leadership development
Intersession: Immersion in the Real World
greater autonomy,” says Director of Inclusion Aaron Mullen. Case in point: In 2023, a team of Grade 8 students developed an event for City Hope, whose mission is to provide a dignified, home-like environment for those living on society’s margins. Under Mullen’s guidance, the boys crafted a fun evening that included a Jeopardy-inspired game, crafting trivia questions that would ensure everyone in the room felt included and engaged. “In planning every part of the night, their desire for ownership of the night increased,” says Mullen. “When the boys are part of the planning process, they learn how to create an activity that is geared towards the audience and not towards themselves. It’s an art to get the kids to displace themselves and think about their ideas and whether they’re what that audience or community needs, then run that event themselves. It’s not just ‘ticking the box’ to fill service hours; you want them to understand why we’re putting them in these spaces and places.”
Held during the last week of February each year, Intersession provides an interactive “deep dive” into multi-disciplinary topics of interest and relevance. Hinged on collaborations with local professionals and partners, from bakeries to bike shops, these classes allow students to understand a topic from multiple viewpoints and then hypothetically plan solutions to real-world situations or problems. “By engaging in dialogue with adults outside their familiar Cathedral School community, the boys recognize that their teachers can come from all walks of life and that learning is a life skill,” explains Harlow. Intersession programs are conceived from Cathedral’s collective brainpower: Months before the last week of February,
Intersession 2024: Restaurant Battles
10 | cathedral school for boys
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