STUDENT GOVERNMENT
Deputy School Captain
Being Deputy School captain this year has been an incredibly challenging task. I was very excited to take on this role, and I had spent a large part of February, before school began, planning many events along with the School Captains and Co-Deputy School Captain. When the school closed in March, and it became evident that it would be for a long time at the beginning of April, we were all devastated and demotivated from trying to continue our duties. The entire year we had been anticipating had been taken from us, and we were now faced with the task of creating an impact and being present in a school which now only existed on our screens. This was especially difficult for the Prefects Team since almost everything we do require in-person interactions, such as duties, Easter egg hunts, helping at parent-teacher evenings, lunchtime events, etc. How were we meant to keep the Markham spirit and essence alive if we weren't at Markham?
Since then we have started student talk shows such as Sin Paltas and Historias Del Escritorio, Lightbulb sessions, the Siempre Challenge, kept the Instagram page active, held assemblies for middle school and had the ongoing campaign SIEMPRE, amongst others.
It has been a fantastic experience to be Deputy School captain, and I am extremely proud of everything we have been able to accomplish.
I was especially overwhelmed because not only did I have to convince myself that we would be able to turn this year upside down and make the best of it, but I also had to convince the rest of the team about it. As School Captains and Deputy School Captains, we had to pull the team out of this slum and lead them.
We quickly had meetings and started brainstorming ideas on how to adapt previous plans or radically change them and add new ones. Luckily all the prefects showed a lot of devotion, enthusiasm and energy. There were hundreds of ideas we could pull from. The hardest part at that moment was putting the ideas into actions because they involved planning, time and effort, but we managed to divide the tasks amongst ourselves, and we got straight to work.
During this year I learnt resilience as well as essential lessons on how to be a proper leader, for example, sharing tasks with the entire team so that everyone is involved and not just keeping them to yourself as well as being organized and the importance of planning. I learnt to be flexible and open to change because things may not go according to plan, and you may have to change plans on the spot. I also learnt that being a leader isn't always fun because sometimes you have to be "the bad guy" when people step out of line or continuously miss deadlines and don't do their jobs, but most importantly, how not to allow those things to affect our relationships later on.
I was also lucky to have such an amazing team and to be able to work with Camila, Lucas and Juan Diego who have been the best School Captains and Co-Deputy School Captain I could have asked for.
Prefect (Student Government Member)
Being chosen as a prefect was an amazing experience. I am very happy I got this chance to help my school in this way. It is difficult right now sitting here to think of how I could put it all into one reflection. We have done so much. The team this year was so strong and united and I loved getting to work with all these people. We had the campaign, YOUnite, and thee days with carnival-style games.
Being prefect was very different from what I thought it would be. There were less enjoyable parts such as duty in breaks but that was just a big a part of it as the rest of the more enjoyable things. It is a family and community and it is a responsibility to be proud of.
Starting up the Inclusive Lunch Activity (a safe place to eat lunch for all students with games, activities, reading, crafts, etc.) was difficult but was well worth the effort.