Thornlea Secondary School

Extracurricular Life

Due to the demographic composition of the area, Thornlea boasts a highly multicultural population, and is generally not considered by its students to be a stereotypical high school, in that there are no jocks, cheerleaders, or nerds in the sense so often depicted in North American popular culture. Rather, the emphasis among even the more "popular" members of the student body tends to be on community work and academic achievement. Thornlea students often play key roles in the social activist life of Thornhill, and have, in the past, helped organize the Terry Fox Run, as well as the Walk Against Male Violence. Generally, the school is known externally for its support for social causes and its relatively progressive politics.

Related Topics:
Demographic - Multicultural - Stereotypical - Jocks - Cheerleaders - Nerds - Popular culture - "popular" - Academic - Social activist - Terry Fox Run - Social causes - Progressive

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Thornlea also boasts a thriving artistic community, with many prominent Canadian musicians among its alumni, including the groups The Philosopher Kings, Prozzak, Courtesy Blush, Hayden and Moxy Früvous. Most of its more active extracurricular organizations are arts-oriented rather than athletics-oriented, the two most prominent arguably being the Drama Club and the Music Council. Despite occasional friction between members, the two organizations have been known to collaborate on intra-scholastic events and concerts. Notable quasi-annual examples of such events are known as Thornstock, An Evening of the Arts, and Battle of the Bands. The Thornlea Lights Sets Sound (TLSS) committee also plays an instrumental role in the organization and orchestration of the school's extracurricular activities, as it is accountable for the technical work that many of the aforementioned events necessitate: for instance, the operation of audio-visual equipment, stage set-ups, mechanical labour and assistance, and so on.

Related Topics:
The Philosopher Kings - Prozzak - Moxy Früvous - Arts-oriented - Athletics-oriented - Extracurricular - Technical - Audio-visual

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Other prominent groups in Thornlea include an anime club, not to be confused with the manga club, a French language club, various chess clubs, the requisite yearbook and prom committees, a local chapter of the Distributive Education Clubs of America (DECA), as well as a number of groups dealing with Jewish, Chinese, and African-Canadian issues. For several years in the late 1990s, Thornlea students published a newspaper called Deadline. This paper, unfortunately, was discontinued the year after its editor-in-chief graduated. During the 2001-2002 school year, the Music Council funded the publication of an arts-oriented paper called Volume, which again was discontinued after the graduation of its entire editorial staff at the end of that year. A new publication known as Kaboom has recently been founded, the latest in Thornlea's turbulent but prolific tradition of student journalism.

Related Topics:
Anime - Manga - French language - Chess - Yearbook - Prom - Distributive Education Clubs of America (DECA) - Jewish - Chinese - African-Canadian - 1990s - Newspaper - Editorial

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