Pep Assemblies: Should they be a part of our schedule?

Desert Vista, among other schools, holds a quarterly event called a pep assembly, which often are enforced to excite students about school affairs and break the monotony of the typical school schedule. Many enjoy these assemblies because of their exciting atmosphere and their break in school tension. However, are pep assemblies necessary to be enforced?

 

The crux of a good pep assembly lies within its ability to entertain. Everything in pep assemblies are presented in a form that students may find exciting or funny. While there may be bits of important happenings sprinkled about, pep assemblies mainly try to entertain the average student tired from the monotony of the regular school schedule. However, it is important to note that with a huge school of people comes a variety of preferences. Each student contains their own idea of enjoyment and would find uninteresting what others would genuinely enjoy. It is here that the main fault of bringing the whole school to a scheduled assembly lies; while some may glean a lot of fun from these assemblies, there are others–a huge amount of others–who simply do not care for what occurs at the assemblies. Schools should because of this have a method of separating these students into areas that interest them most during a pep assembly.

 

“To be honest, I feel like pep assemblies are a waste of time,” said a freshman at Desert Vista. “For an hour, you could be studying or reading a book. They’re kind of loud and I wish they had some quiet moments. I’d prefer something that includes everyone instead of a specific group.”

 

I understand that the process of sorting out students individually based on their interests and thus subordinating them into different groups would be arduous for authorities. However, this method of separating students is not necessary and can be easily circumvented if students were allowed their own choice as to where to go when faced with a pep assembly. I am also aware that this may be prevalent already in the school policy of allowing students to spend time in the library during a pep assembly; however, even this is not easily accomplished as students are required to submit a teacher-signed pass if they wish to stay in the library. While it may be simple to ask a teacher for a pass to the library, the main issue here lies within the reasoning for the need of a second justification to avoid the pep assemblies. With something often only as simple as being student entertainment (with sometimes minor importance), why do students who simply find the provided entertainment unenjoyable need to justify their preferences further than that with a pass? If our preferences need to be justified, why then do students who attend the pep assemblies not need a pass as well? Students should be allowed to act based on their preferences without need of a reason beyond that, especially with a subject of minute importance.

 

My argument here is not about whether pep assemblies are inherently bad or not. Instead, I believe the biggest issue with the enforcement of pep assemblies is a simple conflict with people’s taste. Some enjoy the pep assemblies, while others despise them, for one reason or another. It is because of this that pep assemblies work best as an option; they can be held at, for example, the last period of school, and those uninterested would have the option of leaving school during the assembly to attend to their own business. I recognize, however, that it can be argued that pep assemblies give students important information on topics, though I opine that this aspect can be easily preserved by simply inserting it in a regular, shorter assembly that just focuses on what is necessary. In conclusion, pep assemblies simply do not work with a huge group of students and are best made optional or shortened to just focus on their important aspects. It is better to give students something in which they can all benefit from than something which only one group can.

 

“I truly believe they (pep assemblies) would be improved if they were made optional. With only students who want to be there, the energy would be much better, making it a much better time for both parties,” said author Shea Dobson from manualredeye.com.