Red Bandana Run & Student Leadership Retreat

This week's blog post tells the story of a great collaborative unit taught by our 8th grade Kodkod team.  It's this kind of work that really exemplifies sound, student-centered, middle-level practice.  It was an inspirational unit that will have a lasting impact on our eighth graders.  The following description was written by members of the Kodkod team.  

Red Bandana Run & Leadership Retreat

Kodkod Team

Great learning happens when students, teachers, and parents share their ideas and collaborate.  As eighth graders begin the school year, they learn about the events of 9/11.  Most of our students were just infants at that time.  An understanding of the events that occurred and our nations’ response to them is essential to understanding America’s current role in the world. 

Our study of this era includes an exploration of who we are as a people, who we are as individuals and who we are as Americans. What are the values we hold dear? How do we act on those values on a personal, domestic, and foreign policy level? Who were our leaders during 9/11 and how did they lead? 

While we were studying this era, a few students mentioned the story of “The Man in the Red Bandana,” the inspiring  ESPN documentary about Welles Crowther.  Crowther was a Boston College graduate who was at work in the towers on 9/11 and spent the last hours of his life aiding and rescuing others. It is an amazing story, but we were not sure how best to bring this to our students until Open House.  That evening, Todd and Jane Adams stayed late and chatted with our team’s teachers. During this conversation, the idea of conducting and participating in a run with our students was proposed and an offer to provide Red Bandanas to all our students was promised. 

From there, we located an amazing curriculum at the Welles Crowther’s Foundation and decided to use portions of that curriculum to hold advisory discussions and study qualities of leadership. 

On October 14th we held a Remembrance Run which began at 9:11 and had students moving nonstop for 102 minutes. They went through stations where the entire advisory worked together for a run/walk, carried 40 pounds of potatoes up and down a relay ramp and more. The highlight was a visit from the York Fire Department where each student had the opportunity to suit up, walk to a cone and return wearing the weight of a firefighter. Students worked cooperatively to help one another in and out of the equipment and even assisted the team teachers as they competed to get the equipment on.

At the end of the day, students participated in a leadership retreat session. In advisory groups, they reflected and wrote about how the actions of Welles Crowther inspired them, how they serve others, and what leadership qualities they would like to develop in themselves. Each student has a Red Bandana as a tangible reminder of the capacity each of us has to make decisions to follow our passions, to serve others, and to live our lives to the fullest.  

Thank you to Dr. & Mrs. Adams for their generous support and to Sue Bruno and the York Fire Department for making this such a special experience for our students.  

We've included the documentary about Welles Crowther below.

- 8th grade Kodkod Team