Social studies teachers Daniel Green and Kathleen Boynton are currently creating the course, which is a class as well as a program, and they will co-teach it to about 30 students once a week.
Green and Boynton hope to give students the opportunity to gain the skills needed to be successful leaders, whether they want to go into business, work for the government or work for an inter-government organization such as the United Nations.
Although still in the making, the curriculum includes online discussion boards and chats, outside lectures and conferences, grant writing and designing and a core service learning project. At the end of the program, students will graduate with a specialized certificate in Global Leadership, after completing numerous of tasks relating to the course. The class is funded by the 21st Century Fund.
“There are a lot of Global competency programs and leadership programs in high schools and colleges,” said Green. “But I think what differentiates this is that there’s this core global leadership course in addition to students completing leadership tasks and being able to travel and being able to learn different new technological innovations, and so we’re really excited about this opportunity to try something that really hasn’t been done.”
Needham High School, Burlington High School and Swamscott High School all have leadership programs as well, but what makes Brookline High’s leadership program unique is a weekly seminar course and a selective application process.
According to Boynton other programs rely on students completing tasks and submitting paperwork. The BHS program focuses on integrating leadership skills with a global awareness.
Brookline’s program, made specifically by teachers, is individualized in a way that will give students the tools to become leaders. The different focus of the program caused freshman Eliza Fox to view the course on a different level than others at the school.
“Earlier I was thinking of applying to a private school but one of the main reasons that I chose to stay here for next year is because of the Global Leadership program,” said Fox. “I felt like it would just be really horrible to turn that down.”
Green and Boynton were both inspired after traveling to Cambodia with the Cambodia Partnership where they met “amazing leaders.” They came back asking what kind of skills a person needs to be such a leader and aimed to find the answer by creating the program.
When discussing the method for accepting students, Boynton said that they were looking for a diverse group of students with a passion for global issues yet weren’t looking for the students with the most experience.
“It wasn’t about having traveled to other countries before,” said Green. “What jumped off the page for me is there were examples of students who said, ‘I have a burning interest’ kind of like I did as a kid.”
Junior Nathan Evans, a student accepted into the class, said that he believes the course will give students a wider view of the world and that it is an important course for him to take regardless of the credit he would receive.
“Rather than getting homework assignments where you have to read in a textbook and write or look stuff up online, you get to do real world projects,” said Evans. “I know that’s part of the course so that gives you better experience than any homework assignment or class seminar will get you.”
Like Evans, Fox was excited by an interactive class to prepare the students for the global community. She said that she feels the class will be a challenge but is ready to take it on.
“I know that leadership is something that is a really good quality for someone to have in their life, whether it’s for a little sibling or even a whole country. I feel like it’s a really important quality to have and I know its something I have to work on personally,” said Fox.
Green and Boynton want to create and assign projects in the class to empower students to become leaders, and Boynton said that it’s extremely important to help students become globally aware.
“Why not prepare students not only to be competent,” said Boynton, “but to be global leaders?”