Helping other reach new heights

On June 12, 2009 the second session of HSSP took place. The structure of the meeting consisted of: icebreakers, a major activity, and a discussion of leadership characteristics.

After the students finished filling out administrative forms, the group took the students outside to play "Big Wind Blows" in Killian Court. In the game one person would stand in the middle and the rest of the students would form a circle around that person. The student in the middle of the circle would then announce their name and then say something about themselves. Then, people who have that same thing in common would then move to the middle of the circle and find a new position in the circle. The cycle would then repeat with a new person in the middle of the circle.

In addition to getting to know each other, that session also helped students reflect and start planning out what they hoped to learn this summer. Students were given 15 minutes to write a letter to themselves stating what skill they wanted to develop, things that they wanted to learn, their plans for high school, and where they wanted to be by the end of the program.

After the letter, we split the students into groups five groups. Each group had a discussion on what leadership was, why leadership was important, and what they could do to be more affective leaders in their communities. While the discussion was informative, I thought that the students really learned the most about leadership when the groups competed against each other in a tower building contest. In the contest each group had 15 minutes to use 25 sheets of paper to build a tower. While it was impressive to see the students apply the leadership skills that they had just talked about into the tower building project (communicating clearly, setting out a plan, and utilizing everyone’s talents), I was touched when one girl said "I'm no structural engineer, but I will make sure to fold as many papers into triangles as I can." While simple, these words were powerful because it showed that being a good leader doesn't necessarily mean being extremely talented, rather it means using the gifts that you have to help the people around you.