PRIDE: Principal Michael Roe gives students a hand up in defining PRIDE for Poly.
By John Burke, News Editor
On October 4, approximately 225 students attended a leadership seminar that discussed Poly High School’s definition of pride. Under Principal Michael Roe’s guidance, students took part in a powerful exercise to connect with their classmates, and then went on to reach a consensus on the meaning of the acronym PRIDE.
When asked where this idea came from, Dr. Roe responded, “This was an idea that was generated based on numerous conversations with students.” From those conversations, Dr. Roe learned that students desired school pride, but had no idea what it entailed.
The driving point of this seminar became defining Poly PRIDE. “I remember one day looking up at that
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wall, and that poster there, that has the pride—proficient users of technology and so on—that doesn’t mean anything to anybody. That’s for the students to figure out,” Dr. Roe proclaimed.
Passion, Respect, Integrity, Determination and Excellence were the end result. 225 students debated over the course of several hours to reach this consensus on the meaning of PRIDE. “Phenomenal to watch,” Dr. Roe said about the discussion. Debate was heated throughout the seminar, with conflicts such as Passion versus Persistence and Respect versus Relentless. “I went back and forth with one of our girls in far corner,” Roe describes. “She wanted to do the respect thing, and I thought that word relentless was going to be huge.” Eventually though, a complete consensus was reached. “There was more problem solving, solution orientation going on in that room than adults could ever dream of,” Dr. Roe said, delighted with the amount of participation and compromise the students achieved.
Much of the discussion’s success can be attributed to the exercise conducted at the beginning of the seminar. In that exercise everyone was ordered into complete silence and lined up along the walls of the Little Theatre. Then, each person had to find his or her “buddy.” Using only eye contact, students had to find their “buddies” in a room filled with over 200 people. It could not be someone they knew—it had to be someone different, someone they wouldn’t normally talk to. Students were told to march right up and stare into a person’s eyes until a connection was felt and a “buddy” was found. It did not end there. The pairs then split up and connected on a deeper level without using words. When they finally spoke, it was about what made them vulnerable, happy or sad.
Understandably, some students were a little shaken. “I was thinking that Dr. Roe is a crazy principal and why would he have us do this, it seemed stupid at the time. But now that I think about it, it was really meaningful,” Celeste Marquez (11) said.
“The whole premise behind that is to get some of those walls, and get some of that discomfort out there, where people can actually connect, and get out the need to have to label somebody,”Dr. Roe explained. “When you give peers an opportunity to come together, share in one another’s story, and sort of be in that hurt, oh my gosh, the possibilities are endless.”
PRIDE continues to live on after the seminar. Currently, a group of six students works on a special PRIDE committee. Its task is to continue to narrow down and define exactly what PRIDE means for Poly.
The intensity and emotional impact of the seminar cannot be overstated, and it only had 225 students. “If he got a lot more students in there, we would be a lot more spirited, and have more leaders at Poly High School,” Marquez said.
This seminar hopefully opened up a new chapter in Poly’s future. “That right there is the reason why I believe I am the most blessed person on the planet. To not just be the principal of Poly High School, but to have crossed paths with the students in that room. If you live this for the next thirty days of your life, the P, the R, the I, the D and the E, anything is possible,” Dr. Roe said.