Leadership has taken on a new form at Eastmont. Students learn to be real leaders by serving others first. “Leadership can change students’ lives,” claims Leadership teacher Bob Gallaher.

Gallaher previously taught Current World Problems, Honors World History, and ran the student Senate class. However, this year he is just strictly teaching leadership for five periods.

Gallaher also stated that Leadership is such “an important class” for those all-encompassing life skills and necessary for understanding students needs today.

There are actually a few different types of leadership classes at Eastmont, one being just Leadership and the other labeled Leadership in the Community which demonstrates volunteer work to the youth and its helpful effects. If you take these courses and couple them with the work already being done in ASB, Senate, and the Athletics department, EHS is in route to a real climate change.

Eastmont is fully supporting the addition of this new department as every Sophomore will have to take Leadership starting in the 2019-2020 school year. Students will learn and understand the eight essential values then finally apply those traits in life. This requirement will require some additional staff. So much so, that next year there will be six different teachers teaching Leadership instead of one at EHS.

So far, feedback from students has been positive. Many claim to love leadership. For one, it is probably one of the least stressful classes at Eastmont. Sophomore Angela Martinez says, “Leadership is an easy class but also a challenging class.” 

The traditional grading system takes a back seat as class members work through the material and are exposed to healthy life skills.

Students participate in “challenge Fridays” in which the teens are challenged to overcome a physical obstacle. Some of the challenges have included leading a blindfolded partner through the outside area of school without being able to say a word or teaming up with a group to levitate a pencil down to the ground without grabbing it.

These challenges present the students not only teamwork skills as well as practicing all eight of the leadership values: honesty, commitment, kindness, patience, humility, selflessness, respect, and forgiveness. Those traits can help teens in understanding how to serve others and make the world a better place, little by little, each day.

Overall, Leadership is just as essential of a class as Math, Science, and English since the class deals with treating others well and serving your community- all of which are ideas that should still be practiced by teens and adults everywhere.

Our society needs some positivity as we deal with constant arguing and bickering among political candidates, parents, and siblings. It is only essential that teens learn how to manage stress and anger and turn them into kindness and respect towards others.

As Gallaher says each day just as the bell rings, “Be the change and choose love.”