Launchpad Learners Dive into Leadership, History, and Creative Exploration | Week 5 Highlights (Session 1, Week 5)

Welcome to the fifth Launchpad Newsletter of the year!

This week was packed with all sorts of fun stuff. From interesting Civ challenges to exciting Hero Visits, this week was super engaging in every aspect. 

My favorite challenges this week all came from Civ. On Wednesday, we studied Adam Smith and his economic philosophy. We learned how he viewed the economic system of his time, Mercantilism, as being outdated and in dire need of being replaced, as he argued in his book The Wealth of Nations. During the discussion for this Civ., we debated the morality of Adam Smith’s term, “The Invisible Hand,” or the self-regulating property of a free market by which an individual acting in their own self-interest can, unintentionally, lead to benefits for society.

Though Wednesday was pretty interesting, I found the Civ. on Thursday to be more enjoyable. This challenge had us read the entire Declaration of Independence. After reading, we summarized the entire document in just 5 short sentences, determined which parts were self-evident, and categorized the grievances into different groups. Finally, during the Socratic discussion, we split into three groups, each with a different stance on when the revolution should take place and if it should take place at all. 

This week, for Quest, we had 2 Hero Visits! On Tuesday, Mayor Glidden joined us to share his experience on being a public leader for over a decade. We learned about the different struggles a leader might face and how to solve those problems. On Wednesday, Father Bishoy, a priest and AABC parent, came in and taught us a lot about religious leadership and leadership in general. Father Bishoy explained that to be a leader you must start by leading yourself, as a person cannot lead others if they themselves are a follower.

We also began a new project this week. On Monday and Thursday, we worked on presentations for leadership tools. For example, leadership tools would be gamification, utilizing growth mindset praise, and a lot more. We each had to choose one leadership tool to research and present to the Studio by next week. During our research, we found 3 companies that use the leadership tool we selected and how they can be helpful in any environment. 

On Friday, since we will be visiting the Lincoln Center next week, we spent time researching Creative Leadership in industries like music, art, and theatre, as well as the Lincoln Center itself. 

Lastly, for Quest, throughout the entire week, we continued to Build our Tribe. Though we were once obsessed with poker, its reign is over as we spent the week playing Bridge. I think the reason we stuck to poker for so long was because we were scared to try something new, and most of us didn’t know how to play Bridge, so we would have to learn a new game. Despite this, we all decided to try playing Bridge, and each of us really enjoyed it.

For Genre, we continued to work on our “Does our Past Determine our Future?” essay. On Monday, we worked on improving our writing and reflected on what can help us most. First, we thought about which part of the writing process helps us most: Pre-writing, Rough drafts, Critiques, Revision, Editing, or Proofreading? And then we looked at different tools that might help us to improve our writing, like creating original images or using concrete and specific words. 

On Tuesday, we strengthened our thesis and supporting arguments, and we used 3 different approaches to structure them. I chose to use a more logical approach which focused on using a chain of reasoning to flesh out my final thesis. Then, on Friday, we gave each other feedback on our Thesis statement and edited it based upon the feedback we received. 

Last but not least, during NGA, we focused on Stars and Steppingstones interviews: interviews with heroes related to your NGA. While we didn’t conduct any interviews this week, these challenges are going to make things a lot easier for us in the future, as they gave us an idea of who we might choose. On Tuesday, we chose a couple of different people we wanted to interview and invite to our Exhibition at the end of the session. On Thursday, we wrote an email asking the heroes we’d chosen to come and watch the Exhibition. We sent two of these emails in the hope that at least one hero would be able to attend the Exhibition. 

In all, every day this week we had a lot of fun and took part in exciting Challenges. Whether it was reading the Declaration of Independence for the first time or receiving a visit from two strong leaders, it was all very enjoyable. I hope you guys enjoyed this week's newsletter as much as I enjoyed this week! Thanks for reading, and see you next week!

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