One way I love to show leadership is by participating in WEB ( Where Everyone Belongs) at school. In WEB, some seventh and eighth student start off the school year by welcoming the sixth graders with games and a tour. We get groups, 11 sixth grader (or so) to 2 leaders. It’s a really fun day. Then, during the school year, we see our WEB group on no homework nights and do fun little activities with them. We also get to see them during lunch a couple times, just to talk to them for fun.

WEB is fun, but it’s also a lot of work. We have to go to a training for two days at the very end of summer, to get to know each other and learn what we’ll be doing on the assembly day (welcoming the sixth graders). We also have to go to a few training’s during our lunch period during the school year. The training’s aren’t bad, they’re actually very fun, especially the ones during the summer. The first day, we get to play a bunch of getting-to-know-you games. You also get to meat your partner (if you haven’t already).

This year was weird because a new teacher was in charge of WEB (love you Ms. Brown!) and she changed WEB from just being a one-day thing at the beginning of the school year to being lots of things throughout the school year. I like it better this way to clarify. Anyway, none of us really knew that that would be happening, so a lot of us didn’t want to do it. Ms. Brown, realizing this, let us choose, at the end of the first semester, whether we wanted to continue or not in the second semester. I did continue, as did many of my friends, but my partner did not. It’s been harder (one seventh grader with eleven sixth graders), but I’ve gotten used to it.

I think I make a good WEB leader because I’m good at watching/handling people that are younger than me. My mom is the Director of Christian Education at my church, and she does a lot of camps for elementary schoolers. I often get to help her with this, and everything always goes really well. She lets me be totally in charge sometimes (with her in there, of course), and even that goes well. I also really like hanging out with people that are younger than me, so it’s perfect to connect to some of the younger people in the school. I like being a WEB leader because I like getting to be a role model for younger students. I still remember some of my role models from when I was younger, and I’d love to be that person for someone else. 

If you asked me if I would recommend WEB, I would say yes. In fact, it made me really happy to know some of the sixth graders in my WEB group were thinking about doing WEB next year. I don’t like to do things at school that are extra-curricular (like I didn’t even try to get into NJHS, for example) because it tends to make homework harder (being a transfer and having to drive a lot), but WEB is a exception. I wouldn’t want to quite WEB anytime soon, and I’m glad I still get another year to do it.