In an effort to help Lee Academy students with their growth as individuals, the school implemented a "habitudes program" from the company Growing Leaders based out of Atlanta into the curriculum beginning last week.
Lee Academy partnered with Planters Bank to make the program for students become a reality.
Andrew McPeak, a millennial speaker and content developer for Growing Leaders, made the trip from Atlanta to introduce the program at Lee on Monday, Jan. 7. He introduced the program to middle and high school teachers in the morning and parents at night.
He discussed an area from a book he wrote with the founder of Growing Leaders, Dr. Tim Elmore, that was designed to help adults think about the reality of the world today’s kids live in and changes going on in world requires adults to lead kids differently than they would lead other generations.
“I was one of those kids in seventh grade. I remember a youth pastor coming to me and saying, ‘You’ve got leadership skills and you need to practice them’ and I’ve been on a journey ever since then,” said McPeak about why he wanted to be involved with a company like Growing Leaders. “I’ve just had a series of mentors who have poured into me and so my vision for myself is to go do that for other people, too.
“What I really love is seeing two different generations from two different perspectives -- whether it’s parents and kids, teachers and students -- come together, see each other’s perspective and appreciate one another and come together in conversation. So that’s what I’m trying to spark.”
Growing Leaders has more than 100 courses and there are 13 lessons per course.
According to Lee head of school Rone Walker, two courses have been purchased for the current school year and another two will be bought for next year. Students will learn a lesson for 30 minutes every Monday through the end of the school year. They are broken into groups in grade levels for the courses.
“We have it broken down based on what we feel like the teacher personality and the student’s personality would best reflect and they’d be more responsive to,” Walker said.
Walker said she will be working with a group of all boys, while guidance counselor and curriculum coordinator Beverly Antici will work with a group of all girls.
Self-leadership is the first course students will learn.
Walker said seventh- through ninth-graders should go through all four courses by the time they graduate. She added lessons will be probably be once a week going forward and no less than twice a month for sure.
“Because we only have a short period of time for this semester, we will be covering the habitude of self-leadership for the rest of the semester,” Walker said.
McPeak explained the program.
“The way it works is teachers will actually lead conversations with their students and each lesson sort of has a timeless leadership principle attached to it, but you use an image, a story and a metaphor to teach that,” he said.
More information can be found at growingleaders.com.
