By Cathy Zhou ‘21
The past few SM Leads sessions featured student-led discussions on sustainability and abusive relationships. These initiative sessions introduced a new format of student leadership training for St. Markers: they adopted a discussion-based approach and incorporated innovations such as engaging situational simulations and distributing bracelets for participants
SM Leads was started in 2018 as a Friday-night discussion session for training current and prospective student leaders. These events explore topics such as substance use, the boundaries and consent in daily life, public speaking, and mental health, aiming to inform better decisions among student leaders for themselves and for the community. Since they set the tone for the school, SM Leads influences the broader community by shaping the actions and voice of the leaders
The Students for Sustainability club (S4S) hosted an SM Leads discussing the role of student leaders in promoting sustainability at St. Mark’s. The session started with a memorable video of Greta Thunberg, a young climate change activist, continued with a recycle relay, and ended with a situational simulation that initiated discussions on how student leaders should react to unsustainable actions around them. According to Clara Hua’21, S4S’s innovative approaches made the event a unique experience: “By incorporating a waste sorting team competition as well as a Kahoot, the SMLeads session was very engaging. We were able to learn and have fun at the same time!”
Alie Hyland ’20, leader of S4S, explains that the idea of organizing an SM Leads session came up in a discussion with the club’s faculty advisor, Ms. Lohwater. She describes that the planning for this event was a group effort: “We brainstormed what lessons we wanted to share with the school and what information was most important to share with the leaders of St. Mark's. We split into different groups and each group was responsible for planning a specific part of the SM Leads. Everyone in S4S was so helpful and enthusiastic about the SM Leads session!”
On February 21st, a similar student-lead SMLeads was organized by six formers Catherine Pellini and Paige LaMalva who led a discussion on relational aggression and bullying. The session was a part of the project with a grant from St. Mark’s. LaMalva and Pellini’s session was planned differently than that of S4S. “We actually planned it by the minute,” said LaMalva. Sitting down at the end of the winter break, they went through their notes to outline the presentation. “After gathering all of our information, we decided that the best way to deliver our information was to the SM community,” said LaMalva.
During the session, students discussed the spectrum of healthy and unhealthy relationships, brainstormed possible actions towards hypothetical scenarios, and learned about the cycle of abuse. In the end, LaMalva and Pellini gave out purple bracelets, which is the color that symbolizes domestic abuse awareness. Lina Zhang’21 thought that this was especially innovative: “the bracelets could serve as a visual reminder for us.”