ALUM STORIES
THE STORIES
DAWSON SCHOOL
Michelle Hoog, Lower School Educator
Why I Came: I came to the Purpose Summit to see how other schools and educators were reimagining education and to discover what current visions are catalysts for inspiration and change.
The Impact: The Summit encouraged me to continue moving in the direction and long-held belief that education is way more than acquiring information; but rooted in the ability for us to become more aware of who we are as people. Children having a sense of responsibility for how they show up in the world, in their thoughts, actions, and words, with themselves, and in their relationship with others has an impact on society. What a beautiful shift to recognize the importance of intentional action to help foster that responsibility of helping children develop as whole people in an experiential, intrinsic way.
PORTER GAUD SCHOOL
Chris Tate, Dean of Middle School
Why I Came: I came to the Summit to reinvent the character education and wellness program in my middle school, and to reframe the wellness program I direct to pull in various pieces of the program under a more cohesive umbrella of purpose.
The Outcome: A renewed commitment to foster our students' flourishing. We will do this by intentionally focusing on students' strengths while providing opportunities for them to use those strengths to serve their school community and their lives with their purpose.
ST. LUKE'S SCHOOL
Beth Yavenditti, Director of Global Education & Jason Haynes, American Studies Coordinator
Why We Came: We came to the Summit to learn more about Purpose Learning and to help us take an idea we had from an inspiration to a thoughtful proposal.
The Impact: The conference was so helpful. To be surrounded by so many great educators with ideas and insights and the WLS coaches AND have the gift of focused collaborative time for our team was amazing. We would not have made substantial progress on our work and finished the year with a thoughtful proposal had we not had this experience and coaching.
GRALAND COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL
Denver Colorado
Steve Collins, 7th Grade Science Teacher
Oscar Gonzalez, Director of Equity and Inclusivity
Dina Horsch, 5/6 Math Learning Specialist
Anna Phelan, Music Teacher
Diana Quezada, Middle School Spanish Teacher
Ben Simmons, 8th Grade History Teacher
Kimm Lucas, 5th Grade English Teacher
Erik Burrell, 7th & 8th Grade Dean
Why We Came: At Graland Country Day School (Denver, CO), we sent a team to the K-12 Purpose Summit with a big idea: re-design our grade 6–8 advisory program. Graland’s advisory, a regular time during the school day when students meet with a trusted adult, lacked consistency and overall depth. We wanted to change that.
What We Created: During the summit, we designed a new scope and sequence based on our C2B2 Framework (Care, Connection, Balance, and Belonging). We continued the work during the spring and we met a final time before the program launched in August.
The Impact: Two months after launch, Oscar González reported: “Advisors ... feel the human experience . . . it’s a weight off their shoulders knowing they have a framework and being very clear on the purpose.” Kimm Lucas commented: “Our kids appreciate the common landing place, the predictability of the structure, the fun that we're bringing, journaling, and more.”
The Fay School
Houston, Texas
Emma Berno & Ryan Sanchez, 4th Grade Lead Teachers
Why We Came: We came to the Summit to refine our stewardship/leadership program for 4th and 5th-grade students.
The Impact: The Purpose Summit helped us both work together to create a student-led stewardship program for upper elementary students. Through cooperation and teamwork, we walked away with the tools needed to help our students feel that they have a true purpose while interacting with faculty and students on campus via daily service roles.
Charlotte Latin School
Charlotte, North Carolina
Wendy Staffieri, Middle School Spanish Teacher, Cross Country Running Coach & Global Studies Trip Leader
Why We Came: I wanted to come to the Summit because I wanted to identify and develop my “purpose” in teaching and as a person. I wanted to hear and learn from teachers across the country and work together to develop and tackle some of the challenges we all face in our schools.
What We Created: Charlotte Latin’s Got Talent
As 8th grade students leave my classroom and the Middle School, I ask them to reflect on what they have learned in the classroom. Working independently or in groups no larger than 4 people, students create something that I can use in the classroom to teach a concept to future students. It can be a cultural artifact, a song to help learn vocabulary, or a tool to encourage conversation in the target language. The sky is the limit! Whatever they create stays with me, and they leave their voice and their legacy for future students.
“The Summit was LIFE CHANGING for me. I went into this workshop wanting to find my special skills and I came out feeling like a superhero. My peers at the workshop applauded what made me unique and we all recognized it takes everyone's special skills to create a community.”
Montessori Academy of Colorado (MAC)
Denver, CO
Alicia FaJohn, Assistant Head of School and Upper Division Director
Shawn Bona, Lead Middle School Teacher
Why We Came: Shawn and I launched MAC’s new middle school this fall! We attended the Purpose Summit the spring before our launch in hopes of gaining insight, building connections with other innovative educators and exploring our own purpose as educators. We knew that this experience would be a great foundation for building our curriculum from scratch and it was!
What We Created: Ultimately, we walked away with an experience that transformed our approach to planning and the balance of the emotional and educational needs of every student. We walked away with a new approach to how we would design our curriculum and share our story with others. The community that we collaborated with continues to serve and inspire us.
The Impact: Shawn shares often that he walked away with a new appreciation of collaborating with others to reflect, transform and brainstorm, which has paid dividends in our ability to consistently reflect and grow. This has spilled over into the work we do with children and creating spaces for them to collaborate and have creative ownership over their work.
"We knew that this experience would be a great foundation for building our curriculum from scratch and it was!"
LANDON SCHOOL
Bethesda, MD
Eliza Foster, 7th/8th Grade History Teacher & 7th Grade Dean Head for Learning and Innovation
Why We Came: I didn’t know much about Purpose learning, but I knew from hearing about it and reading about it that it would be my jam. After experiencing a school year in which many days felt like they were lacking meaning and purpose, I wanted to connect back to what I loved about teaching.
What We Created: I worked on my moonshot with a friend and colleague. Our idea was to build Purpose learning into our existing curriculum in 8th grade English and newly developed curriculum in 8th grade history. We wanted to build a Youth Purpose Summit into part of the brainstorming process our students do prior to writing their “This I Believe” speeches in English class. Each student’s purpose work will also connect to their culminating experience in their U.S. History & Civics class around connecting to an issue in their communities. The outcome is yet to be determined, but one positive outcome already is that we managed to set up and pull off a Youth Purpose Summit for our 8th graders, so it was awesome to see a plan come into fruition.
The Impact: I came into the Summit with a strong sense of my strengths and values as a teacher and a person. But the impact the Purpose Summit had on me was that I’ve started to see how those strengths relate to other people and in the community. The work we did was, and continues to be, empowering because I started to see patterns in where I find meaning, feel joy, and connect to others. The Purpose Summit helped me articulate those patterns and allowed me to step back and see my ultimate concern and my “why.”
"The work we did was, and continues to be, empowering because I started to see patterns in where I find meaning, feel joy, and connect to others."
INDIAN CREEK SCHOOL
Crownsville, Maryland
Lindsey Seynhaeve, Experiential Leadership Program Director & MS/US Teacher
Why We Came: I went to the Purpose Summit to find out how I could help my students engage in more meaningful work at school. Through what I learned and collaboration with my peers I dreamed up a moonshot that would give students the opportunity to participate in community engagement through hands-on activities that utilizes their abilities for the benefit of the community at large.
In the fall of 2021, I put that moonshot into reality and created a group called Eagles with a Purpose. During our time together we have visited local charities such as Gigi’s Playhouse where we took the acceptance pledge, held a booth to engage the school community in writing cards to nursing home residents, picked up trash for Project Clean Stream, and volunteered at a daycare center at a substance abuse rehabilitation center. We’ve also had speakers such as a local state senator to speak to our group about how she found purpose. In the spring, our group will work with one of the local charities to create a project that benefits the organization.
December '23 update: My program Eagles With a Purpose (EWAP), which was a moonshot from the Purpose Summit, is going strong. I'm making a few changes for the 24-25 academic school year that will strengthen the program including adding more leadership opportunities for students who have been in the program for three years. To date EWAP has:
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Given over 492 hours of service back to the community
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Visited 15 non-profits in our area
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Invited 13 community leaders to address the school community
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Created 13 community engagement activities for our school community (including the Passion Interview Day and Volunteer Fair)
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Created 13 projects for nonprofit organizations
In addition to my work on EWAP. I've also started our Senior Passion Project program. The goal of the Senior Passion Project (SPP) is to provide a transformative and self-directed learning experience by empowering students to design and pursue their unique learning projects outside the traditional classroom environment. This independent self-designed learning project takes part in the final three weeks of senior year. During this time, students can explore their interest in a chosen area from community engagement to internships to their own developed venture. At the culmination of the program, students present a showcase of their accomplishments to the school community and family members.
SHANGHAI HONGRUN BOYUAN SCHOOL
Shanghai, China
Christopher Moses, Foreign Principal
What We Created: Building Shanghai, an experiential program I designed at the WLS K-12 Purpose Summit, launched in November 2020.
Building Shanghai engages students in an intensive, hands-on, inquiry based experience focused around the question: “How has Shanghai, in the past 40 years, been transformed from a small city into a bustling global metropolis of nearly 25 million people—and what sustains and supports its continued development?”
Students decided between 12-14 project groups led by two teachers. During the week-long immersive experience, students head off campus to explore Shanghai and make community presentations at the end of the week. Here’s an description of one project group focused on Shanghai’s hospitality and tourism industry: “Each year Shanghai welcomes millions of visitors, both domestic and international, for work and pleasure. How is this diverse population provided with the services and experiences they desire? What strategies do businesses and organizations use to compete in a crowded and competitive marketplace? From hotels to restaurants, museums, and cultural attractions, big as well as small, we will learn about marketing, management, finance, logistics, and the industry of customer service. We will engage both the local Zhujiajiao community as well as global leaders downtown.”
2023 update: Building Shanghai has continued to evolve each year since it launched in 2020. Since the first year, we've added a thematic focus for each subsequent iteration: Building Sustainable Shanghai, Building Future Shanghai, and, more recently, Building Global Shanghai.
"I felt renewed and left with a greater sense of my strengths and ambitions as an educator and school leader."
THE COLLEGIATE SCHOOL
Richmond, VA
Jessica Catoggio, Director of Professional Learning, World Leadership School
At the time of designing this project, Jessica was 4th Grade Teacher & Lower School Capstone Coordinator, Collegiate School (Richmond, VA)
Why I Came: I wasn’t even sure what I was in search of but I was feeling like I needed MORE than what my classroom was giving me. I was intrigued by the description of the event and the driving question: “How can K-12 schools help students explore, discover and articulate a sense of purpose at an earlier age?”
What We Created: WLS’s Purpose Summit is a meeting of soulful education change agents. It allowed me the time and space to examine my own purpose and to translate that into forward-thinking improvements for my classroom and school. The invaluable connections to other educators and the inspiring sessions set against the backdrop of the mountains will stay with me forever!
The Purpose Clarification portion of the Summit was the single most valuable thing I did for myself in 20 years of teaching. Having the time and brain space to explore the “why” behind my “how” was transformational. I still keep a sticky note with my Purpose Statement on my desk today!
Beyond the purpose clarification, the Purpose Summit gave me the unique opportunity to build a community of educators who, like myself, were seeking to improve their practice in a simultaneously self-reflective and outwardly-focused way. The depth of emotion and caring for students, teachers, and our educational system let me know I am not alone in my journey to improve the status quo.
Finally, the framework of an “easy hack” and “moonshot” presented through the lens of project-based pedagogy and design thinking, was the perfectly approachable way to take action on my newly minted Purpose Statement. Because I was crystal clear on the work I was meant to do, I felt empowered to bring ideas home with me that were fully developed and ready to implement.
While I started my Purpose Summit journey unaware of the impact it would have upon my teaching, I continue the journey with a clear sense of who I am as an educator and how I can best serve my students and my community. That is the power of this Summit.
The Impact: My easy hack was to inform 4th Grade capstone students about the UN Sustainability Goals through a “Sustainability Summit” giving them the time and space to choose which of the goals they are most interested in and provide them the resources to pursue their interest.
"The Purpose Clarification portion of the Summit was the single most valuable thing I did for myself in 20 years of teaching."
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EMERALD MOUNTAIN SCHOOL
Steamboat Springs, CO
Josh Walters, K-8 Spanish Teacher
Why I Came: I was excited to meet and work with teachers from around the world who shared a similar desire towards purpose and how to instill that in our students.
What I Created: With a new focus on voice, choice, and curiosity this year I ask students to design their own research. I set parameters of what the end product needs to include, but how each individual arrives at that is their own adventure.
The Impact: My work at WLS Purpose Summit helped me to shift my focus in school to match what I discovered as my purpose. I continue to realign my instruction to better match my goal to inspire curiosity and cultivate relationships.
CATHEDRAL SCHOOL FOR BOYS
San Francisco, CA
Kristen Goggin, Math Department Chair
Why I Came: I went to the K-12 Purpose Summit to realign myself as an educator and to reconnect with the kind of work I was doing in my classroom before the move to Cathedral School. It’s not that I was lost but rather my priorities needed to shift a bit as I got to know another curriculum, co-create a new math program and learn a little bit about the community.
What I Created: My “easy hack” was a “Gas vs Hybrid Vehicles” project, which allowed my middle school students to use linear equations to compare the cost of gas vs hybrid and discover what might be the best option over time. Students discussed long-term thoughts about gas, climate change, and family factors that lead to decisions. They discussed socio economics behind having enough money to get into the hybrid vehicle.
My “moonshot” was a Flu Virus project that happened in February 2020 right as COVID was taking off. The driving question was: “The flu virus is one that has the potential to grow at an exponential rate throughout our community, how can we ensure that we stay healthy and “flu-free”? For full information, see my blog.
"My PURPOSE is to help others DISCOVER their SUPERPOWERS so they can CHANGE THE WORLD."
MEADOWLARK SCHOOL
Erie, CO
Sarah Mattison, 3rd/4th Grade Teacher
Why I Came: I came to be inspired. I’ve been at Meadowlark from the planning stages, and have watched my colleagues and I struggle to see the dream we had in starting this public school be confined and restricted by the reality of a system in which we’re working. We came looking for inspiration and to take in what is possible.
The Impact: I found myself thinking deeply about my own life journey and my own purpose. Having devoted myself to everyone else for so long as a mom and educator, what a shocking surprise and profound experience it was to have a moment to sit with myself and my own purpose and possibilities. The Purpose Summit reminded me that I am an important piece of the puzzle to educating students. I see the importance of reconnecting to my own purpose and fire in order to ignite that in my students.
"What a shocking surprise and profound experience it was to have a moment to sit with myself and my own purpose and possibilities."
ROLAND PARK COUNTRY SCHOOL
Baltimore, MD
Peter Metsopoulos, Director of Leadership & Entrepreneurship
Why I Came: I came to the Summit as a way to explore the notion of purpose and to bring colleagues into the conversation as our school builds a co-curricular program around purpose-driven leadership.
As we’ve conceptualized, planned, and rolled our program, the notion that each person can learn the skills to be an agent of change has been at the center. Our foundation belief is that people are driven by a desire to make purposeful change.
What the Summit did was to take something we associate with luck -- having a moment in which our Purpose becomes clear -- and instead create a pedagogical structure to help each student explore purpose. We, as participants, were able to clarify our own sense of Purpose by asking: What moves us? What are we good at doing? What are the ways in which we work most productively and most intuitively? Understanding those elements of our own Purpose enabled us to talk about how we might move students toward the same understanding.
What I created: My easy hack was to expand our R.E.D. (Reflect. Explore. Do.) Block Seminars for our upper school. We used the UN SDGs as the focal point for last spring’s community engagement plan. I’ve worked to institute a 4-session Purpose module for our 9th graders this year as a way to build that foundation quest into our US experience--the first step in a longer rollout of a K-12 scope and sequence.
The Impact: Our three-person team came back inspired and ready to make changes. I often think about where I am most directly connecting to my sense of Purpose -- and, therefore, my most important strengths.
"What the Summit did was to take something we associate with luck -- having a moment in which our purpose becomes clear -- and instead create a pedagogical structure to support each student’s purpose journey."
THE BROWNING SCHOOL
New York, NY
Danielle Passno, Assistant Head for Learning and Innovation
At the time of designing this project, Danielle was the Director of Outreach and Public Purpose at The Spence School in New York, NY.
Why I Came: I believe the four chief aims of schooling are to convince students of their deep inherent worth, build lifelong skills of connection among students and adults, inspire students to ask questions and be curious, and to help students develop their sense of purpose. I applied for the Summit right as I was entering Browning, and I was lucky enough to have the school support my request even though I hadn’t yet officially started when I made the request. They even sent a colleague with me! For a school that has purpose as one of our named values in our mission, we are always looking for ways to help boys understand and develop purpose.
What We Created: My colleague Megan and I tried to develop three different programs for Browning, which was ambitious. Two of them are up and running with success: Radical Empathy (5th grade) and Panthers Connect (6th grade). Our time at the Summit, as well as our research on boys and connection, led us to create these signature courses. In the Radical Empathy course, the students complete a culminating project in which they highlight an issue in NYC that breaks their heart and then they build a non-profit to address the concern. We also got our third idea (Spark Labs) off the ground last year, but it wasn’t as successful as we hoped. It involved an entire Middle School exploration of Legos and creation. Spark Labs seemed to be too much for our community to hold, but we’re very proud of our new Middle School courses.
The Impact: The biggest impact the Summit had on me was in my development of my own purpose statement, as well as the programming we created for our Middle School (two courses) based on the dreaming we were able to do at the Summit.
"Our time at the Summit, as well as our research on boys and connection, led us to create two new signature courses."
ECHO HORIZON SCHOOL
Culver City, CA
Peggy Procter, Head of School & 6th Grade Purpose Learning Teacher
Why I Came: As a new head at Echo Horizon, an PK-6 school in Culver City, CA, I wanted to redesign our 6th grade year to include a dynamic culminating experience. My directors and I wanted to explore ways to best engage our eldest scholars in meaningful research and advocacy, while helping them master important skills like public speaking, interviewing, problem solving, persuasive writing, and collaboration. We know that when students are engaged, they dig into their work with passion and focus, and we want to conclude their Echo Horizon career in an intellectually challenging and dynamic way. We also wanted to find ways to add social justice more intentionally to our curriculum.
What We Created: Purpose Learning Capstone Course, which launched in the 2020-21 school year with the mission “to create an immersive sixth-grade learning experience that prioritizes connection, meaning, and discovery in an interdisciplinary, team-taught model.” We began our Phase 1 work with introductory activities, inspired by World Leadership School, to help 6th graders explore their individual purpose. Phase 2 centered around an on-campus Action Research Project. Students worked in small groups with a faculty mentor to select a purposeful project/problem at Echo Horizon School, explore a solution with design thinking, conduct research, write a proposal, prepare a budget, and present their findings (in written and visual form) to a panel of experts. Phase 3 began the outward facing part of the semester, where we led our scholars in the exploration, research, and discussion of local social justice centered on The Mayor’s Initiatives for Los Angeles that included immigration, homelessness, transportation, environmental sustainability, education, and gender equity. During the final month of this phase, students have the opportunity to work with an assigned non-profit organization to learn more about the roots of the issue and consider ways to help the organization further its work.
"I left inspired, with my two colleagues, to research, design, build, and implement our Purpose Learning Capstone Course, which is described in this article."
SPARTANBURG DAY SCHOOL
Spartanburg, SC
Kelsea Turner, Graduate Student
Harvard Graduate School of Education | Cambridge, MA
At the time of designing this project, Kelsea was 7th/8th Grade Teacher, Spartanburg Day School (Spartanburg, SC).
Why I Came: I joined the summit because I wanted to deepen the work I began the previous summer on a World Leadership School Educator Course in Peru: Exploring Purpose in the Peruvian Andes. Initially, what led me to the purpose question was the realization that something was missing in my curriculum and in my professional life.
I had been teaching middle school for over ten years and had developed a 20%Time program for 8th graders out of a growing concern that students were struggling to find meaning in their learning. I hoped that by giving them one class period a week to create a year-long project to benefit an audience, they would develop habits that were largely neglected in their academic lives like wondering, dreaming, setting their own deadlines, working with mentors, listening, reflecting, troubleshooting, and learning from their mistakes. The program was successful, but I was still searching for the missing piece that would inspire students to connect more deeply. I wondered how they might infuse their 20%Time projects with a sense of personal purpose and I set out for Boulder hoping to find what I was missing.
The Impact: I came home from the Purpose Summit equipped to integrate purpose into my curriculum in ways that fit my context and to articulate its importance to the broader school community, something I had struggled to do before. The summit was my bridge between theory and practice.
My work with WLS also planted a seed that I did not recognize at the time, but has since changed my life. The experience encouraged me to step back and reimagine my practice. The perspective and insight that I gained inspired a personal journey to engage in meaningful learning: first with a Fulbright Distinguished Award in Teaching semester research grant in Finland and now as an Ed.M. student in the Learning and Teaching program at Harvard.
"The summit was my bridge between theory and practice. My work with WLS also planted a seed that I did not recognize at the time, but has since changed my life."
ALEXANDER DAWSON SCHOOL
Lafayette, CO
Jay Parker, Middle School Director
At the time of designing this project, Jay was Director, The Institute for Leadership & Purpose, Calvert School (Baltimore, MD),
Why I Came: The summit seemed like the perfect opportunity to do a deep dive into my craft while engaging with like-minded educators.
What I Created: My moonshot tied directly into my work as Director of The Institute for Leadership & Purpose (ILP). The idea is simple. How does a privileged, independent school in Baltimore City become an agent of change? How can a privileged, independent school in Baltimore City help bridge the gap between students in private, charter, and public schools? And, how can we all learn from each other, teachers and students together?
From 2018 on, my idea grew and grew. Powerful programs inside and outside the school began to emerge. Incredible city partners stepped up, and a rewarding and robust leadership institute came into focus to bring students together from across the city. Moreover, the ILP rallied much support financially to drive the work forward.
The Impact: Since the K-12 Purpose Summit, I rely on purpose as a driving force in my work. I continually ask myself: How can I develop purpose in my students? How can I cultivate purpose in our teachers? How can I create a framework for leadership that not only impacts students, but also the entire community? These are BIG questions, and grounding them in the lessons I learned at the Purpose Summit was key to my success … and my sanity.
"Since the K-12 Purpose Summit, I rely on purpose as a driving force in my work."
