Local Students Attend Leadership Workshop at The Country School

Twenty young leaders from the Connecticut shoreline joined forces on the campus of The Country School in Madison for the week-long workshop “The Young Leaders’ Toolbox.” Led by The Country School’s Director of Community Engagement and Middle School Teacher Will McDonough and poet Maya Becker, the program centered around the notion that “nobody leads alone” and invited local 6th-9th Graders to join forces in creating a cohort of engaged and passionate young people.

Highlighted by a slate of local and international guest speakers as well as dynamic exercises and discussion-based activities, the workshop included themes such as “Leadership Styles,” “The Art of Affirmation,” “Listening as Leadership,” “Charting a Course,” and “Finding Your Why.”

When envisioning the workshop’s origin, Mr. McDonough noted, “In speaking to young people, I often hear them say, ‘Everyone tells me I am a leader who can change the world, but I don’t know what that means!’” McDonough designed the workshop with his former student Maya Becker, now a student and poet at UC-Santa Cruz, to provide committed and passionate students from a variety of backgrounds with tangible lessons in leadership as well as a community of like-minded and peers.

The Country School–with its signature Elmore Leadership program–proved to be the perfect backdrop for the group to come together.

Madison’s Lucy Burke, a rising 8th Grader at The Country School, admitted, “I chose this workshop at first because I knew my friends were in it, but after the first day I wanted to come back because the workshop was fun and valuable …[it] really showed me what it meant to work together and accomplish something amazing.”

These elements of connection and accomplishment were rooted in the diverse experiences and backgrounds students brought to the workshop, coupled with a variety of activities that challenged participants to see leadership from a new perspective. Activities included the following: “Compass Points,” an exercise requiring students to follow Lego instructions in an effort to understand and model the varied methods of task initiation and engagement a leader can play. “The Impossible Maze,” an activity centered around participants’ ability to escape a maze while blindfolded, but whose secret to success was embedded in the lesson that none of them could escape the maze without the help of another participant. An interactive conversation about leadership and overcoming challenges with Abdi Nor Iftin, author of Call Me American, a memoir detailing his experience as a young boy escaping war-torn Somalia and ultimately becoming an American citizen. And “Broken Squares,” a collaborative group exercise designed to explore the possibilities of creative consensus-building through empathy during geopolitical crises. The final exercises of the week focused on bringing vision to action.

In addressing the vision and format of the course, Mr. McDonough noted that this very sense of collaborative accomplishment had been key in the design. “I saw it as an opportunity to hold the day-to-day schedule loosely…to let the participants help shape the tone and direction. Of course, our facilitators had themes outlined and arranged the guest speakers and activities, but the intention was to invite each student’s vision and strengths to fit within the fabric of the collective whole. We ended the week with an exercise inviting participants to affirm the strengths they saw in one another. To watch a group of middle school students take turns addressing one another with phrases like, “I really admire you because…” is a powerful experience that left me hopeful for our future.”

Already, the cohort of young leaders who will be attending both public and independent schools in Westbrook, New Haven, Guilford, and Madison next year has developed plans to reconnect during the school year. This comes as no surprise to Guilford’s Delia Adkins, a local artist who was both a guest speaker and one of the collaborators behind the workshop’s design. In reflecting, Ms. Adkins noted the emphasis and intentionality in “creating an incredibly thoughtful, liberated, joyous, welcoming space for both young and old(er) minds. These kids are so full of wisdom and all they seem to need is for someone to invite them to explore what’s already stirring inside of them.”

Founded in 1955, The Country School serves over 220 students in PreSchool-Grade 8 on its 23-acre campus in Madison. Learning takes place year-round at The Country School. STEAM, global language, crafts, and sports camps are already underway with The Country School’s Summer Fun and Learning. Learn more or schedule a summer tour at www.thecountryschool.org.