September 3, 2015
Summer is a great time to catch up on my reading. I was fortunate to be able to squeeze in enough time to read six books while either lounging on the pontoon or while traveling. One of the books I read was a biography of Woodrow Wilson by A. Scott Berg. Many would overlook Wilson in compiling a list of our greatest presidents, but I would have him at the top of mine.
Leadership is hard to define, but Woodrow Wilson made it pretty simple by linking it with a life’s purpose: “You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.”
At MPA, we understand leadership in such broad terms in our commitment to character development. Woven throughout the curriculum and embedded in co-curricular opportunities, character development, including leadership development, is cultivated through collaborative tasks and perspective taking, creating an environment where students are respected, valued, and heard.
In the past week, students across divisions and grade levels have participated in several opportunities for leadership development. In Upper School, Peer Leaders spent a day with Dr. Maggie Harris, Adjunct Professor of Leadership at the University of Minnesota, learning about themselves through the Strength Finders assessment, learning how to serve others by exploring the concept of servant leadership, and then applying both with design thinking.
Team captains in our athletic program spent time with their peers in other schools belonging to the Independent Metro Athletic Conference (IMAC). Over 20 MPA juniors and seniors participated in this IMAC leadership seminar and attended sessions on social media, leadership, coach and player relationships, and team culture.
This year we will introduce a new leadership development curriculum in Middle School called Mindset Matters. The program is designed to build positive culture change through character education and development. The overarching goal is to “help EACH student reach his or her potential to be a great leader through flexible and fun teaching materials, real-world application and daily practice that will impact the rest of their lives.”
In Lower School, our new fourth graders have accepted the mantle of conflict managers among their peers in the lower school. Students received training last spring and again this past week on how to peacefully resolve conflict. Senior Jenny Portis, Student Government President, worked with fourth graders to understand their responsibility to serve as role models and to actively practice peaceful conflict resolution.
In addition to an excellent academic preparation, success in today’s 21st century global society will depend on a number of skills and competencies. Leadership is one such competency that MPA uniquely enables students to discover, and then nurtures all the way throughout our curriculum and programs.
