They discuss, debate, and support each other. They work hard to include everyone in the room in the discussion. They want to grow the school spirit. They want to provide engaging activities to help build community in the school. Who is this wonderful group – my leadership class.
When I first started teaching this class, I was a little nervous to say the least. Being the new guy and not knowing past traditions of school events, I leaned heavily on the grade 12 students in the class. They patiently answered my questions as I tried to understand all the pieces of the events that we had to plan. I was able to learn a great deal about the culture of my new school as we discussed and planned events.
Through planning and executing school events we worked on developing team work skills and understanding the different roles in a team. Sometimes we stumbled with students not getting their part of the task done but each time this occurred there was always someone there to step up and help out. We discussed the impact of these stumbles on the group. These discussions were rich with ownership, understanding and ways it could have been done better.
This group has lots of fantastic ideas to increase school spirit, connect the school with the community, and have a positive impact on the environment. We are now learning about a process to create a list of “event” ideas, developing criteria to evaluate which “event” would be best, and then continue to develop team building skills to run the event. I am looking forward to the upcoming discussions and debating that is about to take place.
The development of the formal and informal leaders in a school is important – just don’t forget that some of these leaders are students.
Outtakes 