CATALYST MAGAZINE: Fall 2025
Learning That Builds Leaders
MATTHEW MAJALYA
Catalyst Student
My very first memory of my childhood comes on a cold San Francisco morning in January of 2013. Inside of my cozy house in (district), my toddler self sat, eyes transfixed on the TV, watching Barack Obama solemnly affirm that he would faithfully execute the office of President of the United States. Of course I didn’t know and neither did I care about that. But there were some things I did know. I knew that his skin looked like mine. His eyes were the same coffee shade mine were. His hair was short and curly just like mine was. I sat on that couch that morning and I wanted to be the President. I wanted to be that man, to smile wide as I addressed the country.
But now, as I enter the years in which I am starting to think about how I want to spend my life, I find myself in stark contrast with that little boy. I’ve stopped thinking about how I can be a leader, or make an impact in my community and started concerning myself too much with the intrapersonal: my hair, social media, learning to drive. While those things are important, somewhere along the way I lost the ability to zoom out; to strive to make an impact on the people around me.
And I don’t think I’m alone in this phenomenon. According to Youth Service America, a 2023 survey of youth-serving organizations found that only about 13% of youth overall participate in leadership and civic-engagement programs. According to long-term survey data on youth civic behavior from the National Library of Health, about 21–23 % of U.S. high school seniors engaged in community service at least once per month around 1990. Community service per month has historically been used as a proxy for leadership and civic engagement statistics. This means that more and more high schoolers are dissociating from their communities and disregarding leadership opportunities, and I made it my goal to figure out why.
I’ve identified three things that I believe to be the primary factors: top-down instruction in schools, testing that calls for memorization over true learning, and generational anxiety over daunting social issues. I believe that the Catalyst program is reversing that trend by giving its students purpose, agency, and a voice in shaping the future.
I believe the first contributor in high schoolers' dwindling passion for leadership is top down instruction in schooling. In the paper “Student-Driven Instruction, Agency, and Curiosity” (a sample of 46,084 learners), Ji Liu et al. found that “student-driven instruction” where students are allowed to influence content, methods, and pacing—is positively associated with student agency, curiosity, and self-directed learning behaviors. When teachers relinquish control to some degree, learners are more likely to act as “proactive meaning-makers” rather than passive recipients.
Teachers and administrators making unilateral decisions in terms of curriculum, methods, and pacing, encourages students to be passive rather than proactive. This style molds students into followers of directions instead of leaders who take ownership over their own ideas and learning. The loss of agency that students suffer disallows them from feeling like their voices are being heard and in turn doesn’t cultivate their leadership skills. When students’ opinions are rarely solicited or acted upon, it reinforces a message that overtime they might internalize; my ideas are not valuable and my voice has no impact.
Additionally, operating within this kind of hierarchical system leads students to conflate leadership with authority because they only see leadership in those “at the top”. The second contributor that I believe is a driving force behind the loss of leadership amongst high school students is a “memory over thinking” pedagogy. When it comes to taking tests in school, traditionally it has always been about the presidents you can name or the mathematical formulas you remember.
But what does this kind of learning do? It shapes students into robots rather than learners because it discourages curiosity. You’re not taught to think outside of the box, or find solutions to problems that may not have clear solutions yet. Part of what makes great leaders great is their ability to persevere through the abstract, and traditional schooling often falls short of that marker.
The last contributor is generational anxiety. High schoolers today more than ever are growing up in a world of sensationalism and the pervasive use of social media and technology have only amplified that trend. Not only are high schoolers more aware of the world’s problems, but with that sensationalism comes a more concentrated fear of those problems as well. Issues like climate change are so grand in scope that they feel almost impossible to contextualize. The scale of the issue is daunting enough to the point that it often induces paralysis. There are so many questions to ask, so many things to consider that it pushes young people, especially high schoolers away from confronting these issues.
The Catalyst program operates as a program within Menlo’s junior year curriculum. This semester, Catalyst has provided me the opportunity to be immersed in the things we are learning in the classroom. This is done through field visits to various companies and locations as well as with guest speakers who give insight into the things they do in the workplace. This interactive nature has encouraged us to think systemically and lead with purpose.
What makes Catalyst even more special is that it’s not simply six classes of distinct disciplines, but rather a web of interconnected classes that allow students to apply biology concepts to English class and history to engineering. This has allowed us to think holistically about the challenges we discuss, whether they be centered around climate change or how to effectively communicate policy to the public.
In these ways, Catalyst goes away from traditional “memorization” learning by forcing students to think critically about what they’re learning. Additionally, by giving students the platform to talk with industry leaders, Catalyst has enabled us students to essentially play “in the big leagues.” As a student, I can attest to the fact that that feeling of empowerment is intoxicating; it feels as though you are trusted to have a hand in helping the world change for the better. We are no longer just the students listening to the teacher but rather members of a community that is constantly striving to solve problems and be our best selves.
Lastly, Catalyst is helping arm students with optimism about the world’s problems. During a visit to Google X, we got to see an institution on the frontline of innovative climate solutions. We learned about Google X’s past successes, namely Waymo, and also got to see the incredible things they have in the works. By leaving the classroom and seeing the herculean efforts that professionals are making to fight climate change and other issues, I’ve gained newfound hope in society's ability to solve the problems of tomorrow.
I want to be clear; Catalyst is not selling some saccharine sweet vision of the world that disregards large issues as easily solved. Rather, Catalyst has given its students perspective on what has, is, and can be done to help the world. In conclusion, the Catalyst program is igniting its students desire to become leaders by giving its students purpose, agency, and a voice in shaping the future.
While the Catalyst program and Menlo as a school have more opportunities than most other educational institutions, there are still universal lessons to be learned from the way the Catalyst program operates. First, allowing students to converse and challenge the ideas of their teachers and authority figures. By cultivating a space in which it is okay to do so, students are encouraged to think independently and passionately about issues that are worth grappling with. This pedagogy allows for students to workshop their leadership skills that give them the foundation to be productive members of society after graduation.
Additionally, schooling should give students hope for the future. By acknowledging the challenges that lay ahead but also showing the solutions that are possible with persistence, schooling can reaffirm students' belief in themselves to enact change.
Ultimately, it is the role of education to craft kids into the leaders of tomorrow and we can’t do that until we give kids the space to develop their leadership skills in the classroom. Catalyst’s fresh approach to leadership and learning has helped me reconnect with that little kid who wanted to make a difference.
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