by Danielle Llewelyn, Director of Leadership Development, Science Department Chair, Director of the Capstone Experience at Fountain Valley School in CO
Being a Scholar at the 20th Leadership Lab made me think a lot about the labels we use as faculty and the labels we create for our students and in our schools. As we look to grow student leaders, it is crucial for us to think about the language we use to define the roles that matter. This alone can set students up for success or failure based on the expectations that are imposed on those with (or without) titles.
As those of you who have participated know, when participants arrive at the Leadership Lab, they are assigned to Lab Groups. As a Scholar, I was partnered with a faculty member (I was lucky enough to work with Andrew Prince) and participants were told we were their group leaders. By default, the participants in our group saw me as an “expert in the field,” and to some extent, I believe they saw me equally as competent at the start as Andrew who has been faculty for four years. I have experience as a leadership educator after serving as the Director of Student Leadership and Service at a 6th-12th grade independent day school in New Hampshire and working to cultivate student leaders in my roles as advisor, teacher, coach, and dorm parent at several other schools over the past two decades. However, I don’t think I saw myself on par with gcLi faculty in terms of my knowledge base. Suddenly, by being introduced to the group in front of me as a “Scholar,” though, I was perceived to be as much an expert as the faculty. (I feel thankful to the faculty and participants who assured me I was worthy of the title I held.)
This made me think… How are we utilizing our assignment of titles in all years of the educational system to grow our students as leaders? As believers in their own capacity to be a leader? For their ability to actually grow into the role? And, perhaps most importantly, for the respect that will be bestowed upon them by their peers in the new year?
Think about the President of Student Council, the Captain of the team, the Leader of the club – those students gain some level of automatic social clout to the incoming students. Those new students trying out for the soccer team arrive to the Captains leading the warm ups, maybe even receiving an email inviting them to “Captains’ Practices.” Parents will even see these students as leaders. What traits and skills do we assume these students have simply because we (or their peers) hear their titles?
For good and bad, I believe there are a lot of assumptions we make when we hear a title. Does this translate to say, line leaders in Kindergarten? We all know that students get pretty excited to be the Leader of the Day or the Star of the Week. We build these events into the year to highlight our students and let others get to know them more intentionally. Do we also build in specific skills for those highlighted students to focus on during their time? The Star of the Week could be responsible for making sure they do something kind for each of their classmates that week. They could be told to ask someone new to play with them, to reach out to a friend who is sitting by themselves or not playing during recess. As they move through the years, the skills expected could also grow in complexity, building on topics such as self-awareness, courage, compassion, empathy, integrity, and inclusivity.
In our middle and upper schools, by being conscious of the folks who don’t win the election or become the captain of the team, we could capture some of those disheartened students into a “team” of sorts. At The Derryfield School, we called one of these opportunities the PACTeam which stood for the Peer Awareness Community Team. This group of students were dedicated to make our community a more positive place by spreading kindness and supporting all our community members with empathy and compassion. These students became “team” members and were each tasked with coming up with ideas for how we spread kindness on campus. This led to uplifting notes written on the walls of the bathroom meant to be a pick-me-up for anyone feeling down. These messages were written in colorful markers and included small pictures like rainbows, stars, etc., designed to help those who felt down because of an academic or social challenge feel supported and uplifted. (Imagine wanting to cry in the bathroom and feeling alone and seeing notes like that!) In December, the team wrote anonymous individual notes of affirmation to every student in the school and delivered them with candy to their lockers during finals week. These little actions positively impacted the community culture and in many definitions of leadership, were also clearly leadership in action. If your school’s community doesn’t have a definition that allows for small, everyday actions for the common good to be counted as leadership, perhaps there is an opportunity to expand your community’s definition of leadership.
Creating opportunities for students to get involved, creating guidelines and expectations for them of what leadership looks like (and modeling this continually), and highlighting the different ways each student can be a leader in ways that are within their comfort zone and beyond it will help to grow that culture of leadership within your school. If your school doesn’t have a specific (or inclusive) definition of leadership, consider using NOLS descriptors which allow for every student to be a leader in different ways. Self-leadership and peer-leadership help faculty recognize actions that students may not think are worthy of being called leadership and yet help individuals practice the skills that will lead to confidence (and competence!) for when they find themselves in the more traditional leadership roles. NOLS calls these roles designated leadership which includes those titled positions classically thought of by our students as a “goal” for their high school career. Additionally, the importance of being an “active follower” (or a fol-leader as gcLi calls it) also cannot be underestimated as even the best leaders can’t be effective if no one is willing to follow and support them. NOLS highlights this as a specific form of leadership, and it is a crucial opportunity to help students see themselves as leaders even if they struggle to find ways that they exhibit leadership by more traditional definitions.
Imagine the community of leaders we can create in our schools by expanding our definition of leadership, providing practice opportunities for students, and intentionally pointing out to our students when they rise to fill this role. How can you use language such that it will have the power to help your students see themselves as capable of being leaders? If we all find ways to do this, we can create the expectations our students will hopefully live up to and strive to achieve. I’d say this would be a win for our students, our current communities, and our future world.
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Links:
NOLS Descriptors for Leadership
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Danielle has been in education for 25 years and has taught at boarding and day schools in New Hampshire, Idaho, California, and Colorado. Her early work in leadership was in roles such as student advisor, club mentor, coach, and class dean. In addition to the Leadership Lab as a participant in 2016, Danielle also attended the gcLi symposium, The Pedagogy of Leadership, in 2017 and was a presenter at the Learning to Lead: The Art and Practice of Teaching Leadership conference in 2019. One of her recent highlights include serving as the Director of Student Leadership and Service at The Derryfield School in Manchester, NH, where she created and implemented a 9th-12th grade leadership development program known as LEAD (Leadership, Ethics, and Development). All students were engaged in activities, lessons, and reflections in order to learn about leadership styles, identify their ‘homebase’ choice, and practice skills to strengthen their ability.
In 2020, Danielle relocated with her family to Fountain Valley School where she is currently serving as the Chair of the Science Department and the Director of the Capstone Experience for the seniors. She is thrilled to have just been appointed as the Director of Leadership Development and looks forward to building a 4-year program that will help all students at FVS grow into the best leaders they can be. First item on the to-do list is to define what leadership means at Fountain Valley so we can set goals and measure achievements.
Danielle made her way to Colorado for graduate school and fell in love with both the mountains and her future spouse. She is recharged by nature, loves sleeping in a tent or (even better) under the stars, and hopes to get back out on a river trip again soon! An avid traveler, she has visited all 50 states and is working on exploring all seven continents with her husband, Morgan, their children, Mayanna, Quinn, and Keira, and their Black Lab, Shadow.