On Tuesday, December 17th, 2024, I was granted the opportunity to attend Belleville High School’s Leadership Day event.
The event was organized by the school’s leadership team to recognize young leaders in the community. Leaders from across the building and from McBride Middle School met in the media center to discuss leadership and the community.
We started off the day with some common icebreaker games. We played a quick game of “What’s My Rule”, a game of “Poison Dart Frogs”, and finished with the ”Birthday Line” game. These games successfully warmed up the room and prepared us for the activities to follow. They then sectioned us off into groups and sent us off to stations where we would be engaging with leadership activities.
My group started with the panel of guest speakers, Mrs. Pearce, Mrs. Goff, and Mr. Wright. They were asked questions by the student running the station, Kennedie Jefferson, about their careers and how they use leadership in their lives. They spoke about how leadership is defined by the confidence of one’s character and one’s willingness to represent a team through the good and bad moments. It’s about being able to advocate for yourself and for the people looking up to you. It was a super interesting discussion and I’m glad to have had the opportunity to hear them speak. After the fact, I spoke to the panel separately and asked about their thoughts on the leadership day and they told me that they felt motivated in their own lives to be able to share their experiences with an engaged group of young leaders who are attentive to what they had to say.
At the next station, we were given a selection of magazines and art supplies and told to create vision boards for our futures. As we worked we were asked questions about our futures and how we plan to display leadership in our lives personally. This was a really fun and laid back activity that served well to spark conversation in the group.
After a lunch break, my group was sent to the lobby of the school’s auditorium. When we entered, there were tables set up for putting together care packages for the homeless and wrapping christmas presents for kids. It was nice to sit around and talk to the people I was working with about their futures and about opportunities at the school and in the community while helping others.
Finally, went back to the library and did an open Q&A with Mrs. Crockett about being a principal and about school policy in general. We talked about opportunities within the building to move ahead in our futures. We also talked about issues in the building and finding solutions.
I left leadership day inspired to work harder. There are opportunities for me to display my leadership that have been provided to me and so the advice I gathered throughout the day will flow into those endeavors. Overall, it was a fun and meaningful experience.
