The title is Academic Monitor. The actual job is to pay attention. Not to performance — to people. To notice the classmate who goes quiet two weeks before exams. To be the person someone can ask a question to without it feeling like an admission of failure.
The formal duties: coordinating homework submission, relaying teacher announcements, organising study groups before assessments. The real duties: reading the room, earning the trust of 30 people with very different relationships to school.
"Leadership in a classroom is mostly about paying attention. The moment you stop noticing people, you stop leading them."
I've held the role since Grade 7. The hardest part is not the logistics — it's being the bridge between two parties who sometimes want different things from the same classroom.
During the weeks leading into mid-term assessments in Grade 7, I noticed that several classmates were silently struggling with the math component while publicly projecting confidence. I organised an informal evening study session — framed as group revision, not remediation — and built a shared problem set from the topics I'd seen people hesitate on in class.
Four of those students improved by more than one grade band. More importantly, they came to me again before the next assessment — which means the first session built something that lasted.
"The best version of this role is one where nobody notices it's happening — things just work."
I've also mediated twice between students and teachers where a miscommunication about expectations had created unnecessary stress. Both times, the issue wasn't the content — it was that the two sides hadn't said the same thing using different words. Sometimes the bridge is literal.
FTC robotics taught me to lead by doing. Debate taught me to lead by arguing. Academic Monitor taught me to lead by listening — a different skill, harder to measure, and in many situations more important.
There is a version of leadership that is loud: the captain who gives the pre-race speech, the debater who commands the room. And there is a version that is quiet: the person who had already resolved the problem before anyone else realised there was one. Both matter. I've learned to do both.