P. ersonal
I. nquiry P. roject
HOW DO WE DEVELOP POSITIVE LEADERSHIP SKILLS IN ELEMENTARY STUDENTS?
BY: EVAN WEST - EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION
"The youth of today are the leaders of tomorrow" Nelson Mandela
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ABOUT MY PIP
Recognizing a need
During my PSIII experience, I was fortunate enough to be placed in Coalhurst Elementary School, located in Coalhurst Alberta, Canada. My PIP was created during my time there in order to help fill a need that the school had. Below is my explanation for how the project came to be.
During the first month of my practicum, I started to notice how awkward some of the student interactions were, and how many of the students were still incredibly shy, especially in the early grades. It is not unusual for a discussion about our earlier years in elementary school to include anectodal evidence of "how shy we were", or how "awkward we remember being". We even learn as educators that during the elementary school stage, children are faced with the task of comparing themselves with their peers and how they measure up to each other. These students are constantly developing a sense of pride in their work and their accomplishments in school, sports, social activities and family life. I
began to become more and more aware of the student interactions.
During the first month of PSIII I witnessed multiple students not knowing how to interact with each other on the playground. For instance, I witnessed one student asking a peer if he could play with him in a very shy manor. The other student shrugged him off, ignoring his request completely without an answer. I began to witness other situations where the students would have benefited from having a peer or a teacher engage with them in some group activities, or in mediating discussions to reduce tensions between classmates. I began to realize that it was not a character flaw that I was observing, but instead it was simply a lack of understanding of how to properly interact with each other. I began to think that there may be some opportunities to introduce these leadership skills to students around the school and to possibly initiate a communal feeling on the playground and in the classroom.
I realized that both my adolescent experience in air cadets, combined with my experience as an adult where I taught Air cadets, were very well suited for this project. My background brought about the inspiration to research the effective leadership strategies that an elementary teacher could work on with their students during the elementary grades one through six. I started to inquire about if there were leadership programs in place, or if there were any leadership programs that the school had tried before and abandoned.
In my initial investigation, I found out that there were a few programs that they tried over the years but were unsuccessful in continuing for various reasons. I began to wonder why these programs failed, as well as what elements in those programs were effective in developing the traits of a leader among elementary students.
In my PIP development I ended up with the end goal of dissecting various programs apart, combining their strategies with mine, and in doing so I wanted to develop a list of proven leadership education strategies that teachers could implement and adapt for their own use. I want to use this research in the future to develop my own leadership/mentorship program.
The Sources I Consulted Early on in my pip
Since this is a research based project, the first step for me was to start to identify what programs were out there for elementary students. I started to gather resources on the various programs that Coalhurst elementary utilized in the past, including the 7 Habits, the leader in me program, as well as the Buddy Bench program. I also knew that I wanted to include some scholarly articles and research if available, and talk to those who had lots of first hand experience with these programs.
With such experienced teachers and administrators, I found that Coalhurst Elementary staff had a plethora of knowledge on the various programs. The Vice Principal ,Sharleen Albrecht, has been a tremendous wealth of knowledge on the Leader in Me program as she was one of the first in the district to try to implement it within her classroom and eventually within her first school. I set up an initial interview with her, discussing with her some of her own experiences with the program. I also obtained a large collection of resources from the school on the Leader in me program, allowing me to effectively research and get background knowledge of the program. This included its training and its statistical findings of its effectiveness.
After I was able to research a few of the leadership programs out there, I set up official interviews for both my Principle, Chris McIntyre, as well as my Vice Principal Sharleen Albrecht. During these discussions, I brought to the discussions some of my findings and asked them their opinions of the effectiveness of some of the strategies, as well as their experiences with the various other programs.
Select the image or source below for a direct link to more information about that resource or person (where available).
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By: Stephen Covey
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Elementary Staff
Challenges
One of the challenges that arose during my completion of my project was the sheer size and content of some of these programs. The Leader in me and the 7 Habits programs took me the majority of my research period to complete. The scope of this program was in a sense overwhelming, and I had to combine it with the Staffs Leader in me 3 day training program to achieve an appropriate level of understanding.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is a 3 full day training seminar. I highly recommend it!
What did I discover?
There are some key elements that continually came up in my research, interviews and general discussions about leadership in Elementary. These elements are outlined below. These are key elements that any teacher should include in their day to day teaching, both inside the classroom, as well as outside the classroom, whether it be during extracurricular activities or recess. .
We need to remember that every child has the potential or has a hidden genius. If you can find out what their genius is, it allows you the opportunity to have them teach their peers or you all about it. Being able to transfer knowledge and abilities to others is a skill of a leader. When they are passionate about something they also have higher self esteem and are more willing to engage in activities.
EVERYONE HAS GENIUS, NOT ONLY A FEW PEOPLE ARE GIFTED. "leader in me program".
EVERYONE HAS GENIUS
Teachers need to keep in mind that every child has the potential to be a leader in something they do. There are ALWAYS opportunities for students to take leadership positions. Whether you allow them to create a team leader to coordinate a project, or having a leader rally the soccer team together for warm-up.
THEY CANNOT BE A LEADER UNLESS YOU PROVIDE THEM WITH OPPORTUNITIES.
EVERYONE CAN BE A LEADER
For whole school programs to be effective in developing positive leadership skills in students, you need to have all the staff buy into the concept or program. It seams like all accounts of failed programs, that the staff was forced into following the program, and really never saw the benefit or end goal of the program enough to want to make the effort. For administration to force a program into a school without having the passion, drive, and full backing of the staff, they are guaranteeing that the program will fail. This is true regardless of how costly the program was.
ALL STAFF HAVE TO BUY INTO IT WILLINGLY
One of the best and most common successful practices in developing strong leaders in the school and classroom is to encourage the students virtue development. Working on developing their sense of responsibility, honesty, Integrity, Patience, Respect, Kindness, Compassion and Perseverance are important.
The virtues all are elements of caring for others, and help the student understand that sometimes caring for others is just as important as their own happiness. Through the virtues, you can teach them about doing the right thing, even when it is hard. They can learn about standing up for important principles such as fairness and justice. They understand how to be respectful, even if it makes them unhappy and even if their peers or others aren't behaving in the same way as they should.
The virtues work so well and easily tie to leadership because they transfer out of the classroom and into their daily lives. This is a key element to my future leadership programs/training.
TEACH THE CORE VIRTUES
For a program to be effective, there needs to be strong people willing to go the extra mile to help the kids and to work out any problems that arise. They need to be able to go in with the kids and model the essentials of leadership. Staff benefit from having administration demonstrate what good leadership is by coming into the classroom frequently and giving a good example to the kids. After all , students learn best from watching and emulating what they see.
YOU NEED STRONG PEOPLE GUIDING THE STAFF/STUDENTS
Many of us can say what are the benefits of leadership in the classroom, but while we are teaching we tend to loose focus on what the end goals are.
What are some of these goals? We all want our kids to make good decisions for the right reasons, not because they were told to do so. You want to look out and see the kids are looking out for each other and the school, as well as having them become advocates for the community. However you (as a teacher) model this and carry this concept into your school community is up to you and your fellow staff.
KEEP THE END GOAL IN MIND
For a teacher to develop good leadership, students must not only engage in leadership opportunities, but they must engage willingly. The "buddy bench" program fails frequently because students are forced (encouraged) to help a lonely child sitting on the bench. Two reasons it usually does not work (not saying it never works, but frequently it doesn't). One reason is that it ostracizes the student sitting on the bench even more. Secondly students feel obligated to help that child in need on the bench . Students naturally have empathy for their classmates, so focus more on teaching skills to approach each other and how to find something meaningful that they could engage in together.
GOOD LEADERSHIP IS NURTURED AND COMES FROM WITHIN THE STUDENT.
Engage students while they are participating in simple play activities. This can be on the playground or during free period. As soon as a child complains that someone is not doing what they want to do, encourage them to learn that sometimes others join us or we join them, and that sometimes they do not want to do what we want to. We need to have a little give and do what they want to do. Teach them its not all about what they want all the time.
GIVE AND TAKE
Leadership programs that succeed usually have real tangible projects attached to them. A sample project like the Dominca Fundraising program at our school is doing is a great example. Teachers and students rally around the Dominica schools and can see in a real way how their empathy, respect and compassion will have tangible end benefits., The students feel that they have accomplished something.
CREATE VALUABLE PROJECTS
Part of being a good leader is working together as a group to solve a larger goal or task. One example of this is seen in athletics, where students need to develop cooperation, respect for their teammates, and they also learn to respect their opponents. Intangibles like these are much more critical to the success of a program than anything else. The end goal should be these intangibles, such as cooperation, rather than have them complete that poster or win provincials.
Provite opportunities in the classroom to work together. Instead of solving a problem for them, have them come up with a solution that works for them for the project.
DEVELOP A STRONG SENSE OF COOPERATION IN THE CLASSROOM
If a child comes up to a teacher and says something is wrong, you have to ask yourself what the motivation is behind it. Try the proactive approach and have them become someone that can solve their own problems. Dissuade them from just tattling on each other.
From the 7 habits program, Think Win/Win is a great concept that helps with independency. They need to learn that everyone can be successful and can compromise for the happiness of others. They work towards learning not to put others down to get what they want, but instead that they can make others happy and solve a problem as a team.
SOLVING PROBLEMS (recess focused)
As many administrators and teachers have seen, some leadership programs such as the Leader in me, can be very large. When a team decides to not pursue the programs in their entirety, many resort to making the elements of leadership just a health lesson topic. This is most common with the 7 Habits program. It is important to remember to engage in these habits outside the health classes, and to engage in the core "virtues" at all times.
LEADERSHIP IS MORE THAN JUST HEALTH LESSONS
Nothing kills the passion about something more than using worksheets and workbooks. Leadership and teamwork is something that cannot be just defined, tested and practiced on paper. Students must engage in the material first hand, experience it for themselves, and internalize the concept. Workbooks just allow them to reflect what they were taught and then move past the concepts. Get them engaged in opportunities to demonstrate what they learned!
NOT JUST WORKBOOKS
To teach students effective leadership skills, you do not need to invest in these large and very expensive programs. Yes there are very wonderful core elements to these programs and they have lots of value to them. Unfortunately, a program can become so large and contrived that it fails due to its own complexity. The programs eventually become artificial as time goes on, and become more robotic than functional. It becomes less Transferable (See transferable point)
The best thing administration can do is invest in its staff. Passionate teachers that can demonstrate good leadership to the students goes much farther than expensive programs that the staff is not behind. Lighthouse schools are great, but it does come at a cost. You can develop great leadership in your students without spending a penny.
You cannot buy leadership
Don't be afraid to approach complex concepts or language that the students can use and internalize when talking about leadership. An effective element in many programs is the common language used between the teachers, students and parents. If students and parents can use the language at home, the students are more likely to internalize their true meaning. An example would be "An act of Kindness". It gets the parents asking and engaging with their child what that actually means, and they will entice them to demonstrate it to them.
Common language also has the added benefit of getting those conversations started between teachers and parents, discussing thier childs goals and their future.
USE COMMON LANGUAGE
Teaching new concepts and leadership key words such as Integrity, sympathy or phrases like "sharpen the saw" is great, but it means nothing if those are not transferable into the students daily habits. Students need to obtain a deeper meaning of it and it needs to sink in. You need to do more than just specify what it is or highlight the phrase for the month. You need to show the students what it looks like, engage in the practical application of it. By incorporating it into their daily lives they are more likely to continue it into their futures.
IT MUST BE TRANSFERABLE TO LIFE OUTSIDE CLASSROOM
Provide opportunities for children to join various causes, whether it is to help the community reduce its homelessness, support girls education in developing countries, or bring attention to abused animals. Doing this allows them to naturally want to engage as a leader in the community.
PROVIDE OPPORTUNITIES
How has this project impacted my Future teaching?
There are few key elements that I have personally internalized when working with my class during this PSIII practicum. The first is to be always looking for the students "Inner Genius". I am realizing that each of my students have something very special that they are good at. I have been using this to my benefit during Non Fiction writing time, where a student writes about all the steps of something they like to do. I am finding that they are much more passionate about writing if they feel confident in the subject. This translates to the quality of their presentations as well.
I also found myself thinking about Inner genius during volleyball practice. I supported their individual successes, and was always trying to see if they had an inner genius they could share with others.
I have learned that with almost all types of programs out there, that there is not one solution that will solve your problems. This goes the same for leadership programs. As I grow into an effective teacher and leader of the students, I know I need to learn to take elements that work for me from these programs and to implement them into my classroom.
I know that it can be dangerous to become comfortable with a system and to just wait for change to come down the chain of command. It is important to know that change can start with me in the classroom, how I address and work with the students, and how I teach the elements to the students and engage with it. I know that I want to teach my students about the key virtues, and I now know that it is incredibly important to have them experience these virtues and engage in first hand experiences to really transfer the concepts into their daily life. It's not just good enough to teach it as a health unit and to walk away after they pass the definition test.
I am also noticing when there is a deeper understanding of some of the key virtues that we are teaching. I have been using the Class Dojo Big Idea programs to teach my students weekly about virtues such as Empathy, Perseverance, or having a growth Mindset. I saw one of our students really take hold of the “Acts of Kindness”, and begin to create various acts of kindness around the classroom and to her peers. It was artificial at first I believe, but over the course of a few weeks she witnessed the impact it was having on her peers and her teachers. She has continued to do these acts of kindness for about a month. She has obviously internalized the impact she was having and obviously understands what it means. Because of this, I know that she is far more likely to keep developing this virtue in herself. It would not have been transferable to the real world had she not had hands on experience with practicing it.
I want to prevent my students from experiences the sense of inferiority and inadequacy, causing issues with their interactions with peers which transfers into adolescence and eventually adulthood. I am planning on using many of these points I outlined in my future classroom.
Contact me
Evan West: Early Childhood PSIII Student