Middle School Co- President
This year, I was elected as the Middle School Co-President and helped represent the Middle School in many ways. In my role, I help lead three meetings per week, twice in the middle school, and once in the all school assemblies. During those meetings, we make important announcements of the week, share the accomplishments of the students, and lead fun activities such as guessing the song or trivia if we have enough time. Outside of the meetings, we collaborate with the student council to solve problems and host fun events.
I was in the Student Council last year as a 7th grade representative, and we started a winter advisory door decorating contest with only recyclable materials to raise awareness for the green action committee. As I walked around at the end of the week, I can’t help but feel awed by the creativity of all the students. Many advisory’s have hand made snowflakes and bubble letters on their posters. Some even created life size snowmen out of used scrap paper. The event ended up being very successful and we are continuing it every year.
One fun activity that we hosted was the Fall Festival. As the middle school co-president, I’ve gotten many complaints from people saying that they were very stressed due to the amount of homework and tests we have. Therefore, I thought of the idea of creating a Halloween party during the one hour conference period on Halloween to hype up the community. My plan was to have everyone wear their Halloween costumes to school and go around advisories to have a mini trick-o-treat. However, after announcing the activity, I noticed that the students were not as interested in it as I thought they would be. After communicating with them, I realized that some people may not celebrate Halloween, and others don’t really want to wear a full costume to school, especially since it was a Friday, and they have sports games right after school. Seeing that more people want a casual hang out time, I discussed it with my advisor, and we agreed that changing the activity to a Fall Festival would be best. Instead of dressing up, we can wear normal casual clothes and make pumpkins out of pipe cleaners. The teachers will also bring in some candy to give out to the students. The event ended up being very effective! Many people said they felt much more relaxed after being able to socialize with friends and rest for a little bit before going back into the academic world.
Outside of school hours, I was also asked to be a panel speaker for the admissions office in the Middle School Preview. I was very willing to participate and made a very good connection of the book Little Women to Dana Hall’s community, describing that each student is different from another, but we all come together as sisters to support one another, just like in the book Little Women. I also made fun jokes during the question and answer part, which made the audience laugh and feel welcomed in this community. My parents were also invited to be an adult panelist, and they were scared that they might not be able to express their thoughts well because they are not very good at English. I encouraged them to be confident, and wrote emails to the admission office, finding a student translator to help them during the event. The Middle School Preview went very well, and many parents complimented me, saying they learned a lot from my answers.
Another incident that we addressed was the usage of gum. It all started when a student in the seventh grade accidentally sat on gum and felt very embarrassed. We brought it up in the student council as one of the main problems and after much discussion, created a slideshow on the correct usage of gum and certain consequences if we find more gum wrappers on the ground or gum on chairs and tables. We then presented it during the morning meeting so everyone will understand the rules. As the weeks went on, many faculty and Student Council members all found multiple gum wrappers on the floor and some gum stuck under the English classroom tables. Seeing this, we had to deal with the consequences of a weekly ban on gum. However, no one wanted to announce this in the morning meeting because it made them look like the “bad person that wants to take the privilege of gum away from the students”. I stood up and took the role. I know I may seem like a “bad person” at that time, but this ban is good for the community and as a leader, I must step up to do the right thing. After the ban, I noticed that many students were more careful about throwing gum into the trash and though I sometimes still find one or two wrappers on the ground, it has gotten much better.
Serving as the Middle School Co- President has further enhanced my leadership skills by teaching me how to balance between different kinds of leadership forms. There were moments when I needed to be a strong, outspoken leader, such as when announcing the gum ban. But there were also moments when I realized that leadership can also be observant and quiet. My decision to redesign the Halloween activity into a Fall Festival came from quietly noticing my classmates’ concern and adjusting the plan to fit their needs. Through these experiences, I discovered different ways of being a leader, and incorporated these traits into my leadership, making me a better leader.