At the beginning of the year, the admission’s office in our school asked for students who were willing to help them facilitate a forum for the students who were applying to the school. They believed that students should be involved in the admission process as well, as we have can obtain a different perspective about the kids through being with them in a candid, adult-free situation, to judge how they behave with people their own age when not being looked on by a teacher/adult.

I signed up to help with that with my friend, as I thought it would be interesting to see what the admissions office had in mind when they said that they wanted students to be involved to a certain extent in selecting the children who would be joining the school. What I didn’t know while signing up, was how much I would learn from that process, and how much I would actually come to enjoy the process of talking to the applicants.

Each student who signed up was given one forum date to take the applicants on a tour of the school, then observe them talking to each other and discussing a debate topic we would pick out for them. At the end of the session, we were meant to fill out a feedback form for them. This seemed very exciting at first, because I now had a hand in deciding who would get into my school and who wouldn’t. Very quickly, however, I suddenly resonated very much with Spiderman’s uncle, and understood that with this ‘power’ that I now had, I also had lots of responsibility, and I promised myself that I would be very ethical and truthful when making my judgements.

Grade 11

Over the course of two years, I’ve been the lead facilitator for four forums, and what I’ve learned is how to make people feel comfortable and bring them out of their shell, that each person has a very unique personality and therefore a lot to contribute to a discussion. Through observing these applicants, and their ambitions and wants, I’ve also come to recognise that people don’t realise that everyone around them leads lives just as lively and complicated as theirs, and this should be respected.