There are plenty of downfalls to teenagers being surrounded by technology 24/7 but there are also some pretty huge benefits. In Atlanta 350 Beta Club students met for a conference, 30 of those students were from NGHS (our old alma mater). At the conference they introduced a concept to raise money for Relay for Life called MORP (reverse prom). They got all the students there to wear neon and taught them a dance to take back to their schools.
When I was in high school all of the kids at the conference would have loved it but honestly it would have been much harder to take it back to our high school. Here are two key obstacles we would have faced: beta club was not considered cool and there wasn’t an easy way to share the idea with the student body (our options were pep ralies, morning announcements, or flyers). Fast forward almost 10 years (man I’m getting old) and it’s a whole new landscape. There is now a social respect level for doing well in school to a certain extent (sadly, people continue to be hard on nerds). I think this is partially due to how competitive it is to get admitted into state colleges. The other key element is wider reach. Facebook and YouTube have made it incredibly easy to take a concept and make it viral. This applies to both positive and negative messages.
So those 30 NGHS students came back home and decided to make MORP a highly anticipated event for the student body. They made this YouTube video and the kids are getting really excited for this event. The best part is that they will raise a ton of money for Relay for Life in the process. Kyle and I will be chaperoning the event with several of his team teachers and we’re excited to see such a great concept in action.
When I was in high school all of the kids at the conference would have loved it but honestly it would have been much harder to take it back to our high school. Here are two key obstacles we would have faced: beta club was not considered cool and there wasn’t an easy way to share the idea with the student body (our options were pep ralies, morning announcements, or flyers). Fast forward almost 10 years (man I’m getting old) and it’s a whole new landscape. There is now a social respect level for doing well in school to a certain extent (sadly, people continue to be hard on nerds). I think this is partially due to how competitive it is to get admitted into state colleges. The other key element is wider reach. Facebook and YouTube have made it incredibly easy to take a concept and make it viral. This applies to both positive and negative messages.
So those 30 NGHS students came back home and decided to make MORP a highly anticipated event for the student body. They made this YouTube video and the kids are getting really excited for this event. The best part is that they will raise a ton of money for Relay for Life in the process. Kyle and I will be chaperoning the event with several of his team teachers and we’re excited to see such a great concept in action.
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