Embarrassing, competitive, frantic — teachers share their perspectives on rallies.
[Through the rally], I got to see a really wild, passionate side of MVHS students that normally doesn’t come out on a daily basis. And coincidentally, we were doing the “Lord of the Flies” unit with my sophomores. It was really interesting seeing everyone dressed up in war paint and fanatically screaming. It was a pretty good fit.
My favorite rally experience was the disaster of watching the blind-folded ball toss from this year … it was funny … watching that one sophomore student continuously running into the bleachers, and the cheerleaders panicking.
I really liked that one rally when the classes didn’t compete against each other, like a unity rally. I thought that was really unique and interesting, since rallies are supposed to build school spirit, not divide the groups. Students find their identity in being a member of the class; it is the people who they go to classes with, start friends with, who they grow up with. Having an identity as a class is part of them feeling like an MVHS community. But there is a place for class competition, and there is also a place for school unity.
I remember [English teacher Mikki] McMillion and I were trying to get into the rally two or three years ago, and we were trying to come through that entrance that the seniors had. We tried to squeeze through the edge of the paper to get to the bleachers. We were almost there, and there was a voice, “Here comes Monta Vista’s class of 2011!” Luckily, we squeezed right past before that huge crowd came in … We didn’t want two teachers to be the first ones coming through that gate. Like, “Here comes Ms. McMillion and Ms. Rose!”
