Benefits of Academic Assemblies - Shannon Burton

If done right, school assemblies can be an influential learning tool for children. Students can become bored with the day-to-day humdrum of classes, recess, and home. Assemblies help break the monotony of the school routine. In many ways, they can help instill a sense of camaraderie, school spirit, or even help develop an interest in potential extracurricular activities.

As children get older, moving from elementary school to middle school, children start losing the opportunity to gather en masse. Being given the opportunity to experience school life on a larger social level can allow children to develop a sense of social awareness and responsibility. During large social gatherings like assemblies, the rules of the classroom are extended a bit. Children are required to sit still, participate, and listen effectively, with a modicum of supervision. This allows the students to stretch the limits of personal discipline.

By following the common rules set up in expectation of larger gatherings, a good assembly leader will then be able to allow anyone who would like the chance, to participate. The communal sharing of ideas could be a foreign concept for some students, but once comfortable in the situation, the quieter students might find themselves participating more often. This helps to build confidence in quieter, oftentimes introverted students.

Confidence can foster a sense of unity. Through unity, an igniting of school spirit, it becomes the assembly leader’s job to then instill core values. Assemblies can touch on subjects that can be glazed over in the classroom. Lessons on values such as responsibility and the importance of diversity are given a wider audience. Bullying and the anti-bullying campaigns get a larger reception. Students can be engaged in several different areas. This makes the student body aware of larger themes in adulthood. Emotional quotient is just as valuable in personal growth as intelligence quotient, and it is the responsibility of the school systems to help develop social awareness and accountability in the next generation.

Using motivational speakers during these assemblies gives the students a direct correlation from the thoughts and feelings being expressed through stories of personal growth and success to the positive energy that can bring about immediate change. This gives an assembly the unique ability to breakthrough the boredom, and reach the struggling and bored student population.