If I Were Principal

Below is the essay my daughter submitted for the leadership she was going to do during her sophomore year but pandemic hits so it was cancelled.  I thought of saving her piece by uploading it here in the blog.  

Some of the most common questions I find fellow peers of mine asking during school are: “why do I need to know this?” and “what is the point of learning this?”. I believe that many students have the mindset that school is simply another daily obligation or another task to get through during the day. If I were principal, I would work towards changing this mindset, because I believe it would result in a larger number of students who were motivated and interested in attending school.

As principal, I would focus on helping students to look at school not just as an obligation but as an opportunity to learn and grow both as a student and as a person. I believe that unless students become aware of what the true point of attending school is, they will continue to be uninterested and will not be able to fully take advantage of the learning and growth opportunities that attending school offers. To create a more motivated and purposeful mindset for the students at my school, I would set a clearer focus on how the material that the students are learning could be applied to and used in their everyday or future lives. I would encourage the teachers to involve real-life scenarios and examples during lectures and classroom discussions to allow students to better understand the importance of what they are learning. I would also organize more field trips to further connect what the students are learning with real places and people around the community.

In my opinion, the paramount responsibility of a principal is to ensure the best learning and growth opportunities for each member of the student body and make every effort to bring about changes to benefit the students. If I were principal, I would do just that by changing the mindset of students towards attending school and getting them excited to expand their knowledge and grow as students and as people.