MASC/MAHS Newsletter
Fall 2004
Volume 3, Issue 1

Feature Article

What If…?

What if we could…What if we tried…What if they let us…What if we set-up…What if, what if, what if. I recently attend a seminar and had the opportunity to listen to Mark Sharenbroich share some incredible ideas. The basis for his entire session was “What If” and he explored the possibility and the reality of asking this question. Do students wait to hear what teachers, administrators, and other students WANT, or do they charge ahead and ask WHAT IF? What if we started to CARE? What if we started to APPRECIATE AND RECOGNIZE students and staff? What if, as advisers, we held our students ACCOUNTABLE?

Students wonder why they cannot get their peers motivated to cheer, to come to games, to participate in dress up days, to be a part of the school…and they ask each other why, but do they ask “what if”? What if the students in the school truly cared? HOW? Care for them – reach out to the students and help them feel part of the event, part of the school, part of the excitement. Connect with them in ways you haven’t tried before – getting to know names, getting to know faces. Make each person feel special, not just the athletes, council students, chapter members, and officers. Make EVERY STUDENT FEEL PRIDE. Who typically gets locker signs? Athletes, student council students, maybe even the band students. But what about the girl that isn’t involved? What about the boy who comes in and goes home and never experiences what school can be about? Give them a locker sign – give them all a locker sign the first day of school, or of the new semester. Make them feel proud to be a member of that school – involved or not. Put hearts up at Valentine’s Day, or Shamrock’s up on St. Patrick’s Day, or Pumpkins up at Halloween. Use lockers, walls, hallways, lobbies – use your walls. As Mark Sharenbroich said, “schools got a discount on beige paint”, but that doesn’t mean we can’t brighten it up!

Making the Student Council or Honor Society students care isn’t going to happen overnight, but it can happen this year for you. Hold students to a high standard – let them know what you expect right from the start and put those expectations higher than average. Now hold them accountable. Don’t swing in and save them every time something is about to fall apart. Let them come together and grow, learn, and even fail sometimes. They’ll learn and they’ll begin to care because when they see that you care about their success, they’ll care about their success.

When students have pride, they will hold themselves accountable. Show them what it means to be part of the school – display school colors in as many areas of the school as you can – what if you painted single colored stripes down the hallway – just two, just about six inches in height, the entire length of the hallways – WHAT IF? Having pride is easy when you are visually stimulated by your school colors, mascot, and even your school song every day – what if there was a huge poster in the gym or in the lobby that displayed the school song? What if it was permanently painted on the wall – WHAT IF? What if you took that next step to make your school YOUR SCHOOL?

I encourage you to push your students to ask what if this year – so the principal says no every now and then – that’s life and they will need to just keep pushing to find out what they can do. Push them to exceed, push to them to care, and encourage school pride. They will do the rest to make sure the school is full of caring students and pride. Enjoy your year!