Kelsey Anspach
News Editor
In homeroom classes on Wednesday, senior Lindsay Coburn will be surveying students’ opinions about school unity for her Civics project. She aims to gather student views on underclassmen/upperclassmen relations and whether Spirit Week activities bring school community or inter-class competition. “It will be discussion based,” she said. “Students will talk about if they feel everyone in the school gets along or whether there’s a divide between grades and certain clubs.”
A group of students and teachers will present her project to students in every grade. To make sure there is consistency in the discussions that classrooms have, “I have a set list of questions, which will be different for underclassmen and upperclassmen,” she said.
Teachers in each class will take notes on what students have to say. Afterwards, Lindsay said, “I’ll be compiling the information and note trends on what students have said, and then will insert my own opinion. There might be a follow-up homeroom at the end of the year to see if anyone thinks things have changed.”
Lindsay developed the idea for her project around the time of Homecoming, which influenced her decision to choose this issue. “I was thinking about whether the spirit days helped school unity or added competition between the grades,” she said.
Lindsay’s inspiration for her project also came from past experiences at the high school. “I know that underclassmen who don’t have older siblings may be intimidated by upperclassmen,” she said. “I want to know if underclassmen think that seniors set a good example and if upperclassmen think they set a good example [for the underclassmen].”
Assistant Principal Ari Rothman explained how Lindsay’s project will benefit the student body. “Her project will at least start a discussion on how upperclassmen treat underclassmen,” he said. “That in itself is an accomplishment.”
School administrators will also use the issues that students bring up in their discussion to help think of ways to promote more school unity. “All the adults in this school are always thinking of ways to build community,” Mr. Rothman said.“When she first came to me with this idea, I said ‘fantastic.’ Anything her project accomplishes in keeping the discussion about school unity alive benefits everybody.”
Mr. Rothman hopes Lindsay’s project will gather information that links the school’s social community with academics.“We spend so much time in education concentrating on scores and accomplishments,” Mr. Rothman said, “that we sometimes lose sight of the fact that when kids come into a place where they feel comfortable, it automatically increases learning.”
Lindsay,
The Civics class, the school and I look forward to the results this project may produce. You are a person of action and few words. When a person is able to move a civics project this far along in one semester it says a lot about them – congratulations! Democracy is not a spectator sport; it is possible that because of you New Canaan High School will be even better!
Mr. F
An insightful and in-depth project to be sure… Mr.X The Redux approves
u make it sound like competition is a bad thing, in the real world, its always going to be right in front of ur face whther u like it or not, why not have high school be the firsthand experience and dont do this it may ruin spirit week, its the only thing that many of us enjoy about school
this is ridiculous, this is just a fairy tail survey that will only make people angry and not improve school life at all. It will instead make everyone more bored then they already are and hate school, resenting the idea of doin work even more. The fact that this calls for an entire homeroom class over one civics project promotes favoritism and stupidity.
You call showing school spirit and having fun a competition? I call that ignorance… spirit week is the least competition involved in school. Howabout getting into college? class rank? even simply who acheives the best test grade??? life is a competition you cant avoid it
guys guys, these comments are not poppin in the least , things change and yes there is a lot of competiton in the real world, and yes this homeroom is for one project. but its more than that. Homecoming is the most poppin time of year where freshman-senior come to together to kick another schools teams butt in football. WE aren’t competing for jobs . While I do agree that there is little competiton in spirit week, (in fact I would go as far to say there isn’t enough poppin spirt in poppin spirt week ) competion=more spirit.
that’s whats poppin
thats whats poppin
read whats poppin
I believe, that this project will change many peoples attitudes about relations between upperclassmen and lowerclassmen. I myself do not have older siblings in the high school and i am a freshmen, however, i have friends that do have sibling whom I have been exposed to frequently. I will admit that if I didn’t know any upperclassmen before joining the high school things would’ve been a lot more frightening. I hope this helps and I hope this project helps get you into a choice college.