BY DAYO ADESULU
Award-winning children’s book author, Dan Freedman made a guest appearance at Greenwood House School’s Leadership Series. The initiative was set up to prepare students for their secondary education, careers, and leadership opportunities.
The series started in February 2020, with conversations with Blessing Okagbare the Nigerian Olympian. Dan Freedman, who is best known for his hugely popular series, the Jamie Johnson football novels, was excited to have a sit-down and discuss his career journey and book series with the primary 5 and 6 students of Greenwood House School.
The event which was held virtually via Zoom had Freedman share some inspiring stories about his childhood and how he had faced rejections but never gave up. As a matter of fact, he asked the children to change their relationship with rejection to an opportunity to learn, improve and later achieve their goal. The author also spoke about his passion for writing and giving inspirational talks at schools and sports clubs to encourage young people to pursue their dreams. The students were given the opportunity to ask questions and talked about how they are working to become better leaders.
Speaking about the Leadership Series, School Co-founder and Administrator, Dr Ekua Abudu revealed the idea behind creating the initiative for the students. In her words, “Greenwood House School is committed to nurturing positive attitudes, values and discipline required to achieve excellence in the classroom, on the playground, and in future endeavours. The Greenwood Leadership Series plays a key role in ensuring that the students are positively impacted and encouraged to take on leadership opportunities in the future. It is our goal to continue the series throughout the school year and invite more guest speakers to share life lessons and career experiences. We are a close-knit community at Greenwood and this talk with Dan Freedman was arranged by one of our Parents Mr Koye Sowemimo. It is always nice that our parents work with us to ensure we get the best out of our children.”
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“Dan Freedman’s appearance at Greenwood House School is one the students will never forget. Many of them have read his books and look up to him in the field of creativity and literature. Perhaps the most interesting takeaway from the session was when he shared that his role model was his schoolteacher who encouraged him to keep writing stories. We were so delighted to have him and look forward to more of such collaborations”, Dr Abudu added.
Greenwood House School is an independent, friendly, Nursery and Primary School in the highbrow area of Parkview Estate Ikoyi, Lagos. It runs classes from creche through the nursery to primary six and accepts children between the ages of 3 months to 10 years irrespective of their cultural and religious backgrounds. It is one of the top primary schools in Nigeria with an impressive record of academic successes.
