Make green day great again

Ryan Emmanuelle Rico

Wearing the school uniform is not my thing. I have always felt uncomfortable layering a t-shirt and a polo every regular school day and that’s why I really love Wednesdays, school fairs or Intramurals when I can wear casual clothes and take a break from wearing uniforms.

But although I enjoy these days, the mandatory wearing of green shirts every first Friday of the month makes me uneasy more than the polo on a regular school day. It doesn’t seem to have a clear reason behind its implementation or a clear direction to support its environmental advocacy. Hence, I don’t see its relevance to the community besides being a day in a month where I can wear pants and a shirt.

Everytime I come to school during green day, it just feels like any other school day except everyone’s wearing green. One should expect that there are activities related to promoting environmental matters or encouraging members of the Lasallian community to help in making a naturefriendly campus, but as for my observation, there has always been none.

Back in my old high school, we had our own version of green day, but the difference was that our school also encouraged us to bring materials which we can be upcycled like paper or plastic after which we were given credit points for whatever we could bring. So when I came to DLSL I envisioned green day in DLSL as being much more than wearing a shirt, especially with its relation to our school colors and sustainable development goals and the resources we have compared to a small community in highschool. Hence, I think student leaders ought to take action for Green Day to make up for the lack of anything coming from the school admin. Aside from holding activities like Intramurals, the Student government can utilize “Green Day” to improve its relationship with the college students by creating programs and initiatives for environmental causes. With this, students can more appreciate the value of the “Green Day” and be more aware of the relevant reasons why they are not required to wear uniforms on that day.

Without taking concrete actions, wearing t-shirts to show our care of nature is a fallacy and pure hypocrisy. In the minds of students, wearing a green shirt has just become another part of school compliance. What’s wrong is that this is becoming a norm and a routine to wear advocacy symbols only when told to or mandated by someone.

Also, the idea of volunteerism is defeated solely by making it a requirement. Participation doesn’t mean anything if not voluntarily done. We also can’t support something when we don’t know what actions are to be made aside from putting a green shirt on.

If the shirts are for raising awareness, we should question ourselves whether it works. Within the community, has the green day initiative became an effective program to educate or promote environmental causes to the students?

The program has already been going on for years, if awareness is the problem, then suffice to say it is evident already that all of us are already aware that we have to wear green shirts on the first Friday of the month. There must be something more. “Without taking concrete actions, wearing t-shirts to show our care of nature is a fallacy and pure hypocrisy. In the minds of the student, wearing a green shirt hast just become another part of school compliance.”