Hangout spots are necessary for students to grow and develop. Nowadays, teens tend to be socially disconnected from others due to their devices. However, there are still places to hang out; they just might be harder to find.
Lakyn Daniels, the sponsor of the Nixa High School Drama Club, said that if people don’t intentionally stay social it’s hard to stay connected.
“What’s so hard, especially after COVID, is how social spaces kind of got taken away,” Daniels said. “Now everyone is wondering, ‘What do you do? How do you hang out with each other?’ … You can get in that cycle of where you go to school, you go home, do homework and then you’re alone.”
Librarian Julie Staats said she would hang out with her friends when she was a teen.
“Where Canton Inn was, used to be a gas station,” Staats said. “So we would oftentimes go there after school, get ice cream and then go back to the school for whatever practice we had that day. Then there was also a Dairy Queen where Big Al’s used to be. We would hang out there.”
One possible way to get connected is through clubs. Staats said clubs are places to find communities.
“Clubs and activities enable [students] to feel like a part of something, like they belong.” Staats said. “It’s because when you’re with people that have the same interests as you do, you form these bonds.”
Drama Club offers a chance to form those bonds.
“The goal for Drama Club is to create a community for fellow artists,” Daniels said. “To let people know they have a place and let them know they are not alone in this big school.”
A few clubs have competitions and trips during the school day.
“Some of them happen during the school day,” Staats said. “Like Math Club, they go to competitions during the school day, whereas Speech and Debate and Scholar Bowl, it’s after school.”
Clubs don’t have to stay in school, some clubs go outside of school hours to connect.
“The Drama Club did a basketball thing in a church gym at the end of last year,” Staats said. “It was totally put on by students.”
Students who are socially a part of clubs are usually not involved in only one.
“You’ll see some overlap,” Staats said. “Some kids who are in FBLA (Future Business Leaders of America), I have several of them in Speech and Debate and Scholar Bowl.”
Sophomore Aedan Haskell said Speech and Debate has helped him improve how he interacts with others.
“Speech and Debate definitely made me more confident in speaking,” Haskell said. “It [is] definitely a big help socially.”
Drama Club has recently been trying to reach out to students through pumpkin painting, improv and other activities.
“There’s just the opportunity to meet a bunch of people,” Daniels said. “ We do a lot of mingling where you can still be with the friend who invited you, but you also get to meet new people.”
Haskell said he stays connected with his friends through his extracurriculars.
“Definitely cross country,” Haskell said. “I get to be with my friends all the time after school for it.”
Haskell’s relationships made during cross country don’t only stay within practice.
“Usually I like to go out with the cross country guys and talk about how we’re doing,” Haskell said.