In wake of recent complaints about New Trier’s classic, yet vanilla catchphrase, “Be Brave, Be Kind, Be Proud”, the school has declared a district wide adjective competition looking for a more Neapolitan-style motto. New Trier proudly dons “Be Brave, Be Kind, Be Proud” as a logo on gym shirts and signs throughout the school. It can even be found written hundreds of times on the chalkboard in the detention room and etched into blue and green stained-glass windows. But recently students have begun to form a dislike for the motto, calling for a change.
“Frankly, this has been a long time coming. New Trier students no longer identify with bravery and kindness,” says sophomore Willy Pinckle, “Lately there’s been a rise in kids being eburnean and lugubrious. It’s time for a change.”
Pinckle is not alone in his sentiments. In a recent survey, 77% of students agree that they feel underrepresented and offended by New Trier’s motto which pushes unrealistic standards onto teenagers. In response, the school encourages members of the community to share the adjectives they feel best connect with themselves and the school they so dearly admire in a district wide adjective competition.
Students and teachers quickly sprang into action coming up with as many adjectives as possible. Of the thousands of adjectives proposed to the school, some are requested more than others. Some of the more frequented, school appropriate adjectives are words such as moist, fiddle-faddle, serpentine, plumpulent, and Quasimodo-esque. The NTBM (New Trier Board of Mottos) has put fierce thought into the outcome of the competition, unable to reach a decision after their third 24-hour conference. The NTBM’s latest status report has no specified release date, leading to a frustrated student body.
Although the adjective competition was initially a good idea, as the school saw the adjective count soar past three hundred million billion, a change had to be made. With the plethora of adjectives submitted, New Trier resorted to their old friends, the chronically-absent super seniors who have been missing for years. The culprits behind noises in the walls and the failure of every senior prank, these now district employed students read the overwhelming number of entries in the old gymnasiums. Eddie Albatross reports, “<The community’s prolific vocabulary of adjectives has swamped my fellow team of readers for months>” (translated from morse code). Albatross refused to speak in English and was only willing to communicate by tapping morse code. During the day, he prefers to use morse code to communicate with the other wall-dwellers so as to not disturb classes.
Despite the highly anticipated wait, the exceptional jobs of the readers and the NTBM has led to an upcoming New Trier meeting to vote on a motto that seems to be rising in popularity among students. Soon, New Trier students may “Be Callipygian, Be Frosty, Be Gravy-Scented.”
