Authentic Student Leadership – It’s a Journey
It has a new name – FIS Change-Makers!
Why Student Leadership?
It is abundantly clear that the world is in need of positive, moral, collaborative leaders who have a vision for a better world. Our planet needs it, people need it, and most of all our students deserve it. It is no secret that we have advocated for the greater purpose behind schools to be, creating a better future, and schools should be providing the learning and the opportunities to do so in great volume. Fostering this kind of leadership in young people does not happen when we simply have them learn about leadership, we need them to try and lead. “Don’t just learn about the bike, ride the bike!”
There are many misnomers when it comes to leadership and there is certainly no shortage of books, programs and organizations that talk about and theorize about it. Many organizations offer opportunities to act and support young people globally. Stemming from a love of organizational systems and education I believe one of my roles at the Frankfurt International School (FIS) and globally is to simplify the complexity in service of student learning and student action for a better world. Here is our attempt to do so at FIS and we would like to share this journey locally and globally. Hopefully we can learn from your journey and you can learn from ours. This is our invitation to collaborate for students sake and for our collective future.
What does it mean to lead?
The 
word leadership is defined in many ways, I like a hybrid definition. Leadership is the art of motivating an individual or a group of people towards a common goal or vision. Don’t be fooled by the word motivate, motivation takes many forms and it is not just the ra ra up front motivator that leads, leaders take all forms and approaches. To lead is an art form, a science, and a study in many skills and character traits. Leadership is a journey and I am still on that learning journey myself and willing to share what I have learned and learn more from others. What is your purpose?, What is your vision?, What is your goal? Want to achieve it? Go on the leadership learning journey and be humble, you can do it.
How can we foster student leadership? An FIS Journey
Like in many areas of education, we lean on the experts, mentors, coaches and people who have spent an amazing number of hours on the concepts, skills and character traits that make great leaders. No need to reinvent the wheel, but we also must consider our context to make it authentic for our students. At FIS we have been on the journey for 60 years. Fred Baecker from the class of 1967 wrote, ” Our personal goals are the acquisition of maturity, individuality and an active good will toward our fellow man. Our methods are industry, perseverance and fair play. Life is ours, to do with as we please, within reason. It is up to us to use it to contribute to general progress, to aid those in any way less fortunate than ourselves, to further the cause of freedom, to try to form our own character as perfectly as we can. And we shall succeed.” I am extremely proud to be a member of this community and our tagline of “A World of Opportunities” is accurate and aspirational.
We have many leadership opportunities already across the divisions and on both campuses. The goal of this student leadership program is to bring all stakeholders together with common language, frameworks and understanding around leadership and then to consolidate and expand opportunities for all ages. A good example of this is the process students undertake for CAS:
- Undertake new challenges and learn new skills
- Identify strengths and areas for growth
- Initiate and plan an event/activity
- Show commitment and perseverance
- Work collaboratively with others
- Recognize and consider the ethics of your choice and action
- Engage in issues of global importance
We have a great opportunity to pull many facets of learning and action together at FIS.
Why? To provide opportunities and learning experiences for our students to constantly develop and reflect on their journey as leaders and to make an impact for a better world.
How? Seek to understand leadership concepts, grow in the skills it takes to be an effective leader, foster the character traits of great leaders, and build a leadership toolbox to do so.
Learn and lead! We will learn about leadership and apply these in our daily and large scale actions.
What has happened thus far? Nov 2020 – Feb 2021
We are just over 3 months in and excited to see the 
response from students between grades 4 and 11. The 12th grade is under tremendous pressure and we decided to pitch it at 4-10 but include any 11th graders who were keen to be involved fully knowing that the IB Diploma years are already quite demanding. These were the steps and we will share the great partners that we have been and hope to lean on in the future. If you would like to get involved, share or contribute in any way please do not hesitate to reach out at any time.
| November 2020 |
| Partner with Jump Foundation to offer a 15 hour leadership course in 3 cohorts. Grades 4-5, Grades 6-8 and Grades 9-11 |
| Launch the program by asking anyone who wishes to apply between grades 4-11 to submit an application. Intro Video found here |
| Applications due November 15th including teacher recommendations, background information and a creative submission as to why you for this program? These applications were full of surprises and inspiration, truly amazing humans. |
| After over 200 applications each program begins with the 82 participants chosen across three cohorts on two campuses. The Jump program is split into 5 three hour sessions. |
| Any student wishing feedback on their unsuccessful application was given a Zoom call and encouraged to re-engage in January. |
| December 2020 |
| Student leaders complete the 15 hour program and start to look at ways they wish to impact the FIS community and beyond. In some cases they will enhance a current project and in other ways start something new. |
| January 2021 |
| Communication sent to all those who attended the JUMP program and all those who applied to ask if they wish to be a part of the next steps for leadership at FIS. Wonderful to see the resilience of those who were not successful the first time re join. |
| Meet with grades 4-5 to re-engage in the leadership conversation. What leadership training will we engage in? What do we need to be a leader? How will we combine our passions and skills to make a better world? Video Here |
| Meet with grades 6-11 to re-engage in the leadership conversation. Three project teams were introduced. All FIS leadership common language and framework. Create, source and eventually deliver leadership training workshops. Lead the Global Change-Maker 2022 conference hosted by FIS in March 2022. |
| Email all 6-11 students to have them sign up for a project team should they be interested. |
| February 2021 |
| Meet with grades 4-5 for Leadership module 1 – Leadership and Management
They are assigned their first authentic leadership challenge to run a spirit day in their class (We are on distance learning) the day before February break. They are in charge, we will hold open office hours on Zoom, should they need to seek some coaching, mentoring or support. – Video Here |
Meet with all grades 6-11 to launch the project teams. |
| Grade 6-11 Project Team #2
Students interview possible partners for leadership workshops and training. |
| Grade 6-11 – Created their organizational Dashboard Collaborative Documents |
| Grade 4-5 leaders run the spirit day February 12th |
| Grade 4-5 leaders run an after action analysis on the spirit day |
| Grade 6-11 Three action plans are in progress. The first is established on a small scale already and the goal is to make it grow (action plan template here) An outdoor baked goods and donation stand near walking trails already goes every Sunday, the aim is to get more students/parents involved and spread awareness of animal cruelty. All donations/sales go to the local animal shelter. The second project (action plan template here) is to spread gratitude with art. A program where students send drawings (digitally or on paper) to peers, teachers, members in the community or anyone they feel gratitude towards to let them know that they are thought of, loved and thanked for their contributions to our community. The third is to play music (strings and band) for the elderly who have been isolated during the lockdowns. Student action plan template here. |
What’s Next?
As we develop opportunities to learn about leadership and apply these skills, character traits, concepts and tools we are looking to global partners to lean on and learn from. We look forward to having the students explore partners globally who do this well so we can draw from their expertise.
Grade 4-5 are set to have continuous leadership modules and then apply their learning with leadership opportunities moving forward. (Hopefully soon the 6-11 leaders will be running workshops for the 4-5 group) Possible Timeline
Grade 6-11 have launched their project teams and we will share their learning and products at FIS and globally.
Project Team 1: Create a School Wide framework and common language for leadership at FIS. (They will also audit all current opportunities for all ages across both campuses to pull these entities together)
Project Team 2: Source, create and deliver leadership training and modules for FIS students and beyond FIS regionally and globally. (They will run workshops at Change-Maker 2022).
Project Team 3: Lead in planning a Change-Maker conference hosted at FIS March 24th-26th 2022 so we can learn how to lead together and share success for even deeper action for a better world.
We Are Not Alone
There are many great possible partners for our journey and we look forward to learning with and from them all. We have already engaged with JUMP Foundation and will continue to lean on them. 
The students are exploring Inspire Citizens as they have developed a Future Now Student Leadership Program that is very aligned with our approach as a school and aligned with the IB profile. We are already a Global Online Academy partner and will lean on them for their expertise in online learning modalities and their meaningful catalyst conference. 30 of our young leaders attended the Youth Forum Switzerland two weeks ago and learned a great deal about the topics and the set up of this great event. We are looking forward to being a part of and learning from My Freedom Day in March from Atlanta International School. We are a Global Issues Network partner school and look forward to attending and leaning on global partners for our Change-Maker 2022 gathering. Some of our teachers are taking Compass Education training to learn about how to tackle complexity and take meaningful action, the students will engage with them also. We were introduced to Pickering College and their leadership program from a contact on Twitter and look forward to finding other schools to learn from.
Could the faculty at FIS put together workshops, a framework, guide events for students and choose the path forward for these student leaders and our overall program? Yes, but we are not going to, they will ride the bike! When our grade 4 and 5 leaders asked us how we wanted them to plan the spirit day, we said “How would you like to plan it?” It takes longer and can be more frustrating for the adults but the learning is in the journey. The staff mentors are excited, the students are excited and we will take this journey together, come join us! Share what you know and do, join us at Change-Maker 2022, and let’s foster thousands of motivated, skilled, caring change-makers aiming for the future we all wish to see.
Frankfurt International School Student Leadership Team – February 2021
Update Feb 28th, 2021
Each Group in 6-11 has met once after February break and are all moving things forward. 4-5 will meet next week to de-brief the spirit day and have learning module #2 – “How to organize yourself and others as a leader”.
6-11
Project Team #1 – They have aligned common language with project team #3 and are calling Student Leadership at FIS now FIS Change-Makers! This aligns with the Change-Maker 2022 conference we will host and now they are focusing on
What is a Change-Maker? (What words will we use?)
What does it take to be an FIS Change-Maker? (Project team #2 workshops)
Who is already an FIS Change-Maker? (Audit what is already happening @FIS)
Project Team #2 – They have been busy interviewing possible partners for setting out Change-Maker workshops and training. They have set next steps at this meeting with 3 sample workshops in March 2021.
Module 1 – Portrait of a future-focused Change-Maker
Module 2 – Systems and Complex Thinking
Module 3 – Root Causes
Project Team #3 – Met this week, see meeting here, and they are working away on three aspects of the Change-Maker 2022 conference hosted by FIS March 2022. They are working on creating a 13 month timeline of what needs to be done by when, they are articulating what sub committees need to exist to make it happen, and they are collecting examples of conferences and like events that already happen to learn from.
Dr. Johnston hosts a Compass Education Webinar on Student Leadership @FIS – February 27th
Update March 28th, 2021
It has been a busy month as the project teams move things forward in 6-11 and the Grade 4-5 cohort continues with their mini modules of leadership learning and then action projects to create positive change.
G4-5 – They have been busy learning about communication and collaboration and then putting these skills into action with their spirit days, kindness hour and just this weekend Earth Hour. Smaller projects are starting to grow out of the larger team projects and the impact on our community is tremendous. Thanks for all the hard work in making our community a better place.
G6-11 – Each project team has been moving towards their goals as they refine how they will work together in synchronous and asynchronous ways. Project team #1 continues to gather what language can be used for a Change-Maker and what examples of Change-Makers already exist in our community. Project team #2 has now run three successful workshops plus attending other offerings found globally. They have also started to collaborate with a student collective globally calling themselves the Change-Makers from the UAE, Japan and Thailand. The workshops are being archived here on our developing website. 
Project Team #3 had a very productive meeting to propose what sub committees are necessary to run Change-Maker 2022. They have now signed up for which ones they would like to lead and will next start to to seek an adult support team member for each one in April.
As the Change-Makers find their identity it has become very clear that they can play an important role in bringing the whole FIS community together around creating a better world. We have many people already working towards this goal in our community, sometimes it just takes a passionate group to make the connections to make it even stronger.
More to Come…Would love to learn from you also – comment below