World Leadership School

Program Overview:

This is a unique opportunity for educators to take a deep dive into Mexico/US border relations and the specifics of immigration practices in the US. Time spent on the program will serve as research, data, and perspective gathering for faculty as well as participate in facilitated curriculum design and planning. While on this program, educators will deepen their own personal understanding of the US Immigration practices and border relations. Educators will use this experience to learn about the complexity of immigration into the US and to gather tools, resources, and perspectives to integrate into their pedagogical practices around the topic of government and immigration. The goal of this program is to gain exposure to numerous and varied perspectives on this complex global issue and to provide participants with practical tools to bring back to their classrooms and schools.

Program Overview:

During the Educator Development Program, Exploring Purpose Learning in the Peruvian Andes, we will connect with Peru’s culture and people as we examine the following question: “What can we learn from inspired community agents of change that will help us create effective student-centered learning experiences that allow students to explore their own sense of purpose?”

Using Purpose Learning as a lens, we will partner with social activists and successful agents for change in the Ollantaytambo region of Peru to learn more about facilitating students as change agents in their communities. NGO organizations such as Ani Wasi, Awamaki, Mosqoy, and Aula, were built by impassioned individuals who had the drive to make a difference locally & globally. Our objective is to learn from these individuals about what inspired this desire and how it was fostered and supported throughout their educational experiences.

During this traveling seminar in Peru’s Andes, we will use these idea exchanges with the community change agents to work together to build comprehensive innovative learning experiences that can be brought back to classrooms and implemented seamlessly into the curriculum.

Program Overview:

Purpose is not optional for either students or teachers in today’s fast-changing world — it’s a critical life skill. Simply defined, purpose happens when we connect to something or someone outside of ourselves meaningfully enough to take action. It’s about having dreams and goals. In our view, purpose is the driving force behind the revolution in the learning happening at many K-12 schools today.

In World Leadership School’s annual K-12 Purpose Summit, educators explore the question: “How can K-12 schools help students explore, discover and articulate a sense of purpose at an earlier age?” At this event, we will begin by exploring our own sense of purpose as educators because, in the words of purpose expert Richard Leider, “you can’t give away what you don’t own.”

This intimate gathering takes place at the base of the Rocky Mountains in the fall as the Aspen leaves begin to turn. This environment is conducive for self-centering and reflection over the course of 4 days. During the Summit, we will work in small groups with the goal of returning home with tangible work products to begin implementing purpose learning back at our schools immediately. We also look deeply at purpose curriculum for global, experiential and service learning programs; advisory programs; and as an integrated part of core learning across the K-12 curriculum.

Global Gatherings are regional conversations, driven by teachers and rotating between schools, on world-connected learning. The question behind this year’s Global Gathering is: “How can K-12 schools help students explore, discover and articulate a sense of purpose at an earlier age?”

Participants will explore a process for helping educators clarify their own purpose, which will be led by ​World Leadership School Founder Ross Wehner. We start from the premise that educators have to do the hard work of clarifying purpose before they can coach students to do the same. Along the way, we explore the theory and science of youth purpose and understand why it’s a game changer not only for our students​ but for our schools. We use Stanford University’s definition of purpose as a “stable intention that is both meaningful to self and beneficial to the world.”

Also, educators from different schools will showcase their work around purpose learning, which ranges from advisory and college counseling programs focused on helping students develop inner knowledge, to innovation and place-based learning programs which help students take action in the world. Deep Dive tracks allow participants to go deeper in one particular area of purpose learning, in order to leave the conference with curricular tools and takeaways for their school.