by Ydylle Acosta ‘19
a student in Mount Carmel School’s Introduction to Media Communications course
This past weekend at the Maturana Building in Chalan Kanoa, Mount Carmel School’s Student Council gave fellow student leaders a reason to wake up bright and early on a Saturday morning. Instead of sleeping in like most teenagers on a Saturday morning, student leaders participated in the school’s annual Student Leadership Retreat.
This year’s retreat started with a twist on the Our Father prayer, which featured council Vice President Reica Ramirez and Secretary Rosa Castro in a dialogue skit of the prayer. After prayer, council officers facilitated the Human Knot team-building activity that had students untangle themselves without letting go of each other’s hands.
After the activity, school president, Galvin Deleon Guerrero, facilitated a group discussion around the question, “What is leadership?” After discussing answers from students, he offered his definition, “Leadership is followership,” because, as he put it, leadership is the ability to convince others to follow you. “If you’re out there doing everything by yourself, all alone, you’re not leading.”
Deleon Guerrero then showed Ted Ed videos to help students learn how to motivate effectively. He clarified, “You motivate people by finding out what’s stopping them from moving forward, and then identifying what it would take to make them move forward.” After an in-depth discussion about the importance of motivation, Deleon Guerrero shared a piece of advice he offers every year: “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”
After Deleon Guerrero’s talk, Student Council led a team-building exercise in which groups were tasked to build the tallest free-standing structure using only 20 spaghetti sticks, tape, and a marshmallow, hence the name “The Marshmallow Challenge.” Student Council’s Vice President Reica Ramirez explained, “This challenge taught the students the importance of teamwork to successfully complete a common goal.”
Student Council then shared it mission for the new school year, which is to give students another reason to come to school. With this, they gave classes and clubs the opportunity to plan out and schedule activities and events week-by-week for the entire school year. By the end of the retreat, student leaders, both old and new, were prepared for the rest of the school year.
Student Council’s Vice President Reica Ramirez believes this year’s retreat exceeded their expectations. She said, “We just wanted to motivate the students to work together to have the best year yet. Additionally, it’s our first time to be able to bring the teachers and the students together. I’ve never seen the teachers so engaged in the retreat.”
