Culver, West Virginia students discuss leadership, similarities, differences

Students from Culver Academies and three rural West Virginia high schools met virtually once a month this school year as part of a peer-to-peer program to talk about their lives and discovered they have a lot in common despite some big differences.

The students talked about how they learn leadership at their respective schools and commiserated over common teenage complaints, such as crowded hallways, wishing the school food was better and restrictive school cell phone policies. But mainly they talked about teenage life.

“It was connecting with people,” said Mallory Schurz, a junior at Culver Girls Academy. “I felt like not some kid who goes to a boarding school but a regular high school student connecting with other high school students. It was great to make those bonds with people I never would have met otherwise.”

The program grew out of a friendship Phoebe Thompson, an academic and college advisor at Culver Academies who grew up in Appalachia, had with Geoff Heeter, president of the Leadership Fayette County program in West Virginia. The program for juniors awards participants $1,000 scholarships and provides them opportunities to develop leadership skills, including coming up with suggestions on ways to make Fayette County a more attractive place to live.

Thompson spoke to students in the Leadership Fayette County program last year about college readiness. Afterward, she began talking with the leaders of the program in Fayette County about parallels between the students even though some were from a private boarding school in Indiana and the others were from three under-resourced high schools in rural West Virginia.

Mandy Wriston, Ph.D., the Leadership Fayette County lead mentor, told them about a white paper she read while she was a student at Indiana Tech where students from the United States and Sri Lanka were able to widen their world views by connecting with each other virtually.

“It opened their eyes to the idea that some people in other countries are going through the same things, but they’re also going through some different things as well. They were able to share ideas back and forth,” she said.

 

 

Wriston suggested they try that with the students at Culver and at Oak Hill High School, Midland Trail High School and Meadow Bridge High School.

Wriston said students from Fayette County are sometimes intimidated about the thought of going to college with students from better economic conditions with more opportunities. She thought talking with Culver students could help build their confidence.

“I think peer-to-peer sessions like this help them understand that everybody is going through the same things. Just because our education system might not rank No. 1 in the United States, you still got a good education. What matters is what you put into that education. The rest will come. You’re just as good as everybody else,” she said.

Thompson said she hopes the program will make the Culver students more comfortable communicating with people they don’t know, especially people from different backgrounds. Culver already has a diverse community with students from 38 states and 23 countries.

“But a lot of people they’re going to meet in college have had completely different high school experiences,” Thompson said.

She said the advising staff is frequently working with students on “how do you articulate your Culver experience? What are you learning here? What is it equipping you with? So to be able to practice that on a peer level I think is really useful.”

Thompson asked humanities teachers to recommend outgoing juniors with strong leadership skills who also demonstrated empathy and kindness on a day-to-day basis to take part in the voluntary program. The class met during office hours when most Culver students are either receiving extra help or working on homework.

The leadership program has been ongoing in Fayette County since 2001. Students are selected by application and an interview process and spend the year coming up with ideas on how to make Fayette County more attractive and to try to reduce the brain drain.

The meetings began in September. Each student gave a one-minute introduction of who they are, what they do, their hobbies and their families. The discussions were always friendly and respectful as the students frequently laughed together despite occasional technical glitches.

 

Culver students explained the military and prefect leadership systems and about life in the barracks and dorms while the West Virginia students explained the Leadership Fayette County program.

The Fayette County students were most interested in what it was like living in barracks and dorms. The Culver students were most interested in finding out what types of animals students who lived on farms had.

They met virtually once a month talking about their daily lives, regional slangs and colloquialisms. Thompson concedes she was concerned the students might not want to talk, but each meeting students eagerly stepped forward to talk about various issues.

The Culver students explained how they had four 80-minute class blocks a day, which rotate during the week. They must be ready for breakfast by 7:45 a.m. and in their first class at 8:30 a.m. They then had a 55-minute office-hour block where they can meet with teachers for extra help, work on homework or do whatever they want. They then continue their school days until 3:45 p.m.

From 3:45 p.m. until 6 p.m. they have sports, theater or some other extracurricular activity. Dinner is from 6-7:30 p.m. Some students have evening clubs from 6:30-7:30 p.m. Students then have closed quarters, or CQ, where they are supposed to be either back in their dorms or barracks, in the library or at another building working on homework.

Wednesdays are different because from noon-3:15 p.m. the girls are working in committees and the boys are involved in military work.

The Fayette County students said most of them get up about 6 a.m. and start their school days about 7:15 a.m. Many go to their home high schools first, before transferring to the vocational school, where they can take classes in education, nursing, pharmacy, welding, multimedia and other career fields. They then return to their home schools for the rest of their days. They go to a total of seven class periods per day.

After school, some of the students have athletics or clubs. Many of them have after-school jobs or have to go home to baby-sit younger siblings.

Raeanne Perdue, a junior at Oak Hill High School, said she found the discussion particularly interesting because she plans to go into education.

“You read and see stuff about private schools and military schools but you never really know what it’s like. So getting their perspective about what their day-to-day is was really insightful for me,” she said. “I would expect that their day-to-day would be completely different from ours. But simple stuff they complained about, like the crowded hallways, that was universal for both of us.”

Perdue said when she thinks of private school or military school she tends to think of them as being either “really rich kids who are mean, these really stuck-up kids. But that’s not what I saw.”

McKinize Sawyers, a junior at Meadow Bridge High School, said she found there were a number of differences, but the main thing she learned is “they’re still kids just like us.”

Albert Lu, a junior at Culver Military Academy, said he was interested in taking part because he had never met anyone from West Virginia.

“What really attracted me is that I would be able to communicate with these people and be able to discuss leadership and share our culture, share our experiences,” he said. “We just had so many different things but also so many things in common. It was fun to talk about our dialects and what we call things. We had different names for things. We talked about our food. They described what they were doing. What their lives were like. It was fascinating to see how they live.”

Thompson said she considers the program a success because her main goal was exposing students on both ends to something new.

“I knew it was a success when it was over and students asked, ‘Can’t we do this again?’ ” Thompson said. “I wanted them to connect with somebody. They definitely did that.”