often, they might not see what the themes are for the week. Also if the themes for Spirit Week are too silly, bland, or difficult it will diminish the amount of participation of students. 

There are different reasons why people wouldn’t participate, so why do students participate in Spirit Week? Spirit Week is meant to motivate students and make the school year more fun and enticing, especially by adding silly little themes to dress up for. On finals week, when going to school is the last thing a student would want to do, Spirit Week can help with motivation and bring a little light and laughter to the day. 

Now, what are different ways to make Spirit Week more fun and encourage participation? Firstly, matching with friends is always a fun and cute option. Matching with friends can be encouraging because, if you think that people will judge you for what you wore to the Spirit Week theme, now you won’t be alone. Perhaps if we see more people dress up and show school spirit, it will encourage others to participate themselves! Secondly, if teachers gave some extra credit to people who did, maybe it would be encouraging for others if they were getting something for it, like an extra point on a homework assignment. 

Overall, I’d say that less than half of the students in classes participate in Spirit Week. Perhaps it varies from whether or not people feel inclined to the theme or if they don’t like what the theme is for that day.