Josh Cole Visits Hugh Mercer Elementary for Round Table with Student Council Leaders
Cole shared his thoughts on leadership, responsibility, and community.
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
Email Adele
Delegate Josh Cole had a difficult assignment for the members of Hugh Mercer Elementary’s Student Cooperative Association and the school’s student news team, who gathered Wednesday for a leadership round table with him.
The assignment was in response to the question, “What advice do you have for students who want to be leaders?”
“Get ready, because this is hard,” Cole told the students. “You have to listen to people you don’t even like.”
He asked the student representatives to think about someone in their class they might find difficult or annoying. Good leaders work hard to make sure that everyone, even people they don’t agree with, feel represented and heard, he said.
SCA members prepared questions for Cole, a Democrat who represents the 65th House District—which includes all of Fredericksburg City and parts of Stafford and Spotsylvania counties—in the General Assembly.
They asked Cole what he was like as an elementary school student.
“Do any of your teachers ever tell you that you talk to much?” Cole said with a laugh. “That was me. I was always talking and beat-boxing on the desk.”
Along with that, Cole told the students, he was reading and exploring, and learning how to be a leader as a member of student government and the House of Delegates’ Page Program for youth aged 14 to 18.
He said it’s important for young people to get involved in their communities in whatever way excites them, whether it’s by organizing events, attending and speaking at School Board and City Council meetings, or volunteering to serve meals at one of the downtown community dinners for people experiencing homelessness or harvest produce at the Rappahannock Education Farm.
And he encouraged the students to “do everything you can to try your best.”
“Even if you know you won’t be successful, still try your best,” he said. “Put your all into it. Whatever dreams you have, don’t keep them inside.”
In response to a question about why it’s important to help the community, Cole asked, “Can each of you do the exact same thing?”
“Everyone has a gift they bring,” he said, explaining that community means working together as a team to make things better for everyone, and if the community isn’t nurtured and cared for, people can’t contribute their talents.
Another student asked, “When people disagree, what do good leaders do?”
“That’s a great question,” Cole replied. “Have you ever heard of the term ‘agree to disagree?’”
“Everyone is not always going to agree—what matters is how you handle that,” he continued. “A good leader says, ‘I’m not going to be mad at you or make fun of you’ when they don’t agree with someone. Instead they say, ‘We can agree to disagree, and we can still walk together as leaders and humans.’”
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