We decided on two different ways to get our class started. One way would be to add a totally new class to middle school curriculums. In other words, the Leadership class would be an independent class of its own. Another way we could get our Leadership class into schools would be through incorporating it into another class. For example, there could be a section in a Health class devoted to leadership. While we see this way as less effective since it wouldn’t allow the Leadership class to be a year-long class of its own, this way has less budget troubles. For example, the current Health teacher could teach the class, eliminating the need to hire another teacher. Either way, we still believe our Leadership class would help Make a Difference in the area of social isolation.

My group and I believe social isolation is a big problem that has long-lasting affects. Making a Difference in this area will limit bullying, low self-esteem, low confidence and other issues that go hand-in-hand with social isolation. The community, teachers, parents, and students will need to get involved to help make the Leadership class a reality. It will not be easy getting a new class installed into middle school curriculums, but the affect the class will have will be worth the costs and efforts. Ending or reducing social isolation will have immediate and long-term affects. We will not only be reducing social isolation through our Leadership class, but we will also be creating youth leaders. Our hope is that students in our class will continue to expand on what they learn in the class and carry it with them throughout their life, continuing to Make a Difference.

First, we took a look at what causes social isolation in the first place. Kids that are left out typically are shy and may have little social interaction. Other people may view them in a negative way, causing them to remove themselves from the group. Social isolation may be a choice, or in some cases it is forced upon people. We decided some factors that generate social isolation may include low self-confidence, low-self esteem, bullying, harassment, and basic immaturity. Kids in middle school are harsh. They typically don’t have much concern for others feelings. This may be due to immaturity and the desire to fit in. Our goal is to implement awareness, responsibility, and confidence in middle school kids. But how?

Next, we had to find a way to implement this basic criteria. We decided the best way to do this would be through a leadership class. Middle schools all over the country can implement a leadership class into their criteria. Leadership classes involve a lot of social interaction. Students are constantly talking and interacting with their peers. Together, students need to solve problems and generate ideas. A leadership class will help get people out of their shells and talking and interacting with others. The leadership class will also teach kids how to be leaders and to be aware of social isolation. Kids will also learn how to be responsible and treat others as they would like to be treated. After being judges and narrowing down our criteria, my group and I found the solution to social isolation – a leadership class.

Before Lexie and Josh went to the middle school, the group did some brainstorming on how will can fix the problem of social isolation. We thought about instilling new rules in the classroom, like everyone needs to raise their hands once a class. We also thought about the teacher assigning teams in gym classes instead of the students. We thought maybe the tables could be changed in the lunchroom so it would be difficult for someone to be left sitting by themselves. However, all of these ideas seemed to have some flaws. Luckily, we did end up coming up with one idea that is sure to make a difference. We want to make a leadership class part of middle school curriculum. We are yet to decide whether the leadership class should a class of it’s own, an elective, or a part of another class (i.e. health class).

One may wonder,”What’s a leadership class gonna do to help end social isolation?”. Well, until one takes a leadership class, they may not know just how effective they are in building confidence and getting people involved. For example, in LEAD 200 we are constantly working in groups. Tony never fails to call people out and get people talking and involved in the conversation. We all have been assigned leadership roles and have had the chance to lead a group. All of these things help people come out of their shells and talk to other people. Leadership not only builds confidence but it also facilitates other positive attributes like responsibility and awareness. If we can help teach kids in middle school to be leaders, maybe we will have more leaders in our world and less people that bring others down.

Happiness is very important to me. Have you ever had a really good day and noticed how much better you feel? Mind, body, everything just is great. I love being happy! I’ve made it my goal in life to instill happiness in others through improving their life situation. Luckily, I found a few other people who also think making people happy is a great thing. After some brainstorming and exploring together as a group, we came to a consensus on what our MAD project should be about – Social Isolation.

We decided on social isolation because we all agreed on a few topics: spreading happiness, instilling confidence and ending bullying. Social isolation is an issue that incorporates all of these things. My group members and I feel it is a shame that many children are socially isolated in school. Whether it be in the lunchroom, classroom, or the playground, many kids are left out from activities and social groups. Many times, there is no reason for this. Kids may just be quiet, shy, or reserved, they may not actually want to be left out. Kids who experience social isolation tend to carry it with them throughout their school experience. I’m sure most people recall having “weird-loner” in their primary and high school years. Our goal of the MAD project is to reduce those “weird-loners” and have them become like most everyone else – socially accepted individuals. Now, I’m not trying to call anyone a “weird-loner”, I’m just proving that there are people who are isolated from social groups. Some kids don’t have a lunch table to sit at, others never get picked to be on a team. These kids aren’t weird or loners as some may think, they just aren’t being accepted. My group and I want to find a solution to this problem.

We have decided to focus on students in middle school because we all agree that middle school was the roughest time for being accepted. Kids at this age tend to be mean, selfish and down right cruel. This is also the age where kids are trying to define themselves. If we can find a way to instill confidence in middle school age kids, maybe social isolation will me lessened. If we can get kids to recognize the significance of others and to apply the “Golden Rule” to their everyday life, maybe kids will experience happiness instead of loneliness. Social isolation is a sad but preventable issue. In order for this issue to improve, we must make a difference.

In my first task, I was assigned to praise someone. I think it is important to praise people and acknowledge people for their hard work, talent and other attributes. I decided to praise my roommate, Aimee. I told her that he artwork is really pretty and that she does a great job on her art projects.

I believe that praising someone falls into the category of Commitment to the growth of people. Leaders need to help their followers grow and develop. They also need to encourage the success of their followers. Giving praise is one way to encourage growth and success among groups.

In my second task, I had to listen to someone talk about their goals and ambitions. I chose to ask my boyfriend, Zurain, what his goals and ambitions are in his life. He told me that he wants to have a happy and successful family. He also wants to make music at some point in his life. Since I know Zurain, I can tell that these are his true ambitions and goals. I believe it’s important for these goals and ambitions to be facilitated and hopefully, achieved.

I think that listening to someone talk about their goals and ambitions falls into many categories. Such categories include: Awareness, Empathy, Commitment to the growth of people, and Building a community. However, if the category must be narrowed down to one, I would say listening to other’s ambitions and goals falls into the category of Building a community. This is because leaders need to find people with common ambitions and goals in order to have their vision succeed. One must listen and understand their followers before they can all work together to achieve their common goals and ambitions.

Servant leadership is a really great form of leadership because it’s all about putting the followers first. I think this is really important because a leader must know and understand their followers if they’re all to achieve a common goal. A selfish leader may as well be working on their own because they aren’t engaging their followers and their important attributes. I hope to practice Servant leadership and work on facilitating to the needs of my followers.

Tony purposely did this exercise to show the class that we are just like every other group who participates in the “silent game”. Just about every time there is silence followed by laughs, questions, seeking help/direction, possible rebellion, and finally boredom. We all did exactly what Tony was expecting us to do! What was the point of this silence followed by chaos? Tony was trying to get us to engage in Adaptive Leadership. The challenge of Adaptive Leadership is being able to change and adapt to new problems and issues that may arise during the leadership process. There are 6 Principles of Adaptive Leadership: identifying the adaptive challenge, regulating disequilibrium, ripening the issue, giving the work back to the group, the intervention dilemma, moving to the balcony. In order to become a successful Adaptive Leader, one must be able to stay calm in an overwhelming situation, seek out other views, envision the future, take risks, learn from failure and be open and flexible. During Tony’s silence, the class should have come to the conclusion that Tony was not able to teach that day. Then, we all should have designated a new leader, or we should have become our own individual leaders. We should have taken risks and ran the class as we saw fit in Tony’s absense rather than trying to figure out what Tony was doing. We also should have sought out different options for what we could have been doing with our time.

I think this was a really cool challenge because no one even knew it was going on! I learned that sometimes you have to step up and take on the leadership role, even when you aren’t asked to. Adaptive Leadership is one more style of leadership that I can begin to learn more about and further develop my understanding of. I hope to apply this form of leadership in the future since it is definitely one worth knowing.

*information taken from Dr. Tony Middlebrooks’ powerpoint 4/27/2010

1) What are your values and beliefs and where do they come from?

2) Why are they important and why do you feel so strongly about them?

Below are my responses to the questions:

1) The majority of my beliefs and values come from my family and my religion. I have a very close bond with my family, especially my parents. They taught me how to act, how to be respectful and how to be a good person overall. Growing up I was not the model child. I didn’t want to listen to my parents or follow the rules. I thought I was the coolest thing out there and my parents were only bringing me down. I can remember numerous fights caused by my rebelliousness and immaturity. Looking back, I’m so grateful for the way my parents raised me. For example, my parents had the rule of no boyfriends until high school. In middle school, I was not about to follow that rule. Now, I wish I had listened! All I got from my middle school relationships were peer pressure, teasing, hurt feelings and bad memories. I may not have been the best child in my early teen years, but now I am proud of who I have become. I owe this to my parents.

My parents not only raised me to be a good person, but also a religious person. When I was younger going to church was one of the last things I wanted to do. I used to hide my religion because I though it was “un-cool”. Now, my faith has flourished and I’m a very proud and faithful Lutheran. I have felt my faith grow over the years and it has helped me to get through a lot. I may not be a perfect Christian and I am far from a nun, but I know I have strong faith and I’m not ashamed to talk about it.

2) I often look back and reflect on my life and how I’ve changed in past five to ten years. The conclusion I come to every time is: I’m so happy I’m not the person I used to be. I’m sure a lot of my development is due to biological maturity, but I know outside factors have helped me to become who I am today. The values and beliefs I have acquired over the 19 years of my life have definitely shown through over the short months I’ve been in college. I’m much more responsible when it comes to money, schoolwork and even partying. I have more passion and more desire to move forward in life and achieve success. Sometimes I wonder if everything my parents and religion taught me were hiding away, hibernating until college rolled around. Even my mom has noticed how much I’ve changed just from this past September.

Why is it even important that my parents instilled values in me? It’s hard to put in words the way it feels to finally be okay with yourself. I spent my early teen years trying to be cool. I thought, maybe once I’ m popular and all the boys like me and all the girls envy me, then I’ll be where I want to be. How wrong I was! I’m very happy my values and beliefs finally caught up to me. They have changed the way I act, even to the point where I almost hate the person I was. Sometimes, I can’t even believe I acted the way I did in my past. I am so happy that my parents never gave up on me. They kept loving me and pushing me to be who I am today.

Many people have religion, but why is it so important to me? Well for example, I never knew what I wanted to do with my life. I was too busy seeing who was on AIM to think about what career I wanted. I believe my faith has driven me towards my career goals: owning a non-profit organization to help the people of the world develop better, happier lives. I know there are people out there who don’t have faith in God or any deity. I mean, I used to think religion was for losers. But now, I can feel my faith working in me. I can feel it supporting me and driving me to do what I was put here to do, help others. I was lost the past few years of my life, but my faith has found me and I’m very grateful for that. Through my faith, my parents and myself, I have become a good person with a goal of spreading joy throughout the world.

My role in the group was the skit narrator. I really liked my job because I got to go around to all the groups and see what they were doing. I think doing that helped make the skits more cohesive because I could see what was going on in each group and make suggestions from there. For example, I realized two groups wanted to do a skit about bullying, but I caught it in time so that one group could change their skit. I think everyone worked really well together as both small individual groups and as one large group. Everyone made good comments and constructive criticism to better our final presentation. We were not only done on time, but we also put on a really great series of skits. Through this challenge I was able to see leadership theories in real life examples. I found this very helpful because sometimes a good visual is what I need to better understand certain concepts.

I think this was a difficult challenge because it required the leaders to take on a leadership style that they may have never experienced. I know I would have been horrible at executing the coercive leadership style. Even though it would have been difficult, I think it would be helpful to engage in other learning styles. Learning through experience is always helpful. Even though our actual challenge was not executed completely (we never go to see the reaction), I was able to learn more about leadership styles. Even more importantly, I learned when it is appropriate to use each different style.