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actuallygoodgcanews-blog · 5 years ago

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The Webby Pledge: A Student Critique on Character Strong

I still remember it clear as day. It was last year, and I was genuinely excited for Character Strong to go around our school, thinking it might actually make GCA a better place. But then, almost like it was fate, Mr. Hood has us all stand up raise our right hands and say some simple pledge. I read the pledge. I cant believe it. Are we really saying this? I wait for him to change the slide, but he doesn’t. We all chant, as we all silently lose our respect for this program.

“This is my webby. I promise. To always use my webby when greeting others. One day, this webby, my webby, will help me get a job and make a positive difference in the world. I promise to always use my webby!”

Now flash forward a year later. A sea of purple, white, and very few yellow polos fill the seats of the gym bleachers. The student body all sits, impatient and bored. Many of them either typing away at their phones, hastily doing homework, or whispering away at the top of the bleachers. Every student may be doing different things, but they all have one thing in common: no one is paying attention to the Character Strong assembly.

Character Strong advertises itself to be a to be a tool that helps teachers and staff incorporate social-emotional skills into their weekly curriculum. The program that GCA uses is meant to be for grades 6-12 and is meant to be taught once a week in 30 minute increments, exactly like our new Wednesday schedule. The administration seems happy with this decision of changing schedules. But the overall consensus is that students, and some teachers, are not. But why is that the case? Well, it appears that many students share the same ideas.

First of all, the student body agrees that with the way they are handling the program, it seems like they deem us to be younger than we actually are. And, with questions like “What cartoon character would you like to snuggle?” in last week’s lesson, or the use of the iconic Webby Pledge, it's easy to see why students feel that way.

One student told us that “Character Strong would be great if we were in elementary school!”. Another said that “we’re in high school (and middle school) not in elementary school… they’ve almost babied us through the program.” Again and again, students feel a lack of respect from this program, making them feel treated like children instead of adults. The so called challenges, like planting sticky notes and smiling in the halls are “a joke [and] they’re treating it like they’re teaching little kids.” The consensus is that students feel the program, although targeted for our age group, is making everyone feel like they are disrespected, seen as immature, and is overall a time waster. And this attitude stems from the fact that the administration does not know what the actual GCA environment is like.

“I think that Character Strong is a clear representation of the administration at GCA not understanding the needs and wants [of GCA] and trying to force something out of nothing.” GCA, due to its small numbers, is full of students who feel like they are one big family. Everyone is close to each other, whether they are in the same grade or different grades. Character Strong makes the “true underlying problems at GCA”, such as cheating, stress, and overall physical and mental health, seem like they are not important. Instead replaced with the notion that if you smile at someone in the hall, all of your problems will go away. Let’s face it: GCA is tough. And trying to enforce a faux kindness on your students, trying to sweep the real issues under the rug, isn’t going to fix anything. The administration, with their survey last year, must know these problems with Character Strong already and are choosing to ignore them. “He [Mr. Hood] is ignoring our feedback because he wants it to work.” But ignoring the student body until they accept the program wont work. And 30 minutes a week isn’t going to solve the real issues at our school either. One student commented that “character strong just isn’t the right answer to the problems at gca.”

But is there hope for the sinking ship that is Character Strong? Even with all of the negative opinions about Character Strong, the ideals of the program are still seen in a positive light to some students. A student said, “learning how to interact with people and be confident in yourself and love yourself is so important!”, another said that Character Strong is a “huge opportunity to make a real change in students lives”, but if it was done in a different way. The ideals of Character Strong are important to a person’s growth. And integrating mental health and emotional accountability into the curriculum is something that many students need. If it was done in a different way, one that incorporated GCA’s issues along with treating the student body like adults, maybe Character Strong would succeed. But with the lack of connection from the actual program to our daily lives, Character Strong just isn’t the right fit for GCA.

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stopandimagineloveforever · 6 years ago

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Much has been said about the positive, non-judgemental world where Schitt’s Creek takes place, where parents and the community at large support their childrens’ lifestyles, sexuality, and general life choices. That they’ve created such a safe space, both in the fictional world of Schitt’s Creek and as an escape for viewers taking in the TV show, is wonderful on its own. But that these positive, feel-good vibes have transferred — and been put into practice! — on the internet as well, is nothing short of remarkable.

The optimism of Schitt’s Creek was on full blast this season, a collection of 14 episodes that culminated in Patrick (Noah Reid) and David’s (Dan Levy) engagement and the town’s excellent live production of Cabaret, events that were fully celebrated by the friends, family, and townspeople around them. The banding together, the joy, and the acceptance that was felt at a high jumped through screens and forced viewers to smile. It’s contagious and entertaining in all the best ways.

So much so, that even the internet caught on. The internet! The rudest, meanest, most savage place on Earth. And yet in the Schitt’s Creek pocket of the internet, viewers of the show are just as supportive, encouraging, and lovely as the characters they watch every week (and binge over and over again in the first four seasons available on Netflix). Actors on other shows have made the decision to leave social media behind, deactivating accounts when fans’ input became too much and frankly unhealthy for them to be taking in. And yet, Schitt’s Creek has managed to do the exact opposite.

Emily Hampshire, who plays Stevie on the show, noted that the fan reaction to Schitt’s Creek has been specifically unlike “any other show I’ve been on.” She continued to explain, “I’ve been in this show 12 Monkeys where we had a rabid fanbase because it’s sci-fi. You go to Comic-Con and it’s insane. But [Schitt’s Creek is] a different kind of fandom and it’s different than anything I’ve, or I think that we’ve all, experienced.”

Part of that has been the IRL interactions as well, not just the viewing of the show and commenting on social media, all done through screens. As the Schitt’s Creek cast embarked on live tour stops across the US, fans got to breathe the same air as the actors that portray the characters they hold so dear. “We’ll go on tour and get this pure love from the audience,” Hampshire said. “And not just the audience towards us but also the audience towards each other. It is a very strange thing, you feel like you’re in a cult, but a cult you want to be in.”

And those cult members everywhere. “I go into Bed Bath & Beyond and it’s like nothing I’ve experienced,” Hampshire shared. “I think what is coming back at us with the signs and social media and just in life, is what the show puts out. I really do think because, and Dan made it this way, in Schitt’s Creek there is no judgement, there is not all the stuff that we deal with everyday. Everyone’s kind and nice.”

“So when we put all that out there, you really get it back,” she continued. “It’s inspiring to people, especially during this time in the States. To just be given a safe space — and not a cheesy one. The show’s really funny and it’s really smart, and it doesn’t have to sacrifice any of that stuff to have the most wonderful heart.”

“A lot of it is on social media and I think as a cast we receive a lot of love which obviously feels incredible,” Reid told me when we spoke last month about Patrick’s big coming out episode where he reveals to his parents that he’s not just business partners with David. “I’ve received personal messages from a lot of people saying, ‘We’ve been going through a tough time and we’ve really relied on this show to get us through.’ Or parents watching with their kids and growing their scope of how the world is possible to be viewed.”

He echoed the sentiment that the in-person reaction has also been overwhelming in the best way. “To go on tour and feel that in person, it was absolute waves of positivity coming at us. As an actor it’s very rare to be on a show that hits in this way for so many people. Particularly people who haven’t seen themselves on television in this way. It’s incredibly meaningful. I didn’t expect this when I joined the show. It’s been wild to see people coming out and dressing up as characters from the show or making fan art or giving us personalized gifts and stuff. It really is incredible so I feel very lucky to be a part of something like that.”

When Reid tweeted the link to the chat we had about that specific episode, he was sure to tag me, which is a nice gesture (and one I’ve noticed many of the other SC cast members subscribe to) to give a lil’ shoutout to the writer behind the piece. And then the nerves pop up. The mentions of a celebrity can get…dicey, to say the least. Passionate fans launch their opinions freely, fiercely, and frequently on Twitter, seemingly unaware that they could be (and likely are) read by another human being. But in this case the replies were…incredible. People weighed in on how much they loved the episode, shared heartfelt messages about personal experiences, described how the show is meaningful to them, and reflected on how much they enjoyed or identified or learned or felt watching that particular episode. It was like some kind of alternate universe Twitter feed.

And this wasn’t the only example of the online love. When the show dropped a full-length version of Alexis’s (Annie Murphy) theme song to her fictional former reality show, the reaction to the pop tune (modeled on the type of single a Paris Hilton or Britney Spears would release about a decade ago) enthusiastically treated it as the jam/bop/hit that it actually is. In fact, and often with the help of gifs, there wasn’t an episode this season that wasn’t met with an online cheering section. This is also due in part to the show’s own (recently Webby award-nominated!) official Twitter account that helps to promote, in a thorough and fun way, much of what the episodes have to offer.

But perhaps the biggest surprise of all was last week, after the show’s penultimate episode of Season 5 aired. A MAJOR event occurred: David and Patrick got engaged! And in the most David and Patrick way possible, in that it was filled with both feelings and funny moments and was impossible not to feel the happy tears bubble up. And yet there was no evidence of this event on the internet. You know, the very place people go to brag about their new rings? Once the show aired on Tuesday night in Canada, fans kept their responses to cryptic crying face emojis and “OMG”s without spoiling what had just taken place. Well, that can just be chalked up to Canadians, I thought. And then the episode aired here on Wednesday night. And now, a week later, I’ve seen exactly one article where the engagement was mentioned in the headline. That’s it. Again, recaps most leaned into the feelings — including my own. I didn’t want to be the one to spoil this moment, especially after knowing how special it felt to witness it when I had no idea it was coming. The respect level there for letting other Twitter dwelling fans have the opportunity to watch with fresh eyes is significant, because, come on, engagements are the hardest secrets to keep! But ultimately, this is a clear sign that the show has created not only a community on-screen that cares about those around them, but that the show’s social media fans have followed suit.

The only real harshness I have witnessed from fans of this show is that of them simply shaming those who have yet to watch the show (which is basically justified). Though simply refraining from spoiling the show, and keeping their typing fingers in control, is not the only way fans have created a positive environment online. They’ve also been proactive in continuing the efforts of equality and supporting LGBTQ members of their own communities by donating to charities that accomplish this exact work. That’s putting your money where your heart is, and that’s a lesson even the broke Rose family could agree with.

#Schitts Creek #LGBT #Dan Levy #David X Patrick #Eugene Levy #Decider.com #April 2019

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