Cardboard, The Gateway to Leadership
As soon as it became clear that I would be looping to 6th grade with my students, I began to think of all the ways my team and I could redefine the 6th grade experience, especially in terms of student leadership.
We restructured Student Council, empowered students with the task of defining some of our systems, and handed over to them the responsibility of delivering morning announcements. None of these are particularly ground breaking or innovative. But it was a start and we figured more opportunities would pop up during the year. However, I never figured our annual Cardboard Challenge to be THE event that would redefine student leadership at Knox Gifted Academy.
After the second day of building with cardboard, it was clear to us that a number of our students simply “got it.” With very few instructions and limitations, students were already exceeding our expectations. Students were using detailed blueprints to help with construction. Students were carefully following their order of operations.
At the end of the third day of building, my teammates and I looked carefully at the students and teams who were blowing our minds. Here’s what we noticed:
- Using time wisely
- Finding solutions, not creating problems or distractions
- Listening to advice from teachers and peers
- Demonstrating grit (perseverance + passion)
- Using materials in interesting ways
- Being precise
- Taking risks
- Building friendships
- Mentoring each other
- Being enthusiastic
- Making connections
The immediate result of our findings was a First Quarter Reflection document students worked on after the fourth and final day of the Cardboard Challenge. Student responses for two of the prompts — How are you demonstrating grit? and What is a goal you have for the 2nd quarter? — would be added to the comments section of the 1st quarter report cards. But the bigger results of our findings are how to make these behaviors sustainable (for the rest of the year, for future groups of 6th graders, etc.), scalable (for younger students on our campus), and transferable (to students who aren’t demonstrating these behaviors).
There’s nothing magical about cardboard, although it’s a pretty amazing medium. The magic happens in the purpose. The magic is in the possibilities. The magic is made by creative students and innovative educators. The key for us was to look for examples of leadership in the most obscure places. If we just let our students build and didn’t pay attention to their process, their conversations, their failures, then we might never have noticed the leadership qualities that always existed in these students.
The Cardboard Challenge is over, and even though a number of their creations still exist in our spaces as museum pieces, we have to continue developing our 6th grade leaders and create moments where all of them have opportunities to be leaders. These are 11-year olds and will need our help navigating these uncharted waters. They’ll fail. They’ll succeed. And it’s our job to help steer them in the right direction.
