AP Pyschology’s Homecoming Shenanigans

AP Pyschologys Homecoming Shenanigans

Samantha Redeker, Reporter

There are students at the high school that have attended for years, and others for simply a few weeks. Each student has different experiences and could have a variety of courses throughout the trimester. What could be a way to unite these students together throughout their daily lives? Karl Sineath, beloved English and Psychology teacher, took homecoming week as an opportunity for hundreds of students all throughout the school to interact. He took the theme of each day and came up with a different “bit” that took about a minute or two in each class where the students would perform something fun for the other classes to watch. Some of these included the whole class dancing to Cotton Eyed Joe all around the room for country day, Party in the Usa with the lights out including a disco ball for USA day, or fake lightsaber fights in the dark chanting “seniors” to unite our class together. When asked why he decided to do these activities, Sineath explained how “People need uplifts in their daily lives, and I wanted to export the kind of environment inside of my classroom onto others.” He started with doing simple games with other classrooms such as rock paper scissors or volleyball to have interactions, and then this week turned into bits where we would go to multiple classrooms a day, some days with completely different sets of students than others. As a student in his classroom, after we did these bits about homecoming we would talk about the psychology behind the other students in the room and ourselves — how their facial expressions would change, what they would say verbally, and other features we noticed. Incorporating real life experiences into education is highly beneficial for students to think about the curriculum outside of the classroom. Students of all grades would clap and sing along with the bit, and it is a brain break for a few minutes from the curriculum. By the end of the year, his goal is “for students of all grades to be able to have conversations and confide in each other if needed, and to unite all the students together.” Seniors entered classes of all freshmen that have never even met the majority of us before, and getting them involved in these things can make them feel more welcomed at the high school. All in all, Mr. Sineath wants to incorporate the content we learn in psychology to real-life experiences with the students.