There are over 300 students in TABC, and while a lot of them are excited about sports, it would be crazy to assume that every student was interested in school sports. Nevertheless, TABC publicizes sports much more than other activities.
Throughout the year, after davening, teachers announce new tryouts for or games of TABC’s wide variety of sports such as basketball, hockey, or soccer. This intention to support our teams is a good attitude. Schools should support all their school activities.
However, TABC gives much more public support to sports teams than to other clubs. The school rarely announces non-sports tryouts and makes it difficult for students to find out about clubs they could be interested in. Instead, we get a flood of messages from the Schoology home page about only a few clubs, drowning out other things that people would be interested in pursuing.
These activities aren't being advertised effectively to the general student body and thus people are being kept from exploring their interests. For example, I only learned about College Bowl by accident: one day, I was talking with a friend about Roman History when the coach heard me and thought I’d be a good addition to the team. If it hadn’t been for mere coincidence, I would never have learned about this activity which I’ve been doing now for three years.
Similarly, I’ve participated in the school play for almost three years now, but I only learned about it because the director is my neighbor and was giving out donuts one day. I’ve dedicated many hours to the play over the years. I’ve formed friendships and personal relationships with many people, and have been able to perform for others, which I find very enjoyable. But it was only a coincidence that I first got involved.
Are there students at TABC who might find photography or poetry interesting but aren’t getting the opportunity to experience those activities, simply because they don’t know those clubs exist?
Students should know that the world beyond sports allows us to develop many useful skills. For example, in Middle School and the beginning of High School, I was a terrible public speaker. I stuttered, talked too quickly and had trouble enunciating my words. But my involvement in the school play let me practice my public speaking skills and improve them greatly.
In my freshman year, I asked a friend whether he would be interested in auditioning for the school play; he said to me that he didn’t know we had a school play! Until last year, the play wasn’t even shown to students. When I went home and told my dad that Rabbi Yablok had arranged for the play to be shown to one grade during school time, he was shocked. He said that, at his school, it was mandatory for every student to attend their school plays.
Again, it was only a coincidence that brought me and my friend to theater. Isn’t it a shame that many people might be missing opportunities to improve themselves, simply because they didn’t have those kind of lucky coincidence?
Another benefit that clubs offer to students is giving us something that looks good on a college resume. Most colleges will look at what students did in their free time, and a student who participates in different extracurricular activities will be more appealing to colleges. If students know more about the extracurriculars at TABC, they would be able to join more clubs and look better to colleges.
The heart of the issue is that TABC focuses too heavily on our sports teams, which only accepts a relatively small number people, and does not focus enough on other student activities, which may appeal to a wider variety of students.
Rabbi Yablok says he will provide funds for any student who want to start a club because he wants all students to develop their interests. This is great news to hear. However, this doesn’t help increase people's interests in current clubs and will not allow people to find new interests. So what can we do to better spread the word about all the amazing clubs that our school has to offer?
One idea which many schools already employ is a Club Fair. All clubs would attend the fair and have a booth that advertised their activities. Students could circulate among the booths and sign up for the clubs that interest them.
Another thing TABC could do is to have a Club Board. This would simply be a well-advertised bulletin board where every club could post information about their events as well as having a sign-up sheet.
TABC could put this bulletin in a well traveled place that isn’t too crowded - say, the hallway near the main office. Posting it there would allow people to get information about a wide variety of clubs that interested them. This way there would be one centralized place where people could find out about the basics of clubs while not getting oversaturated with information.
Another solution would be to use the TABC website more effectively. TABC has a whole section of its website dedicated to extracurriculars such as teams, clubs and other activities. This is a great forum to tell people about teams and clubs, but much of the information there is currently out of date.
TABC should allow teachers access to edit the part about their club to provide necessary information to students looking for after school activities. As it stands now, the website doesn't give the necessary information on how to join a club, where it meets, or what attractions it provides. If teachers could edit their own sections of the website, then that could be a resource that allows people to be fully informed on the situation of all available clubs without too much effort from the administration.
TABC needs to find a way to expose students to as many clubs as possible to allow students to get the best possible high school experience.