Letter to a Parent about Our Workshops
Dear Kevin’s Mom,
I very much appreciate your frankness when we spoke yesterday. You asked me many good questions, and I’d like to answer them again with the benefit of some additional thinking.
Why should you register Kevin for our workshops, which don’t seem to focus on the traditional academic subjects?
The answer is that, at 7Cs Leadership, we focus on what matters to adolescents’ intellectual, social, and emotional development. We believe that leadership starts with managing and leading oneself, and it extends to collaborating with others and effecting positive change in ways large and small. We encourage our students to both look ahead and to look inside themselves; we guide their learning about life, people, and society from what happens around them and from the choices others have made. We help students explore areas of interests so that they may direct their time and energy away from the screens and stand out with their unique passions and talents. The skills and mindsets students develop in our workshops will help them grow and thrive in school today and lay the foundation for their success no matter what they decide to pursue in the future.
All of our workshops are created from ground up with inputs from parents and students and findings from research. We engage students with curated content that expands their understanding, challenge them with questions that do not have easy answers, deliver insights from our own academic and professional experiences, and organize activities that enable them to learn from one another. Educating our children is a challenging task, and we innovate our teaching to serve the needs of today’s adolescents.
What are the skills and mindsets 7Cs Leadership Workshop focuses on?
They’re captured in our 7Cs framework: Critical Thinking, Communication, Creativity, Collaboration, Confidence, Compassion, and Consciousness (“7Cs”). You can find more information on our framework on our website. The content of each of our workshop may lend to different emphases, but we seek teachable moments during the workshops to educate our students on all of them.
Why don’t we wait and teach our children these 7Cs when they’re older, like in college?
Because it’s valuable to cultivate the right habits of the mind and the heart when they are young. That’s why private school education starts in kindergarten.
I understand college admission is at the top of your mind, but U.S. colleges, especially the selective ones, are in fact placing more and more emphasis on students’ capabilities beyond the classroom and their leadership skills. What is the student passionate about? How is the student contributing to the community? How does the student think? How does the student manage relationships and overcome obstacles? Can the student solve problems by thinking creatively and/or by collaborating with others? Is the student thoughtful and mature enough to make good choices? The goals of 7Cs Leadership Workshops are in fact fundamentally aligned with what colleges look for in applicants.
I listened to a webinar by the Dean of Studies at Phillips Academy Andover recently. He talked about the value of inner transformation for students. I asked if adolescents are too young to experience that, and he responded with a clear “no”. He explained further that he had witnessed many cases and he considered that as part of being truly successful students. I agree with him. I recognize that not every student gets to experience inner transformation, but those who do benefit greatly. It is in a way our ultimate hope at 7Cs Leadership Workshop to teach our students both the skills they need to perform and thrive and the mindsets that guide them towards that inner transformation,
Yours sincerely,
Madeline