Fostering SEL and Leadership Skills With Student Clubs

When we imagine where the students sitting in our classrooms today will be in the future, it’s a vision of successful adults who not only have mastered the knowledge and skills in our curriculum, but also are emerging leaders who know how to work with people who are different from themselves, can problem-solve, can see a project to completion, can use their talents to serve others, and can advocate for what’s right.

Student-led clubs in middle and high schools can be a tool for that social and emotional learning (SEL) and building leadership ability in students.

In addition to teaching, I serve as my high school’s clubs coordinator. We have 148 student-led organizations, covering affinity groups, extracurricular activities, service organizations, intramural sports, and groups organized around some quirky topics (Bread Club is a favorite).

How Clubs Build Community

After we returned from our year of virtual school, we were intentional in trying to use clubs to rebuild some of the community that we had lost. Our system of clubs helped us meet those goals in a few ways.

Clubs allow student choice and authentic engagement. In a typical schedule, students might have one or two elective courses. Participating in a club gives them an additional opportunity to choose to be a part of something that matters to them and will satisfy their curiosity and passion.

Clubs help kids connect with others they’re less likely to encounter during class time. With the rise of specialized tracks in high school curriculum, students spend the majority of their instructional time with peers who are similar to themselves, focusing on career and technical education strands or advanced academics. Diverse campuses can become to some extent segregated based on these structures, but clubs open to the entire community can help overcome that division.

Similarly, students often spend most of their time in classes with grade-level peers. Clubs open to multiple grade levels allow younger students to find mentorship and positive role models and give older students the chance to lead. Older students who help to lead the club often pass down the wisdom they’ve earned to younger members to sustain their organization over the years.

Clubs give kids a chance to practice real-world skills. Students will be able to learn about developing a mission and a plan to meet it, time and project management, conflict resolution, data collection, community building, and social media. The feedback loop to gauge their success is immediate and relevant: A meeting they have organized runs smoothly or chaotically; a fundraiser allows them to meet their financial goals or falls short.

Getting Started

Organizing a schoolwide system of clubs felt daunting to me at first, but there were a few strategies we’ve used that help make it possible to offer these opportunities to our kids.

Clubs are a part of the regular school day. We host ours concurrently with the lunch hour so that students often choose to eat and participate in a club as opposed to just staying in the cafeteria. This system allows equity of access for students who otherwise might not have been able to be in a club. There’s also before- and after-school transportation so that any student who wants to participate can join. Additionally, faculty and staff sponsors have time within their contract hours to support these programs instead of adding to their already full plates.

Trying out a club is easy and low-stakes for kids. We regularly publish a schedule of which clubs are meeting each day, and we encourage students to drop in and try out a variety of clubs until they find the ones they want to commit to. At the start of each semester, we also host a fair where all of the different clubs showcase their activities and events with display boards and demonstrations to help students learn more about their options.

Clubs are student-driven. Kids spend the majority of their days in systems run by adults, and clubs allow them to take ownership and responsibility for a community. Students propose new club ideas by submitting a formal application to our administration and are responsible for completing the work to maintain it. Faculty and staff sponsors already have enough tasks, and their role should be to provide guidance, structure, and support as students grow into their own abilities.

We meet regularly with club leaders to talk through the tasks and challenges. Once a month, we gather all of the student officers from the different organizations to offer suggestions and support, often with guest speakers from across the campus (for example, the librarian sharing about how the makerspace can be used for activities).

Clubs help students to think intentionally about community and their role in building it. We ask all of our clubs to complete at least one service project each semester, with one serving our school and one serving the world beyond our walls. Sometimes groups of clubs will band together to be a part of a bigger event, such as our school’s international festival or an Earth Day celebration, which allows them to consider how their specific mission fits into a big idea or movement.

Part of the education that we want students to receive in school is the confidence and ability to impact the world in a positive way, and helping to run a club is the first step toward leading at an academic conference, in a boardroom, or in public office.

The lessons they learn from being part of a student-run organization help to ensure that they are ready to lead through whatever challenges the future holds.