Student Leadership at St. Paul’s School for Girls
At SPSG, teachers believe that every girl has the potential to be a leader. To this end, the school is not only providing opportunities through extracurricular activities and an extensive club roster, but incorporating into its academic curriculum programs to teach girls the skills and techniques to become effective leaders. Jeanne Blakeslee is the Director of Diversity and Leadership, a faculty position that is designed to develop and promote leadership programs. In this essay, Ms. Blakeslee writes about student leadership at SPSG.
Emily Collins closed the inquiry. She was the moderator of an Ethics Roundtable, a program created by ten seniors in the Constructs of Leadership class as a way to examine a series of decision that effect teens. The scenario was very serious, and reflected the decisions that many teenage girls make on a regular basis. This scenario involved a fictional party.
Teachers from world languages, acting, and art brought their classes to the event; the seniors in the class were tired, but delighted. Each girl had assumed the role of one of the crucial decision-makers in the course of events for the scenario. And each was convincing about what had happened and why.
In her role as moderator, Emily heard from the high school senior who hosted the party, as well as many students who attended it. She queried a police officer, a social psychologist, several parents, and the head of school - all played by students. All agreed that the students at the party should have been more circumspect and that the decisions about their futures at the school were difficult.
The students in the audience listened to the roundtable discussion and heard the many-faceted decisions that were made in the course of the evening. They asked question after question. One student was so caught up in the drama that she demanded of the girl who hosted the party, “What were you thinking?”
At the end of the discussion, it was evident that lessons had been learned by both the actors in the fictional scenario and the students in the audience. Senior Megan Mitchell said “Although I am only in high school, I learned that I can still be an active leader as things happen around me.”
This is the essence of the leadership programs at SPSG: everyone is a potential leader, leadership means taking responsibility for our actions, both individually and collectively, and leadership means thinking about and then acting on how to make our community and our world a better place.
“We have gained our own voice and I learned to be confident in myself and my decisions, even when they go against the current," says senior Page Carpenter talking about the leadership program.
It is not an accident that this year’s seniors and their parents have chosen our leadership program as the focus of the senior class gift. This is a class in which leadership abounds. The Class of 2008 not only has a myriad of school officers, club presidents, and group facilitators; they have made a concerted effort to be a model class, worthy of being called leaders of the school. They show their class spirit and leadership ability in opportunities such as the Ethics Roundtable, which was suggested by senior Julie Moores and embraced by other members of the leadership class.
Students in Constructs of Leadership have each completed an interview with a successful person, asking about his or her path to success, obstacles overcome, and ethical decisions that had to be faced. This is an opportunity for our students to be matched with alumnae or other people in the SPSG family who have made a difference in their communities and in their chosen line of work.
Senior Staci Lang, who interviewed Chris Cullen as the producer of Truth Campaign’s Chards of Glass, says, “The interviews caused us to look at ourselves in a different light.”
Emily Collins, who interviewed civil rights lawyer Andrew Freeman, said, “I have loved being forced to step outside of my box by interviewing a leader in constitutional law.”
Kelly Mulroy, who interviewed entertainment producer Jeff Sharp, noted the interviewing process “forced us to step outside of our comfort zone; it was also a great way to start our networking, which we certainly need as we forge our way into our future.”
But the leadership program is more than the one-semester class that is offered as an elective to juniors and seniors. It encompasses training given to club presidents through regular meetings of the Club Presidents’ Council. It includes the group facilitation program, which trains upper school students to facilitate difficult conversations. It includes initiatives in community service and outreach. In addition, every senior has a senior speech mentor to help her prepare for her speech; her training culminates in a public speaking workshop, designed to improve her personal speaking style and perfect her message.
Every summer, SPSG students are able to work for two weeks with leaders from Mercy and Western High Schools in one of the three strands of the Summer Challenge! Last summer we initiated the Discover Leadership two-day workshop with the University of Richmond. Leadership programs and opportunities in the middle school are currently being explored, with a view to articulating a program that extends from grade V through grade XII.
While it is important to have opportunities like the Constructs in Leadership class and the Summer Challenge, it is equally important that every student in the school have an opportunity to regularly participate in some aspect of the leadership program. To this end, one of the initiatives this year was to establish a Leader-in-Residence, a project funded by the Class of 2008’s Senior Gift. In February nationally-known architect Janet Marie Smith, famous for Oriole Park at Camden Yards and other major sports facilities, spent the day at SPSG discussing her path to success with students in an assembly and sharing her experience with math and science students as the school’s first Leader-in-Residence. This project will expand as students respond to the opportunities presented and articulate their vision of what the program should encompass.
While every school has leadership opportunities, SPSG has a serious leadership program.
“I think the program has helped me step out of my comfort zone and find my true personal qualities of leadership... I have learned that even when you are nervous or anxious, it is important to be confident. I have seen that I am stronger than I thought. I have learned that every opportunity in life is a leadership opportunity.” Senior Katie Williams
Senior Lori Butler-Willis sums it up by saying, “Now I know that my voice and my opinions are important; my leadership is needed in my community and in our world.” What more could we ask?