Harriger Leads the Cheer for Student Body in Their Activities
by Tate Harrop ‘17
In a place with as much diversity as Sherwood has, students and faculty express their involvement in school life in a wide array of ways. Math teacher Michelle Harriger persistently has made it a mission of hers to support her students not just in her classroom but through her presence at their many school activities and sports.
For the past two years, Harriger has been determined to at- tend at least one of each of her student’s school events, including athletics, choir or band concerts, art shows, lm festivals, plays and musicals.
Harriger, who has taught at Sherwood since 2004, also encourages her student to showcase their outside talents during class time.
“Sherwood students are so skilled in so many different areas,” noted Harriger. “I had a student magician perform one day during class; one of my students this year is supposed to show off her Rubiks Cube skills during class.”
By pushing students to get more involved at their own school, Harriger hopes to boost student-to-student support. As a way to further promote school spirit, Harriger has given out prizes to the class with the most students who dress up to support the football team or for spirit weeks. She also has gotten more involved on social media to pro- mote school events.
Harriger adamantly insists that her enthusiastic support for Sherwood’s students and their outside activities is nothing extraordinary. She is quick to tick off examples of other staff whose efforts might go unnoticed, from boys’ varsity coach Sean Davis who mows and edges the base- ball eld or paints the dugouts to create a pristine sports venue, to gymnastics coach Gary Peters who takes hundreds of photos at school sporting events so that athletes and their parents can have concrete memories of their time at Sherwood. Harriger points to the number of hours that the student tech crew puts into keeping Rock-n-Roll Revival staged, lit, and with quality sound. She gives another example of how most students, staff, and parents have no idea how many hours The Warrior staff puts in outside of school to provide a free quality news- paper to the school community. Harriger feels that these and other “behind-the-scenes” efforts are how so many students and staff show their school spirit.
“If I go to an event, have students show their talents in class, advertise for club events or fund- raisers, or bake for student section dress-up days, my goal isn’t really school spirit,” explained Harriger. “It’s to know the people here. Talk to your fellow Warriors. Get to know them. Go watch them do their thing. You’ll and every- one here is amazing. When you realize that, there’ll be no hiding your Warrior pride.”