Leadership Summit

Dear Eighth Grade Community,

I was so honored to spend this morning with our new eighth grade class and seven of their teachers.

Next year, the eighth graders and I will have new roles. We spent the morning considering our new roles. Next year, I will have a new role as Middle School Director.  Next year, the students will be 8th grade leaders. In the fall, we will both be walking in with new responsibilities for our floor and community.

This was our agenda for the morning. If you read closely you'll see the quirk I shared: I hear too much. The strength in my quirk is that I can hear when something is wrong and help. You can ask your eighth grader about the downside to my quirk.

We spent time writing about what we wish would've been different this year.

We spent time recording an individual hope and what we would need to overcome in order to see that hope come to fruition. We did the same exercise for our 8th grade community.

Then we considered our own individual quirks. Are our quirks strengths that we are bringing to our community?

Towards the end of our time together we started to think of a word that we could claim for the floor. We couldn't decide on just one word. Three words were repeated throughout the morning: Authenticity, Trust, Acceptance.

 We considered: Authenticity through Acceptance and Trust.

We considered: Acceptance and Trust because of Authenticity.

We preferred: Acceptance and Trust because of Authenticity.

One 8th grader shared, that we shouldn't sign this. We shouldn't put this on the wall. It will be too fake. We aren't there yet.

Another 8th grader shared what if we posted it in the hall but didn't ask people to sign. We could share our vision but don't force people to sign.

We discussed this. This is too important.

Our commitment to acceptance and trust through authenticity is too important to risk us being fake.

I am honored to walk in to this new leadership role alongside the eighth grade. We will work intentionally and alongside each other to practice our leadership skills so that we are forming a floor that embodies our vision:

Acceptance and trust through authenticity.

It will be hard work.
We will make mistakes.
And we will try again.

Looking forward to our work together,
Ms. Choi