Dear Editor,
Upon reading
”
Spirit team given an N and O for field trip
”
I feel sorry for the girls who are being robbed of this amazing
experience based on the overall classification of Gilroy High
School as a low-performing school.
Dear Editor,
Upon reading “Spirit team given an N and O for field trip” I feel sorry for the girls who are being robbed of this amazing experience based on the overall classification of Gilroy High School as a low-performing school. While I can understand where the school board is coming from, I don’t believe that punishing the students who are making a positive contribution to the overall performance of GHS is the way to improve the status of the school.
The only impact of this denial has been to create hostility amongst the high-performing students and has done nothing to inspire those who contribute to low performance of the school. I am placing the cheerleaders in the high-performing category due to the minimum grade point average requirement for sports participation. The cheerleaders and athletes in general are already held to a higher standard when compared to their non-athletic classmates and should therefore be trusted by the school board to be accountable for their missed school work.
In addition, I believe that there is a lot to be learned from traveling and experiencing the world. As a former GHS cheerleader, I was permitted to travel to Hawaii for Pro Bowl, Florida for nationals and London for the New Years parade. Each of these experiences taught me lessons that I never would have learned in the classroom and actually inspired me to work harder when I returned to school. By participating in these events I was aloud to explore my independence, interact with people from different parts of the country, learn about money management and about the culture in which I was being immersed.
While a trip to Hawaii may sound like nothing more than an excuse to go on vacation, I encourage the school board to see the trip for what it really is. Even if it is too late to change this year’s situation, I urge you to rethink for the sake of next year’s cheerleaders. The Pro Bowl is not about lying out on the beach and going surfing. (In fact, when I went I think I saw the beach once.) It is about taking pride in and representing your community, meeting people from across the country, learning about the history of Pearl Harbor from eyewitnesses, as well as about the culture of the Hawaiian people. Although the cheerleaders may be missing out on three days of class, think of what they are gaining!
What I learned from the trips I made through cheerleading as well as during my first year of college is that where there is a desire to learn, education will occur. As my freshman foundations professor last year said, “Is there a difference between the education that we receive in the classroom and the education that is gained under a tree in Africa?” No! You don’t need to sit in a classroom to learn, and learning outside the classroom in no way undermines the educational system.
The cheerleaders worked hard to get where they are, and they work hard in classroom. What is the point of punishing the students who want to learn while doing nothing to inspire those who don’t? Something must be done to improve the performance of GHS, but field trip restrictions do not to achieve this goal. The cheerleaders are not only being robbed of something they worked hard to achieve, but are also being robbed of valuable life lessons and of an experience that served as an inspiration for me to work harder in high school so I could become a part of a world that is much larger than our small town.
Stephanie Orth, Orange/Gilroy
