Choose Joy by McKenna

Choose Joy by McKenna - July 2018 Scholarship Essay

Being Student Government Parliamentarian my senior year of high school gave me an up close look at the impact we, as officers, truly had on our high school. Something that we made sure to hold and keep in each of our tasks was joy, not happiness, but joy. Each of us knew that there was a difference between the two, happiness was temporary and joy is everlasting. We wanted each student have a chance to grasp the joy of knowing that things will turn out in the end, give them a better outlook on life, and to truly have a JOY about being in school again, rather that it simply being a drag.

Encouragement in ways that were not normally done were things that we pushed towards. Some examples of this are putting individualized notes on every persons locker, writing on the girls bathroom mirror about how great they looked that day and amazing they truly are, getting gifts for teachers every now and again, and making a big deal of teacher appreciation week. We thought that the more actions we took to prove the words we spoke would have more impact on the school as a whole.

School Spirit was another thing we wanted our student body to be JOYFUL about. To do this we made our pep rallies extra crazy, with a bunch of fun chants, games, and competitions to see which grade truly had the most school spirit. On nights where our teams played at home we would organize themes for the night and our student section ('shock zone') would help create banners based around that theme.

Overall every ounce of what we did was based around providing a more joyful experience for both the students and teachers. If I had the opportunity to do it all over again, personally, I would continue with impacting the school with JOY in ways that are unique and creative that are not done daily.