When it was announced in class that Student Council elections were coming up, Haylie knew right away she wanted to run for something. She brought home the paperwork and asked if she could run. I asked her why she wanted to run and she said "it would just be so cool to actually have a part in something at school, to do something important and and be a part of helping the school." I figured that was a good enough reason! So, we just needed to decide what she would run for. As a fourth grader her choices were: Secretary, Treasurer or Vice President. She knew she didn't want to run for Treasurer since she has decided she's not very good at Math. So it was between Secretary and VP. She wanted us to tell her which one she should choose, but we only offered to discuss the pros and cons with her, saying she needed to decide in the end. We discussed the responsibilities of each role: that the Secretary is more of a helper, who keeps notes for the team and helps to record everything the Council does; whereas the VP is more of a leader who helps run the meetings and directs the team along with the President. She expressed her concern about her leadership skills and her ability to direct people (she tends to be a little more of a follower and sometimes easy going to a fault); she knows she isn;t great at being the leader in situations but she acknowledged that she's a really good helper and enjoys that kind of role a lot. She likes to write and could probably help keep good notes. After talking and thinking about it for a little bit in this train of thought, she stated, "I know what I'm going to run for!" I figured the obvious conclusion was Secretary based on our discussion, so I was shocked when her next sentence was, "I'm going to run for Vice President!" "Great!" I said and asked her why she chose that. She told me that if she became the Secretary, it would help her get better at something she's already good at, but if she ran for Vice President it would help her grow and get better in an area where she struggles. She told me she needs to challenge herself and learn to be more of a leader, get better in areas she's not good at, instead of take the easy way and just be a better helper. I wished I had a recorder at that moment to tape her explaining this to me. Honestly I was almost trying to convince her to run for Secretary in our earlier discussion because it really was a better fit and the more comfortable choice for her. I was truly blown away at the maturity of her response and she really taught me a lesson that day. I tend to only put effort into the things I already know I will be good at. I love that Haylie had the courage to be more!!!
Funny enough, in the end, she did end up running for Secretary. By the time everyone's forms were turned in, half of her friends who were originally going to run had decided they didn't want to anymore. She had several friends running for Vice President and no one she knew well was running for Secretary. She preferred not to run against her friends if she didn't have to.
She had to make a poster and write a speech and then deliver it to half the school. There wasn't any real campaigning allowed, although they could walk around at recess and ask people to vote for them if they wanted. She was much too busy at recess playing with her friends so it would all come down to speech day (as with most of the kids). We practiced for a couple days and then the big day came. She was so nervous!!!!
When she got up to give her speech I was overwhelmed with emotion watching my baby girl stand up and talk in front of a couple hundred kids. She did great!! She raced through a couple parts when the nerves got to her but I was so impressed with her courage and her poise as she asked for her classmates to vote for her!!!
The vote was calculated that day and unfortunately she didn't win. We didn't tell her but the odds were unfortunately stacked against her. There was only one 5th grader and four fourth graders running for Secretary. The fifth grader won. Haylie was a little sad after school but our response was: going out to dinner to celebrate!!! She gave a great speech in front of half of her school despite her previous claims that she gets stage fright. At dinner last night she told us she's running for President next year!!
When she went back to school today, she found out the Student Council is also made up of Class Representatives. Only the people who ran for election can be a class representative and out of the four kids in her class, she was voted as the winner. She was soooo excited to run out after school and tell me she still gets to be part of the Student Council. In fact, she thinks she got the better end of the deal because she doesn't have to type up the notes from the meeting or have a ton of responsibilities. She gets to represent her class in the meetings, vote on the decision items, and then report back in front of her class after every meeting. Not sure what I think about that part, but personally, I'm sort of glad we had the loss yesterday so she could learn how to get back up and know how proud we are of her win or lose. We are her biggest fans!!!
