The Pioneer Academics 3rd Annual Co-Curricular Summit kicked off with a discussion titled Exploring the Impact of Co-Curricular Engagement on Student Growth. Moderated by Ryan Manley, Academic Engagement Manager at Pioneer, this session explored how co-curricular activities shape the holistic development of students. The conversation featured Megan Canella from the Davidson Institute and Dr. Sandy Sook from Odyssey of the Mind, two experts who offered both theoretical insights and practical advice.
Manley kicked things off by highlighting the history behind co-curriculars, explaining how they started in the early 20th century when schools recognized the need to teach more than just academics—focusing on social, emotional, and practical skills too. Then, he raised an important question: In today’s competitive world, are co-curriculars seen more as a stepping stone for college and careers, rather than opportunities for personal growth?
Passion vs. Pressure: Choosing the Right Co-Curricular
Dr. Sook responded by affirming that the value of co-curriculars remains, though motivations have shifted. She explained that while these activities are still about helping students become more well-rounded, they’re increasingly seen as a way to separate students based on their potential for college admissions. “Picking something that you like—that’s going to help you grow emotionally, creatively, and socially will distinguish you in a class when you’re applying for school,” she said.
Canella built on this idea, highlighting the importance of genuine interest, especially for younger students. She pointed out how families often focus on future success, sometimes overshadowing the child’s emotional and social development. “Pursuing co-curriculars, pursuing these other skills and experiences does make you a more well-rounded person,” she said. “But in the back of many minds… there’s still that concern of, am I pursuing the thing I’m passionate about in the right way?”
International Students: Navigating Co-Curricular Choices
A key moment in the discussion addressed international students and the pressures they face when applying to North American schools. Dr. Sook reassured these students that co-curricular engagement is not limited to American programs. She emphasized that participating in activities they care about, whether local or international, adds valuable experiences. “Pursue your passion again, is the bottom line always, no matter what it is,” she advised.
Both Canella and Dr. Sook agreed that students should frame their co-curricular experiences as part of their broader personal story when applying to colleges. Dr. Sook encouraged students to “dip your toe” into different activities and not feel pressured to continue something that doesn’t resonate with them. “Sometimes you have to just dip your toe in and find out if this works for you, and if it doesn’t work for you, try something else,” she said, reminding students that high school is too short to stick with something out of obligation.
Practical Advice: How to Choose the Right Activities
As the session neared its end, students were offered practical advice on selecting activities. Dr. Sook encouraged them to experiment with different options, reassuring them that it’s okay to step away from an activity that doesn’t resonate. “Your high school years are too short to stick with something out of obligation,” she reminded the audience.
In the end, the takeaway from the session was evident: Follow your genuine interests, and the skills and experiences you gain from co-curriculars will serve you well beyond college applications.
00:00:05 Ryan (Pioneer Academics): Okay, welcome, welcome everyone to the 1st panel of our summit. I hope many of you had the chance to attend the keynote with Dr. Wagner. I found it to be a really exciting speech, and I’m willing to take more risks after watching, and I hope you are as well.
My name is Ryan Manley. I’m the academic engagement manager in the Department of Scholar success at Pioneer, and I’ll be serving as the MC and the moderator of this panel.
The panel title is Exploring the Impact of Co-Curricular Engagement on Student Growth. I’m sure this is an extremely relevant topic to many of you in our audience and to discuss this topic. We are super lucky to have 2 veterans and innovators in the space of educational co-curriculars.
00:00:51 Ryan (Pioneer Academics): First, we have Megan Canella, Megan is the director of Outreach at Davidson Institute, where she’s held various roles since 2019, and prior to joining Davidson, she taught writing and humanities at the college level for over a decade. So welcome, Megan.
And then we also have Dr. Sandy Sook, who is a member of the executive Board at Odyssey of the mind. She wears many hats at Odyssey of the mind. Actually and this is a leading program in the co-curricular education space for over 40 years.
Dr. Sook is also a professor at Texas Women’s University, where she teaches rhetoric, feminist literature, and English, and I will say that I wish that I was taking her course this fall.
So welcome, Sandy.
00:01:40 Ryan (Pioneer Academics): Alright! So this panel is intended to give students practical advice. I think, when making decisions about what co-curriculars to pursue. But if you both don’t mind, I’d like to begin the conversation with more of a theoretical question.
From there we can sort of transition into more practical matters. So, as you both know, the value placed on co-curriculars in an educational context emerged in North American institutions. For the most part, in the early 20th century US Schools began emphasizing extracurricular activities. And there’s a really interesting kind of historical background to this, the co-curricular space really developed as a response to changing economic realities in America and the need for workers to have skills beyond academics.
And by the 1950’s. Co-curricular activities emphasizing social, emotional physical growth as well as skill, development were integral in American high schools, so things like sports and music and arts, emphasizing skills such as leadership and teamwork were pretty much omnipresence in the American high school landscape. And today almost all high schools offer things like this offer extracurriculars but increasingly think students, teachers, and counselors have kind of shifted the emphasis regarding the value of co-curriculars away from these ideas about co-curriculars being about personal growth and skill, development, and the new, or at least a very prominent idea seems to be that co-curriculars are valuable because they will help you get into college, or they will help you get a job.
They have this real transactional value, I think, in many people’s minds. So I’m wondering what both of you think about the value of co-curriculars? Is it similar to what it was 50 years ago? Or has the context changed? Has the value changed? So, Sandy, I’ll start with you.
00:03:44 Dr. Sandy Sook: I would say that, believe it or not, the value is the same, but the reason for the value has changed.
The goal is still to include these assets into a young adult’s life. But before, when the assets were being included into the young adult’s life, it was to make them a better person overall. Now a lot of schools are focusing on those assets for the way to divide children or young adults. Whether they get into the school of their choice, or not getting rid of and lowering the value of grade point, and having all the inflated grades and tests varying on how much they’re being accepted as markers, for if a child’s going to be successful adds added value to the extracurricular in showing the way a child, a young adult will be successful in the future. So based on picking something that you like that’s going to help you grow emotionally, creatively, and socially will distinguish you in a class when you’re applying for school.
00:05:00 Ryan (Pioneer Academics): Right excellent! And Megan, would you like to? Follow up on that.
00:05:04 Megan Cannella: Of course. So the Davidson Institute works with kiddos ages 5 to 18. So the importance of co-curriculars is very present for a lot of families from even at the age of 5 and I think that speaks to what you’re saying about the changes towards are we in the right camps. Are we doing the right programs? Am I making the right choices to lead me towards the right college, and then the right career? And for some families that is very present from day one and a big concern. But I think very much like Sandy said. The benefit of these programs is the same. And I think, when you’re working with a gifted or high achieving student sometimes that can get muddled. But all of these programs pursuing co-curriculars pursuing these other skills and experiences does make you a more well-rounded person.
Help build your like holistic view of the world and things like that. But I think at the same time, in the back of many minds. I’m seeing like the little heart reactions in the back of many minds, there’s still that concern of like, am I pursuing the thing I’m passionate about in the right way?
How can I pursue this in the right way? How can I make sure my student is doing what they need in a way that’s going to be legible to a college and I think that is, maybe where the conversation can shift like you can pursue whatever co-curriculars or extracurriculars you want.
The narrative of how you present that to a college, or eventually, like job experience. Things like that that can change that is malleable. But like, truly, pursue what? What you’re interested in.
00:06:57 Dr. Sandy Sook: I’d like to piggyback on something that Megan said that I only touched on a little. And, Megan, you did a great job of bringing it into focus was the passion to do something just simply because you think it’s going to look good on college, or it’s going to differentiate you, for college is the wrong way to go, finding out where you have passion and what you care about, and then pursuing it, even with summit, the research that you do it in Odyssey, the program that you pick, how you go about it, what you’re doing in Davidson pick something that you really sincerely care about, because that puts you on the path to a college where you’re going to fit, and eventually to a career where you’re happy to get up every day and go. So these skills that you learn. And our program begins also in kindergarten that you learn throughout school and throughout your extracurriculars is going to really change. How happy you are in the long run.
00:08:00 Dr. Sandy Sook: So I would strongly suggest, as Megan said. Also it’s malleable how you present it. So if you’re in a creative problem, solving organization where you learn teamwork and you, you are right in line with the curriculum’s goals for STEM and other valuable assets to your whole life.
If you are going to a principal and saying, Hey, we don’t have Odyssey at our school, we want to do it. Can we organize it all of a sudden? You are creating value in your school that looks as good on your resume and helps you later in life to go to an employer and say, Hey, I want to do this. Can we start this, or even more than that? Hey? I’m strong enough to start something on my own and follow a pursuit that I care about, because you’ve had the experience in your co-curricular.
00:08:54 Megan Cannella: And just real quick. I’m sure Ryan has more questions for us. But I just wanted to add, because it was such a good point. Like, whatever you’re passionate about. You’re learning important skills and those skills you can present in myriad ways, right? I’ve worked with kids who are so passionate about like cooking and baking, but if you ask them to sit down and do math, they would be like absolutely not. But you know what you need to do for baking math. You know what’s included in baking chemistry? Like, there’s a lot of ways to look at things and to identify the skills that are being built. So. But I’ll let Frank keep doing his job.
00:09:37 Dr. Sandy Sook: Good job.
00:09:37 Ryan (Pioneer Academics): I think this is great. I mean, I think you both have highlighted the one like one of the most important things for our audience members who are stressed about deciding between co-curriculars. You know you’ve given them a very important metric which is, follow their genuine interest, follow their passion, and that will help you make good choices. So I really appreciate that.
I have, you know, a related question for this subject which is more for the international members of our audience. So because co-curriculars and extracurriculars have served such an important role in North American institutions. In the North American context, I think a lot of international students. This. This adds a layer of stress when they are applying to universities in North America because they feel a little bit behind. They feel like maybe they haven’t had access to the same kind of things as everyone else. So I wonder if you have any advice for how those kinds of students can think about these activities.
00:10:35 Dr. Sandy Sook: If I could start. We are an international company.
We have students from all over Germany and Poland, Mexico, Beijing, Odyssey is an international program, and that is one of the biggest benefits because if you have a student who wants to meet other students or wants to learn about other languages, or know about customs from other countries when they all get together, it is the most exciting thing, and a little bit later I’ll be in a in the fair part of this program. And there’s a video there that shows these kids from all over the world together, and what they do and how they get along and a lot of the benefit of being able to be in an international program.
So I, I see your point because I know that all aren’t. I’m glad we are, but I think you know. Pursue, pursue your passion again. Is the bottom line always, no matter what it is.
00:11:41 Megan Cannella: And I I’m glad that you went first handy, because I think this is a cool kind of like juxtaposition, because we are not an international organization. We work with families across the US. But we do have a lot of families reaching out to us, saying, like I’m not in the US, what can I do? And I think a good parallel in the work that we do is a lot of our learners, because they are neuro divergent. A traditional school is not necessarily the perfect fit for them. So a lot of our learners end up on a non-traditional schooling path. Even before covid, about a 3rd of our families were home schooling at one time or another. In some capacity, just trying to find situations that fit for them. And so a lot of those families who are maybe on a non-traditional track are saying, well, I’m not signing up for all the Co-Curriculars that maybe Johnny down the street at the local high school signing up for how is this going to look?
And again, I can’t over-emphasize like the narrative that you’re telling when you’re submitting a college application. It’s not just like here is my resume. Here are my test scores. Goodbye like, there are those essay questions right? There is room for you to explain what you’ve been doing. If you’re an international student and not going through kind of North American standard Co-Curriculars. You’re doing something with your time. What are you doing with your time? What are you learning? What are the connections you’re making? What is passion? What do you care about? Because colleges are also looking at like how you fit into the community?
And you’re going to be part of that community for however many years you’re there, right? And so what you’re doing now in your own community, wherever that may be in the US. Internationally, etc., like, you’re still learning, you’re still doing things. You’re still building these skills that are important for your education, for life, etc. So think about that, I think. Just open your lens a little bit and see all the things you’re doing. If you write down everything you’re doing in a day or a week. You’re doing a lot more than you think you are, and that’s true of all of us. We’re like, I didn’t really get anything done today. No, you really did a ton. And I bet you’re learning those executive functioning skills and leadership skills and team building skills. And so I think, like, just open the lens and look at all the things you’re doing, and don’t be afraid to share that.
00:14:30 Dr. Sandy Sook: I love that because you are in control of your own narrative, you are telling your own story, and I know sometimes a lot of kids worry about walking that boundary, that line between bragging and telling their story. And as long as what you are saying is true, you’re not bragging. This is an opportunity for you to be able to bring together all the good things that you are and all the things that you have, and you possess and share it with somebody. They want to know how you’re going to fit into their community.
00:15:02 Megan Cannella: Yeah. And I’m sure, Sandy, you can probably agree with this that, like all co-curriculars are not created equally, so like, if you just said like, oh, I was in Chess Club that could mean so many different things depending on the place that you’re at right, or like the community that you’re in and like. That’s true of pioneers work also. Right? Research. Oh, I do research. What does that mean?
Whatever it is you’re doing, adding that extra context will make it clear where your heart is, where your effort is and what you’re trying to accomplish, and like the role you play in your community? Because yes, just saying like, Oh, I took a math class that could mean truly anything. So having that narrative like Sandy said, sharing what you’re doing. It’s not bragging. It’s just true. That can be really helpful.
00:16:00 Ryan (Pioneer Academics): Yeah, I think I love this. I mean, I think there’s this idea that folks have that admission officers have a checklist, and they look at your application, and they’re like, Oh, yep, they check that box. They check that box and it’s not. It’s not that way like they look at your application. Right they are. They look at the context as you said. They want to know the story, so there’s no sort of list that you have to check in order to make sure that your application looks right, and I think that the metrics that you all talked about skill, development, passion. These are much better guides to decision making.
00:16:37 Ryan (Pioneer Academics): I’m wondering, since you both also have a history of teaching, you know, not just involvement with co-curricular programming for high schoolers. But also you’re you’ve both been on the other side of it, where you are educators, and you have students who come to you. And I wonder, maybe from that perspective. How do you see the value of co-curriculars like, do you? Does this ever play a role when you get great students at the college level.
00:17:07 Dr. Sandy Sook: Oh, absolutely! Do! Do you want to go first this time, Megan?
00:17:10 Megan Cannella: Oh, sure. Yeah, I agree with you. It absolutely does but maybe not at least for me, in the way that the audience might be thinking, I’ve never seen a student and thought like, Oh, they were part of 72 clubs, and only slept 2 hours a night, and like this is the best student I’ve ever had. Right?
If you’re doing that, there’s a good chance that there’s going to be some burnout after high school, and then college is going to be really hard and I have seen those high achieving students in high school come to college or be dual enrolled in my college courses and have a real hard time. Because suddenly doing all of the things wasn’t like the metric of success. You needed to be doing the thing you were doing in my class and doing it well right. And I had plenty of conversations with my dual enrolled students saying, like, Okay, what? What are you doing during the day? Like what is going on and having to break it down and say, I told one student one time I was like, you know what? Please, please don’t finish this draft. Go like, drink some water and take a walk.
I think those students who are really passionate about something and really focused on whatever growing, whatever those skills are that are meaningful to them. Those were really wonderful students because they were able to carry that passion and those skills that they had
built into my class. So I think all of my students have always been wonderful, but I think the ones that I saw struggle the most were the ones who were just trying to like Pokémon Go kind of co-curricular activities, right? Just like, let me collect everything. And I can show you I did everything and the students who maybe slowed down and focused and were a little more discerning into, in terms of like what felt right for them as opposed to what felt like what they should do.
I think that was a big distinction in what I saw.
00:19:21 Dr. Sandy Sook: Megan if they wanted us to be on this panel and show 2 sides of the same story. They didn’t do a good job, because we are talking the same language.
00:19:30 Megan Cannella: It just means we’re right, Sandy. It just means we’re right.
00:19:36 Dr. Sandy Sook: I have said to so many kids, you cannot be a jack of all trades and a master of none. Let’s go back to your kid, who is only in chess Club. If that child is in chess club, and they are managing tournaments, and they are arranging for travel, and they are making arrangements with other schools to come in and maybe show other kids how to play chess.
All of the skills that you can get from so many clubs where you’re torn apart. Most likely you can get in the one program that you’re in. I talked about a child going to a principal and saying, Hey, can we start this club or boy? We want to be part of this club, and we’d like to expand this club. And we’d like to invite these kids. And we’d like to have some neurodivergent kids with us. And we’d like to be able to show how we benefit from this club to other people. In addition to the skills that it takes to play chess.
There are so many skills that you can get from the one area that you’re passionate about, and in addition to that, you also then get self-care caring about who you are and taking care of who you are prevents that burnout that Megan was talking about.
Do a thing or 2 or 3 that you love, find joy in it, get as much out of it as you can, and form your narrative around. What makes you a whole happy person.
00:21:05 Megan Cannella: And just really quickly. I know I was saying, like, focus on the thing that drives you for a lot of people. We use the term multi potential light when you’re interested in like a whole slew of things.
The when I say focus, I don’t mean like, just deny yourself these other areas, and that you have to go all in on a specific subject area, or something like that, a specific interest? I, for one, hop from hobby to hobby all of the time. But knowing that about yourself, and still going after the things that matter to you, not just going after the things you think you should. So whether you’re like a specialist and you’re all in on chess, or you are a multi potential, and you are interested in everything, and every month is a different hobby. Just like, follow the things that you care about, because then, like Sandy said, you will take care of yourself, you will feel energized and kind of nourished by the things you’re doing as opposed to depleted and burnt out. So to all the multi potential lights out there like we see you, too.
00:22:12 Dr. Sandy Sook: Never heard that term, and I love it. And I’ve said to my gifted students before, you are in a position that is golden because you have so many interests. Don’t feel like you have to lack it, especially in your 9th and 10th grade year. Look at everything, so that you find the one that you really like, or the 2 or the 3 that you really like. And I also liked your idea, you know. Do a little bit of this, and a little bit of that. I love to run, but when I come home I crochet
You know, you do what makes you happy, and especially in 9th through 12th grade, really experiment to find out what makes you happy.
00:22:57 Ryan (Pioneer Academics): Yeah, I honestly, there’s a an issue that a lot of pioneer scholars have faced. I’ve seen this over and over again, and it’s come up in the QA. Now. So I thought that I would ask you about this because it’s related to this point. So they’re wondering, how do I even find what I’m passionate about?
And I think the sort of experimentation that you’re talking about try out different things is a good answer. But let me give you a little context to the question, because I think Ahmad has put this really well in the in the QA. He says, I’m studying 16 different subjects at school and it doesn’t allow me to figure out what I’m passionate about any advice, and I feel like I see this with scholars all the time who are taking dozens of AP exams in the spring. You know, they’re doing multiple programs at once. And they’re so focused on academic achievement with their at their school that they almost don’t have time for co-curricular sometimes. So do you have any advice for folks who feel like they just have too much academic on their plate, and then they can’t figure out what they’re passionate about.
00:24:05 Megan Cannella: Yeah, if you don’t mind, I can jump in on that.
I feel like that’s the case for a lot of the students that we work with here at Davidson. One time I was working with a student who was trying to pick which college he wanted to go to and he had all the lists he had, all like the data on the college, and he was just like, How do I know?
How do I know what I should pay, I said, Well, what are you interested in? What do you want to do when you’re not in class? And he was like, well, I don’t know. I’ve spent all this time trying to get to the good college, and finally at the good college. What do you mean? I have to pick like these other things that I’m doing in my free time. So we spent a lot of time like months talking through this. And one of the things I suggested to him. Maybe it’ll be helpful to people here is that you don’t have to go full send on the things that you’re trying out on exploring your hobbies and stuff. You can do this in small, manageable bits right if you want to try out. This student was interested in theater, but he never really had time to pursue it. And I was like, Okay, well, what if you sign up for just like a drop in improv class or something, something that would not take a huge time commitment something that he could try with low stakes and just try and see how that felt.
00:25:30 Megan Cannella: He wasn’t sure how he felt about certain subject areas. I was like, Okay, well, can you do some like not intensive research, but like watch some YouTube videos about the thing you care about or listen to a podcast like. How and how does that make you feel? What are you coming back to. I think so often. And this is a whole conversation that’s different than the one we’re having here. It’s the idea that if you love something, you should find a way to monetize it or be productive with it. And like, you don’t need to and that’s true for college applications and things like that.
You can like, Sandy said. She loves to run and crochet. That does not mean that, like Sandy, needs to become an Olympian that does not mean that she needs a crochet side business. Sandy does not need to be side hustling. She can just love these things, and you can!
You have all of these classes that you’re taking, and that’s a tremendous workload in and of itself.
What helps you relax? That is a good place to look. Do you like to run? Do you like to watch video essays on a very niche topic like that is giving you information, even if there’s no like tangible reward, or metric, or anything like that. So I’d say, start small and again open up your lens. Look at what you’re already doing. You’re probably already gravitating towards something, and you might just not be recognizing it.
00:27:10 Ryan (Pioneer Academics): Thanks, Megan, Sandy. I’m sure you probably have a great answer to this as well. But there’s one question that we’ve been getting in the chat a lot, and we only have a few minutes left. So I wanna give you both a chance to answer this one. And this is our audience members are wondering, how do they decide between co-curricular programs like once they know what they’re passionate about? There is a lot on offer and how do you make good decisions between which programs to do?
So, Sandy, could we start with you about this one.
00:27:40 Dr. Sandy Sook: Sure, I think the easiest thing to do is to talk to other people who are involved in them, and find out how much time are they committing to it? Are you actually doing that work? Are you going to have the opportunity to do something on your own? Or are you going to have to follow like a rigid routine, rigid routine and make sure to try something. We all have this. If you start it, you can’t stop it. If you start it, you can’t stop it. Sometimes you have to just dip your toe in and find out if this works for you, and if it doesn’t work for you, try something else. Move on that we have a negative connotation that you have to follow through with everything. And your high school years are just way too short.
Try it if you sincerely don’t like it, try something else, and it’s the same thing with all those classes. I’m sorry to go back there real quickly. We’ve got to help our parents understand, to not be pushing, pushing, pushing, and putting these wrong values on our kids, because our kids are trying to get into college in a way different way than we did or their parents did. So we have to be aware of the fact that we need to support our kids in finding out what it is that they want to do. And so sometimes that means stopping what they are doing.
00:28:58 Dr. Sandy Sook: Megan.
00:28:59 Megan Cannella: Agree full agree. Yes, it is not quitting like no, you just stopped doing it. It’s fine. You did not wait. You just tried something, and it wasn’t what you hoped for.
Like, Sandy said I would talk to people who are in the program. Ask if you could shadow the program but also think about like how you learn best, how you like to interact, do you? Are you a group person? Are you an on your own person. Do you want the structure of like a schedule class? Do you want to be able to do something asynchronously like think? Are you like a project person. Are you a writing person like, do you want to talk about something, or do you want to like build something, I think, thinking about how you like to engage with your learning and your topics of passion and things like that. And the folks that you work with will help you make those decisions about what a good program is. Cause. If the topic is the same, the delivery might be different, and I think that’s big. But yes, quit! Quit whatever you want to quit. If you really don’t like it, just go try something else. That would be my advice.
00:30:13 Ryan (Pioneer Academics): Thank you, Megan, and I hope, all of our audience members here will go try something out else out after this session, which is our Program Fair but before I let you go I do want to thank Dr. Sandy Sook, Megan Canella. Thank you both. This is a very interesting and too short chat. And I hope that our audience members have a new understanding, maybe of the value of co-curriculars, and their perspective might be broadened about how to think about them in the context of flying to colleges. So thank you both very much. And audience members, we do have our program fair starting at 11. I hope you will all attend. You can visit various booths, including, I think Megan and Dr. Sook have booths there. Where you can learn about lots of different co-curricular programs, ones like pioneer, including pioneers, new exciting institute, the global problem solving Institute.
So please go check some out and find out what you’re passionate about.
00:31:13 Dr. Sandy Sook: Thank you. I appreciate being asked I, Megan, I’m looking forward to learning and meeting you and spending more time with you and you did a great job honoring. Thanks.
00:31:24 Megan Cannella: Well, thanks so much. I it was so much fun to be here. And yes, please come over to the Program Fair the Davidson Booth has an info session at 11:15. So yeah, come on over.
00:31:37 Dr. Sandy Sook: Super. I’ll see you at the Info Fair as well.
00:31:39 Megan Cannella: Awesome. Great. Have a great day, everybody.
00:31:43 Ryan (Pioneer Academics): Bye, everyone, bye, bye.
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