My Senior Ventures project, “The Creative Athlete,” focuses on expanding and integrating the fine arts and athletic groups at Darlington. As someone who has been involved in both the fine arts and athletics and has seen the positive impact that participating in both activities can have on students, I feel it is very important for students' growth to participate in both. For example, learning how to work in a group and what it means to sacrifice their own interests for the benefit of the group.
I have also seen the pressure that kids who participate in both face, especially when they are in the middle grades, which is where I have placed most of my focus. Once a month, I bring a senior who does both fine arts and plays a sport to Thatcher Hall during flagpole, a meeting that grades 3-8 have in the Commons before their first period class every morning, and talk to them about how the word of the week applies to them and their experience in athletics and fine arts. I feel like this could help take the pressure off kids by allowing them to see Upper School students they look up to talk about a topic that seems so strange to them.
Some things I have put together this year were a T-shirt competition for the Homecoming football game to help introduce my project to the school. In this competition, anyone from grades 6-12 could submit a front and back design to be used for the T-shirt; it was very successful with many people across a wide variety of grades submitting. After I finished that, I helped design the events for the pep rally we hosted for our senior football game, one of which involved every senior football player being paired with one senior cheerleader and faculty member of their choice. Then, the three participants would create a short dance to perform at the end of the pep rally. Along with that, I helped coordinate having a senior from each fall sport come together to sing the national anthem for that football game.
Another aspect of my project is to show parents and students how participating in both arts and athletics can benefit a student’s development. I can see from my own personal experiences all the benefits, such as the leadership, social, mental, and physical skills I have learned from moments on the football field and stage. On the field, I have learned to play selflessly on the D-Line and not always try for the big play and throw one of your fellow players under the bus in the process. On stage, I have learned to try, work hard, and get better at a certain part every day, not only for myself, but to help the production and encourage the younger members of the production. However, there are also many studies about the benefits, such as one study conducted by the National Library of Medicine. This particular study shows that adolescents who participate in arts and athletics show higher levels of important social and emotional skills, such as emotional regulation, cooperation, empathy, persistence, and open-mindedness. These skills can directly benefit students in the classroom when they need to handle large amounts of stress and, most importantly, develop higher-level skills for their futures in college as well as the careers they choose to pursue.
I believe that Darlington teaches its students how to grow into the best version of themselves. The lessons I have learned from coaches and directors alike have taught me how to support those around me and shown me what it means to set an example for my peers. My wish is that all students can experience these lessons for themselves and grow into the leaders they are meant to be in a community that supports them in their ventures. Along with that, I would love to see people no longer treat the communities of arts and athletics as two separate entities, and instead, as one conjoined experience made to develop these students. Through my project, I hope to bridge this gap and help the community to grow and prosper into one whole community that supports all aspects that make it so incredible.
Senior Ventures is a year-long academic program built on a framework of leadership, innovation and community engagement. Through a proven self-guided exploratory process, seniors whose proposals are selected for this program work independently to develop a project that’s interdisciplinary in scope and is connective, performance-based, investigative, or entrepreneurial. Click here to learn more.
