One wonders, what school news can we have when there is no school? But with Greenwood High, there is never a dull moment, and no shortage of exciting endeavours to be reported on in this column. Everyone is stuck home as the wave of COVID-19 proceeds at an alarming rate, but the student council has figured out a way to keep us together. When we can’t go to Greenwood High, they have found a way to bring the spirit of Greenwood High to us.
Recently, the council oversaw the first Mysa competition. Mysa is an initiative taken by the student council to bring the famed house competitions online. ‘Mysa’ is a Swedish word which essentially means to engage in an activity from the comfort of one’s home. It is a word which truly embodies the spirit of quarantine. It is an amazing idea to get with the times and adapt to a lockdown environment while maintaining the essence of regular school competitions. The endeavour received minimum resistance and was set up really quickly. It has already garnered a lot of support from our high school teachers. Mysa allows the council to conduct competitions which the student body will enjoy but have never happened in Greenwood High before. It received a good reaction with its debut competition which was based on art. The council can’t wait to try out exciting new events like photography or dance. It changes the face of Greenwood High Interhouse Competitions forever.
To participate in the competition, all interested students send in their work to the Mysa page’s email ID, and the organizers forward the entries to the house leaders. The house leaders then pick one representative per house per grade as the competition finalists. For the art competition, the finalists were given a topic and a deadline. Their final work is sent to the teachers for judging. The teachers of 9th and 10th grade judge the ISC participants while the ISC teachers judge the work of the 9th and 10th grade participants.
Initially, the response to Mysa was underwhelming, much to the council’s dismay. However, the endeavour is quickly gaining traction and has garnered a lot of attention from the student body. The majority of the people we polled are aware of Mysa now and look forward to what it will bring. The art competition received 55-60 responses and that number is only set to grow as Mysa picks up steam. The page received exemplary entries and there was stiff competition to sort out the finalists. Mysa seems to be growing on the students and will soon become an essential part of school culture.
As online classes are yet to begin with our school, Mysa is an excellent method to figuratively gather all our students under a single roof. It is a way to create community. It is a platform for all us students to show off those neat quarantine hobbies we collected in these months. In the wise words of ‘High School Musical’, “We’re all in this together”, and Mysa offers us a place to be together.
- By Minal Shaik
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