The first broad meaning of what it means to be a KIPPster is that you have to accept the general rules and standards of the school. Some of these include wearing a uniform, earning your desk on your very first day as a KIPPster, mastering the specific grade level values, and doing your homework every night. These tasks are often very simple, and if you have trouble embracing them, then you won’t have a solid foundation for your future years as a KIPPster.

After you have your solid foundation, then the remainder of the journey is totally dependent on you and utilizing the values you learned as a young KIPPster. It’s up to you to treat people with respect. It’s up to you to open your mind and accept responsibility. Being a KIPPster means that you master these values early on, and you carry them with you for a lifetime.

For me, it took an eye-opening experience to make me realize how important it is to use these values at all times. In seventh grade, I had to learn the hard way. I had mastered the seventh grade values of accepting responsibility and employing teamwork, but I wasn’t treating my teachers with respect. Respect was one of my sixth grade values. I didn’t carry that value with me and thought that I would be able to go on the seventh grade field trip to Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. However, I did not earn the field lesson and was crushed. True, I did master my values at the seventh grade level, but I dropped the values I learned in sixth grade.