Yesterday at North Regional Library, the students did two things: a leadership discussion about Leadership at Schools, and an activity called A Leader Is… These students are always so attentive, talented, and filled with interesting ideas.

During our discussion, students talked about ways that leadership could be better incorporated into their school. The students had incredibly interesting ideas. Their main idea was to have more opportunities for students to lead in the classroom. For example, they mentioned that there could be an assigned leader for the day, and that person would take roll for the teacher, make sure that all of the students are focused, help read things out loud for the class, take the lunch pass to the office, and more. They noted that this would be a great way for students to have the opportunity to act as a leader, while also doing important tasks in the classroom and allowing students to feel like they were really making a difference in class. Students also mentioned that they would like to see more opportunities for academic clubs at school, which they thought would encourage students to address ideas such as leadership and school in more detail after school hours. They also mentioned the idea of a debate team, pointing out that having the opportunity to sit and debate/discuss different topics with their friends after school could make some of the more timid students feel more comfortable coming out of their shell and speaking up around their peers. All of these ideas had a common theme of involving students and giving them more opportunities to participate and serve as leaders in the classroom. They also mentioned that it could be important/useful to have more opportunities to learn about students’ cultures at school, and that this could also help students to feel more comfortable expressing themselves in the classroom. Opportunities to explore culture through student organizations, food, and more were all suggestions mentioned by these students. I was very impressed to see how well in depth the students had thought about leadership and ways for everyone to feel more comfortable speaking in the classroom. Since both of these students are naturally louder/feel comfortable expressing their ideas at school, I was also happy to see that they had thought about their other friends who are more quiet too.

Then, students conducted the A Leader Is… activity, where they came up with a short poem about what it means to be a leader. They did a great job of taking turns and thinking about characteristics of leadership that are not very obvious, but that are very important to make sure that someone not only is respected, but that the person respects and cares for others with humility and kindness. Their full poem can be found below:

What it means to be a leader

Is like counting 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Here are the steps to

Becoming a leader

Step 1: Build self-confidence

Step 2: Give respect/gain respect

Step 3: You gotta rise above

Step 4: Gotta be the bigger person

Step 5: Do fun activities

Step 6: Don’t become

possessive, be FUN!!