At Appointed to Lead we believe that every student has the capability to be an effective leader. It is our mission to help each student we work with become the leader they were made to be. That includes inspiring, equipping, and empowering student-leaders who have been previously overlooked.
I am thinking of students like Derek (name changed for privacy) who was a 10th grade student who was failing half his classes. When I saw his name on my roster, in the leadership elective course I was building at the school called Sophomore Seminar, I hesitated. Could a student who was struggling academically rise to the challenge of leading others within the school? Thankfully, I decided to take a chance on Derek and keep him in the course. He was a rock-star working with 6th graders. The Encourage the Heart leadership lesson he designed to implement with them is one I still use to this day. Teachers, who he had as a 6th grader at the school, were blown away- "is this the same young man I taught 4 years ago?" they'd ask me. You see Derek just needed a chance to show the strengths he brought to the table. Strengths that were sometimes not measured in traditional courses.
Derek's success in this Leadership Elective didn't transform his core academic performance overnight, but it did help him find a place of connection and purpose at school. It improved his attendance and consequentially helped him pass other classes and ultimately persist through to graduation. I am so thankful for Derek because he gave me a chance to live out my beliefs- that every student can be a leader - and to see what happens when we give students on the margins of our schools a chance to show us who they truly are.
-Stuart Gordon, Founder, Appointed to Lead