Leadership in Middle School

Leadership and Social/Emotional Development —  Parker middle school students have many opportunities to develop socially and to practice leadership: as MC’s of assembly, speakers for hunger awareness events, team-building on the ropes course, and advocates for causes.  Designing an even more intentional program for fostering specific leadership skills, Parker teachers are looking at ideas from education neuroscientist Dr. JoAnn Deak, the Responsive Classroom, and the Institute for Global Ethics to plan special features for next year’s middle school program.  Here are a few of the innovations they are considering:

• Walk and Talk:  In the morning before the day officially begins middle school students will briskly walk while chatting with friends on the field or in the gym, allowing for social time while waking up the brain. 
• CPR:  Daily meetings focused on the Circle of Power and Respect will give students an inclusive start to the school day during advisory.  Meetings will include greetings, games and discussions.
• Ethical Decision Making:  students will practice weighing ethical dilemmas – those difficult right vs right decisions –  and defining shared values with lessons from the Institute for Global Ethics during weekly grade level meetings.
• Service Projects: Each grade will identify and organize a service project that fills a local or global need.