Excel: Shaping Ethical Leaders
By Ali Aoyama
There comes a moment— perhaps you have witnessed it yourself— when a boy, without prompting, holds the door open for someone who is struggling, sits beside a classmate playing alone, or quietly speaks up when something is unfair, even when staying silent would have been easier. These moments don’ t happen by accident. They are the product of years of intentional formation.
Ethical leadership is not a trait you are born with. It is a practice, built through daily choices, meaningful relationships, and a school culture that consistently asks boys to consider not just what is best for themselves, but what is right for everyone around them.
Learning to Lead by Learning to Follow
One of our most distinctive features at Saint David’ s is the way we structure relationships across age groups. Throughout our program, consecutive grades are paired together for lunch, Chapel, and athletics so that over time boys have the experience of being both the youngest and oldest in the pairing. Fourth graders, for example, are the youngest in the Upper School, yet they are the oldest in their pairing with third grade, providing these boys the chance to lead the opening blessing at lunch, assist with the Chapel doors, and demonstrate how to win with humility and lose with grace during intramural competitions. These aren’ t just incidental arrangements. They are deliberate opportunities for boys at every stage of development to take turns leading and following and to understand that both roles demand character.
The second and seventh grade buddies program deepens this further. Boys take turns visiting each other’ s classrooms for shared projects, and the two grades attend lunch and Mass together for special occasions. While a seventh grader works with a second grader, he practices patience, attentiveness, and care. The second grader who looks up to the older boy is learning what it looks like to one day show up for someone who is younger and less experienced. In both directions, character is being formed.
Learning to Listen and Respectfully Disagree
Ethical leaders are good listeners. They consider opposing viewpoints fairly and value others’ contributions equally, even when those perspectives challenge their own. We cultivate this skill early and deliberately.
In fourth and fifth grades, book talks invite boys to sit with ideas, defend positions thoughtfully, and hear one another out. In Upper School history classes, Socratic seminars push boys to engage with complexity and ambiguity rather than retreat into easy answers. Eighth-grade scientific debates require boys to marshal evidence, acknowledge counterarguments, and hold their reasoning accountable to scrutiny. Across all these experiences, boys are learning something that transcends any particular subject: that being heard requires learning to listen first, and that intellectual humility is not a weakness but a mark of genuine strength.
Serving Others Abstract values only take root when they are practiced in concrete ways. Our service In culminating academic projects such as the NBS Lectures on Art, preparation, intellectual program ensures that boys at every level
rigor, and quiet confidence must all come together. have meaningful opportunities to act on behalf of others.
Fourth graders participate in a read-a-thon to support The Seeing Eye through the Pennies for Puppies initiative. In conjunction with One Sandwich at a Time, fifth graders prepare sandwiches for people experiencing food insecurity in New York City. Sixth graders host an ice cream sale to benefit the Gbowee Peace Foundation’ s backpack drive to support the education of high-achieving students in Liberia. The entire school participates in the Thanksgiving can and turkey drive led by eighth graders, supporting families in our local community. And
18 • Saint David’ s Magazine