Do the best rise to the top?

Here's my leadership question for the day:

"Do you think we live in a meritocracy?"

I'll quote Webster's definition for the word meritocracy since it's not a word most of us use everyday.

• 1. a system in which the talented are chosen and moved ahead on the basis of their achievement
• 2. leadership selected on the basis of intellectual criteria
  
  http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/meritocracy

When I was about twenty years old I read some of Ayn Rand's writings. This word, meritocracy, seems to jump back in my mind to impressions and feelings I had from her writings in Atlas Shrugged and Anthem.

• Anyway, what are you thinking about this word and this post and how does it relate to leadership, our students, and even today's leaders?
• How do we instill values in our youth to make them the greatest leaders of their time?
• How does one become tomorrow's leader - it is based on leadership ability or something else?

Schoolwide Leadership

Tomorrow we kick off our school-wide leadership initiative starting with our 8th grade class. Mr. Hein gave an overview to the Leadership class he and I co-teach and it seemed to begin to click with out class.

Tomorrow 8/19/2010 will be an exciting day because it begins the actual process for kids and that's what we're here for. We began this conversation almost two years ago and now it's becoming a reality. I am proud to be a part of this plan.

Leadership Day 2

Today's class went by quickly and fairly smoothly. Some of the kids are tuning out from time to time. I think this is fairly normal with a class like this. Tomorrow we'll mix things up so friends are grouped with people they may not know as well.

As we are planning out our days I'm starting to relax a little more. I tend to think of these students as operating on a higher cognitive level than they are probably capable of. I need to keep this in check. I need to remind myself that these are young people still and some of the deep reflection and connections that I want to think they should be making are not something they are ready for yet. And still they surprise me sometimes!

I don't intend to post each and every day's activities, but today was a lot more fun for the students and we are quickly becoming more comfortable with our students.

Leadership Class - Day 1

Well we made it through the first day of class AND school. So much planning has gone into our Leadership model for the school and we haven't had a lot of time (nil) to plan the actual class we are going to teach.

Sure we had an idea of what to do in our heads, but getting it on paper and "pouring concrete" for the entire semester hasn't really happened yet - at least not to my liking.

In a nutshell I can share that:

1. They (the students) were scared and shy. After all they are having a class with the principal and myself!
2. We were scared too.
3. They were "scared-er".
4. It takes a lot longer to actually get any task done with a full class than one visualizes.
5. Teaching young minds is easy and it's hard - not what I imagined from the outside.

We asked for first impressions today about the "student guide to leadership" that we've developed. When asked "what emotions did you feel", one student said it made him "proud to be a part of this." That statement was so honest and raw I wasn't prepared with a response, but it keeps resonating with me. I believe that PRIDE in what you are doing is vital to the success of a task and one can draw strength from it... I think I just learned something!

Leadership Class

Perhaps you're wondering what the subject is that I am teaching? We're calling the elective class "Leadership" and that's what it's all about. It is for 8th grade students - we have 27 signed up for the first day of school.

So what is Leadership and how can we teach it to 13 year old students? We've searched for material on the subject that is relevant to this age group, but don't see a lot of material for people this young. Once aspect of our school-wide model is based on Steven Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens, but there's so much more to it than that. The lack of material on the subject seems odd to me. We've spoken to many people - parents, administrators, staff, students and EVERYONE seems to really dig what we're trying to do. I don't mind that we're entering a new frontier; that's okay, we don't mind being pioneers!

Much of what we've planned thus far will involve the students being given leadership opportunities in a format where they can experiment, fail and strengthen their skills. Think of it like a sandbox where it's safe to try something and have it flop or come out smelling like roses. In both cases we learn what it means to be a leader and that's really at the heart of what we're trying to do.

Wish us luck as we begin to develop course content.

Teaching and Leadership Intro

So... I am co-teaching a class this year with our school Principal - Gary Hein. I intend to write some of my thoughts in this blog about this endevour, my entry into the REAL teaching world, and some thoughts about how our school is taking a new direction with our school-wide leadership culture.

It should be fun to discuss, ruminate and share ideas so jump in and make any comments you like. Seriously though I need lots of help with the teaching bit so please share your ideas on how to make a positive impression with middle school age kids and any insights you may have.

WEB Leadership - Name Tag Scavenger Hunt

Yesterday we met with our 8th grade WEB leaders for the first time since the start of school. We gathered in our official WEB leader room and quickly assigned them the task of finding all of their 6th grade "webbies" in the cafe during lunch. It was sort of a scavenger hunt in that the WEB leaders had to connect and obtain a name tag from each of their 6th graders.

We specifically gave few instructions to the WEB leaders and wanted to see how they would perform in this quick task. Who among them would rise to the task? How would they connect with the 6th grade students and create a feeling of belonging in our school?

Meanwhile the 6th graders had no idea what was about to happen during lunch. All they knew was that they had to wear their special name tags that they made earlier and that "someone" might be contacting them in the lunch room.

So the race was on, and the excited 8th graders quickly started tracking down their "webbies". What strategies would they use to find them? How were they to connect with each student in this sea of students, lunch-time enthusiasm and the excitement of the scavenger hunt?

With little time on their hands the 8th grade WEB leaders rose to the task. During a debrief with the WEB leaders we learned that they connected with the "webbies" and got smiles, laughter and good eye contact. They felt that the exercise was fun and that in many cases they "connected" with their 6th grade WEB students. Sure, we had a few glitches and the process was hard to complete in such short timeframe.


We did have fun and there was a general feeling of connection in the lunch room. We hope this and future WEB projects continue with this theme of connection and belonging in our school.