Once a month, I teach a leadership class to the Sixth Grade students. Our topics range from how to build leadership characteristics, to managing friendships, to the secondary school process. My aim is to make the classes
interactive and engaging, so that students can participate in the success of their learning rather than just be the recipients of knowledge.
I invited a Rohan Woods alumna to speak to our Middle School students regarding transitioning into a new school. Hadley Cooper attended Rohan Woods from Senior Kindergarten through Sixth Grade and is now waiting to graduate from MICDS in May. She also has a sister, Emerson, in Second Grade. Hadley is an expressive speaker who shared the excitement, the challenges and the honest realities she experienced when transitioning into Seventh Grade.
Hadley did a tremendous job of supplying advice to our students about academic achievement, maintaining long-standing relationships while creating new ones, and how to manage the rigors of attending a new school with new processes, procedures and benchmarks.
The Middle Schoolers were attentive the entire time Hadley spoke – you could have heard a pin drop at one point when Hadley revealed that she thinks about Rohan Woods all the time. She shared, “Rohan Woods taught me about being kind, compassionate and responsible along with developing a love of learning. The school taught me those skills which helped me be successful at my secondary school.” In closing, she also disclosed that she was extremely sad and scared to leave Rohan Woods, but her grandfather said something that still resonates with her today. He said, “If it makes saying goodbye so hard, you know it was worth it.” What an eloquent way to articulate the value added of a Rohan Woods education.