Ellen DeWitt

Leadership reflection

I was a Pirate Pals leader this semester. This position meant that I was a leader for
the Wednesday groups Early Morning Intervention. Early Morning Intervention is a
program that Samford students lead at Trace Crossings before school starts. The Samford
students are each assigned a couple students, and we work with them to improve their
reading skills. Unfortunately, because of the crazy schedule this semester, the Wednesday
morning group has only gotten to work with our Pirate Pals once so far. We will work
with them again next Wednesday, but for the majority of the semester, we helped Ms.
Stone out wherever she needed it. Some of us worked outside for carpool, or in the
cafeteria or Multi-purpose room with kids who arrived early on the buses. As a leader for
this portion of the semester, I worked in the Multi-purpose room and told my group what
we were supposed to do. As a leader for the day we worked with our Pirate Pals, I got
there early with Morgan and Carly, the other Wednesday Pirate Pals leaders. We met in
the Samford classroom and waited for the other Samford girls to arrive. We pulled up the
list of our students and their classrooms. As the Samford students arrived, we marked that
they were here. We told them what room their students were in and what teacher they
had. We instructed them to go wait at their classroom door and to pull them out after they
unpacked their backpack. We instructed them to simply walk their students back to their
classroom around 8:00. They could work in the hall, in a workroom, or an empty
classroom. Dr. Hoaglund instructed us to simply read with and get to know our students,
so this is what we instructed our Wednesday Pirate Pals team to do. The students brought
their own books to read. There were some Samford students who were late, so as a

leader, I instructed them what to do and where to go. The most helpful part for the other
students as us being leaders was having the list of classrooms up on our computers and
giving instructions. We had to be up to date on Dr. Hoaglunds instructions for what we
were supposed to do with our kids. We had to know where in Schoology the list was
posted, as we have many classes and folders there. Organization and being in the know
were very crucial to being a Pirate Pals leader.