Besides being involved in various clubs at Lexington High School, students who are passionate about mentorship can share their interests with younger students at Lexington’s middle schools—Diamond and Clarke—by leading their own clubs. These include Model UN, Science Olympiad, and Mock Trial, among others.
The middle school Mock Trial club, run by the LHS Mock Trial club, was established before the pandemic. The club continued to meet online throughout the pandemic, later transitioning back to in-person meetings.
In addition, several middle school clubs started online during the pandemic and transitioned to in-person with the rest. One such club is Clarke Science Olympiad, which is based on a national science competition where students compete in various team events. The LHS Science Olympiad team has won various competitions in the past years, and its members now focus on passing on their expertise to the younger students.
“I always start out with a presentation. I go over the rules and make sure they know everything. Generally after those initial meetings, we do weekly practice tests,” Lucas Dai, a sophomore and coach for Clarke Science Olympiad, said. “I send them materials, and if they have questions or want to meet, they can contact me.”
With the responsibilities of helping students in their clubs, LHS students also have to balance their commitments to high school clubs, their course load, and other extracurriculars. Fortunately, teaching middle schoolers can reinforce ideas learned from high school.
“What we do at the high school is kind of similar to what we coach at the middle schools, so they kind of tie in together,” Isabella Wang, a sophomore and head assistant coach for Clarke Science Olympiad, said. “But we also try to teach them how to study independently—how to find resources and work from that.”
While such clubs have now existed for a few years, newer clubs continue to be founded, the most recent of which being Clarke Model UN. Model United Nations, otherwise known as MUN, is a club at LHS where students enact the United Nations, learn about the geopolitics of international relations, and participate in competitions. The newly established Clarke MUN club offers a preview of the activity for middle schoolers.
“While we started the club in October, the process of establishing the club was a much longer process. We first reached out to Clarke’s principal, Dane Despres in early July last summer. From there until October we regularly emailed back and forth and met several times to discuss every detail of club logistics, from funding and outreach, to club curriculum,” Devam Shah, a sophomore who leads the club, said.
As with high school clubs, teacher advisors in the middle schools are present to help with logistics and student safety.
“Ms. Prasad, who helps us run Clarke Middle School [mock trial], does a good amount [of work]. She’s there during our meetings, she knows a good amount about the law. She manages a bunch of things behind the scenes,” Vivi Sang, a junior who runs both LHS and Clarke Mock Trial, said.
Overall, many student mentors from LHS choose to spark curiosity in younger students and share what they are passionate about.
“To anyone considering running a club at the middle schools, run a club not for personal accolades, or for some other achievement to slap on college apps, but because you are deeply passionate about something and want to inspire that same enthusiasm in others,” Shah said.
