Tradition

A few weeks ago, our first year students at Iwaki High School were given the task of learning their school cheer. Along with the cheer there are several required poses and hand-motions. These school cheers are somewhat of a remnant of all-boy school traditions and are very militant in their quality and their training. Not all schools have these cheers – mostly academic schools that originated as boy’s schools. Given that many schools only became desegregated in the last decade or so, most female teachers in my school will have gone to an academic girls school, and not had to the experience of learning a school cheer.

Leading up to the three days of training that the students go through, many teachers and students recommended that I go and watch.

During the training, students line up bare-foot in regimented lines, where they are corrected on their postures. They go through several militaristic/formal poses/formations before rehearsing the school song. The training goes on for about 2 hours each day and the students don’t get a break. Also, as they rehearse, the school’s “cheer team” patrol within the students’ rank and file to correct any postures, improper movements, and berate students that don’t sing or respond loud enough. Physical repercussions and shouting in the students’ faces are fairly common practice throughout rehearsal. At the end of the cheer, students will typically yell “ause” and various members of the cheer team will yell “not loud enough” – to which students will repeat themselves; this will go on for a dozen or so times. Afterwards, cheer squad members will single students out and ask them to repeat on their own until they reach an appropriate volume.

Students are also not allowed to break formation or smile. I learned this when I would say “hi” to my students, or give them a wave, and none of them would look at me. Also, when I asked one teacher if they were going to stay the entire 2 hours, she said that she had to because the first year students can get very scared of the cheer team, and so teachers need to be there so that they feel safe.
Overall, I got the impression that the experience can be a bit traumatizing for some students. I saw one student whose face was very pale, being carried to a room at the side of the gym by two nurses.
One teacher suggested that it might not be such a good idea for me to take so many photos/videos because students will feel awkward and embarrassed by what they are forced to do. When I asked a few students afterwards if they were okay, they said “no” before running off back to the school building. I think they were still under their no-smiling obligations.

As much as the students loathe these rehearsals, at the end of the final day, the cheer squad broke the formalities and threw out blue plastic cones to what became a mass conglomeration of students who used these as megaphones and percussive clappers. At this point, following the cheer team’s lead, everyone went wild singing praise for their school, dancing around, throwing these instruments at each other. Most students’ eyes became lit up and everyone smiled and cheered. I think that at this point I saw looks of astonishment and awe at the celebratory atmosphere that became of the rehearsals.
Every student has worked very hard to get into this school and they’re very proud that they’ve made it here – and will be very proud when they finish. There will be many moments at this school where each student will be challenged to the best of their ability – sometimes even unfairly so, but there are also many rewards that come from such a system.

I spoke with a few teachers about what they thought of this tradition that seemed so cruel to me. The first thing that most of them expressed was how scared they were when they had to do it, but then, they would assure me that it was something that they regarded as very important to their educational experience.