Many of us here at Cesar Chavez High School have heard the Question; “What are you thankful for?” posed to teachers, students, and staff. Very few are able to answer on the spot, while few deflect the question by responding with some sort of humor or generic response such as; life, coffee, and the classic I’m not sure.

While others might think its lack of response is due to selfish people, or a population growing to become self absorbed. I believe the meaning and understanding of what it means to be thankful has been lost in translation over the years with generation after generation.  Maybe instead of loosely throwing around the word ” thankful”  we take a second to fully analyze the word and its meaning.

According to any dictionary nearest to you you will find that the meaning is; “Thankful; to express gratitude and relief .”

Expressing gratitude would be the readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness. Now the intent of thankful can be changed depending on how you use it for example, ” I’m so thankful that our parents didn’t ground us for the next three weeks for sneaking out!” In this case it is being used as a sense of relief that those teenagers didn’t receive a punishment for disobedience. Many of us during the holiday’s aren’t referring to thankful as a term of relief, but rather the sense of appreciation for the things, and people we have in our life.

Here at CCHS we have a lot to be thankful for. For example, the students here are thankful for the changes our principle Ms. Jackson has made to our school in regards to making it safer. As well as, the sense of community our teachers and staff here at campus have created for attending students.  Our teachers are also thankful for this years loving and hard working groups of students, inside and outside of the classroom.

As seen in the video above students and faculty, all have one thing in common; ” We are all thankful for each other” here at Chavez bonds that are made here last forever and impact the lives of young and the old.