Summary and Conclusion of SOAR

Samuel said "You have to be confident and have initiative." These words summarized his leadership learning experience through SOAR. Today, students also discussed extroverts and introverts, judgment versus perception, and reviewed a variety of issues brought forth in the leadership series.

To sum up, Susan emphasized that everyone does things differently and that what seems natural to one person may be approached differently by someone else. Good leaders, she said, are not judgmental. Students gave Susan some feedback on the questions that were asked in their leadership journals. Evan said, "You always feel the same when you go by your values and when you do not." Jessie said that it was easy to answer what she learned from each day's class, but that the questions about living by your values were more difficult for her. Matt suggested doing the values clarification exercise a second time after several additional sessions. "A good leader will ask for feedback," said Susan.

Students watched "Celebrate What's Right With the World." Susan said that one of her favorite types of leadership is servant leadership, where the leader brings out the best in everyone else. At the end of your B'nai Shalom career, she said, "Your world is full of possibilities and you can celebrate what is right with your world."

Susan asked each student come up with a personal goal for leadership development, listing two strengths, and the two things that are areas for growth, noting one goal of to accomplish by April 30.

Some of the goals students shared:
Zach: "Speak up more."
Matt: "Use my talking skills at better times."
Kendall: "Keep an open mind more often."
Jessie: "Be more non-judgmental about people. "

At the end of the session, students evaluated the leadership portion of SOAR. A summary will be posted in April.

Vision

David Altman, president of the Board of Trustees, was today's guest speaker. He got the students' attention right away by recounting how he challenged a member of the Class of '06 to run up the steep snake path of Masada at 4:30 AM during the 8th grade Israel trip. Unfortunately for the proud students, David won the race! His challenge to this class was "Articulate your own vision for leadership!"

In order to wake everyone up and get the brain gears moving, Dave shared some definitions for leadership from Daniel Gilbert, Henry Ford, Greg Mortenson and Mohammed Yunus, a Nobel Peace Prize winner from Bangladesh. Humans, unlike any other animal, can think of the future, said Gilbert. Ford, on the other hand, had a vision of replacing horses with a motorized device - the car. Yunus was an economist with a vision to end poverty by starting a bank to loan money to poor women to start business. Students were familialr with Greg Mortenson, a climber trying to climb up K2; his vision was that poor girls in Pakistan could be educated if there were schools for them. Mortenson connected with the local villagers and so his schools were not destroyed by the Taliban.

After giving a few examples of people with well-defined visions, Dave turned to Martin Luther King Jr. and his dream - or vision. Students watched a clip of MLK's famous speech, identifying key phrases that made it "stick" such as "I have a dream" and "free at last, free at last." Students sorted through stacks of famous phrases, choosing and sharing those that were meaningful to them. This gave them some ideas about the power of a few well-chosen words and phrases.

Next, Dave showed the "Lost Generation" clip in which phrases are read forward (negative impact) and backwards (positive impact). "Words make a difference," he said, "reversing them changes their meaning." As an example, he shared the web site wordle.net. Wordle makes word clouds, (graphic pictures) with words. The size of a word is a representation of how many times the word occurs. In the mission of B'nai Shalom, the words "Jewish" and "students" are most prominent, followed by "academic" and "community."

Dave distributed quotes and asked students to explain what they liked about them in terms of vision. He told the story of Hemingway, who wrote a short story in six words: "For sale baby shoes never worn," and shared the slogan for Navy Seals: "Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast. " Students discussed various interpretations of the two "short stories before writing six words each that summarize/epitomize their visions for their own leadership in the years to come.

A few "short stories" of their visions are noted below:
"Always keep taking on new challenges." (Chase)
"To the future we all go." (Russell)
"Life is a mission. What to do?" (Dima)
"Keep trying. You'll be successful." (Matt)
"If failure, assess and reattempt situation." (Jessie)
"Be yourself, no one else can." (Kendall)
"Work hard, have fun, breathe air." (Jake)
"Use what you learn. Make mistakes." (Jennie)
"Live carefully, choose carefully, live good." (Evan S.)
"Think outside the box, or else." (Evan B.)
"Who am I? I don't know." (Micah)
"Learners always have an open mind." (Zach)

Giving and Receiving Feedback

Do people trust more what you say - or what you do? This was the provocative question with which Dr. Renn began today's session. Dr Renn told the eighth graders, "What people want to see in you is what you do. Behavior is what people watch and determines what you really believe. When you are inconsistent in what you say and what you do, trust issues develop. Your behavior leaves a lasting impression."

As the students contemplated his words, Mike asked, "How can we help ourselves and others understand our own behavior? Feedback in school includes grades (information on how you did) and teacher comments. You get feedback all day long in school and also from parents at home. This feedback may be positive or negative. Friends give feedback as well and can be the most difficult to deal with. To give and receive feedback, you need will and skill." "You have to have the courage to speak up and tell them," said Kendall. "It takes courage to give and to receive feedback," said Dr. Renn. "We are reluctant to hear negative feedback. It is hard to teach the will to grow and develop and get better, but we can teach the skills to be better at giving and receiving feedback."

Russell said feedback "can be used to get someone to stop something that he is doing." Dr. Renn added, "You also might give feedback to get someone to start doing something or to continue. Stop, start and continue are the three reasons for giving feedback. This assumes that the person giving feedback wants to help the other grow. Sometimes, however, giving feedback is self-serving. If someone is being mean, you must give him feedback that is specific to tell him what he is doing that is mean. When people do not understand feedback, they do not know how to change behavior. Effective feedback tells the behaviors that you want someone to stop doing. "

Dr Renn shared the SBI model: Situation - Behavior - Impact. Describe the situation specifically, note the specific behavior, tell how it made you feel. This offers a chance to do something differently - something specific.

Dr. Renn next distributed sticky notes with instructions to think about a situation where students wanted to give someone feedback: yellow for situation, green for behavior, purple for impact. Students shared a few examples:

Micah: S: Monday, 1:30 P.E., people hitting each other with birdies. Impact was saying stop and giving negative feedback.
Matt: Last Thursday, basketball, officiating was bad; giving other team advantage.
Zach: On the way to art, someone got me in trouble for falling on top of me, impact was getting me in trouble, felt person was trying to get me in trouble.

Mikes stressed that situation is about time and place - the scene of the behavior. This is important for clarity so the person giving feedback understands the scene. He said, "Things that individuals do can often be expanded to include others in a school environment. This compels you to give feedback in order to not e a part of the situation. This is important in schools in particular and makes it harder to give feedback. Other people's behavior has a daily influence. Feedback is about feelings, and this is uncomfortable for many of us. Giving feedback is easier than receiving it. These are responsibilities that we have. You can decide to hear the feedback or not - and change behavior or not. Use the SBI model to give feedback." Dr. Renn gave students a homework assignment - to try the SBI model with someone in the next week.

And a short visit to jail

Leadership training includes learning about models to emulate - and pitfalls to avoid.

Last Wednesday, the eighth grade spent several hours visiting Elon Law School and Guilford County Jail. Below are a few excerpts from student journals.

"When walking from Elon Law School to the jail, I started thinking about what the jail might be. I came to the conclusion that it would be very scary and that I would have to brace myself....If only everyone cold talk this tour and be right there with jail life...it certainly changes the views I have on this whole subject." (Matt)

"...this trip made me realize that under no conditions would I ever want to end up in one of those cells. After seeing where all of the women were kept, I was shocked. They had absolutely nothing to do. You had two options, to sleep or read. I could never imagine having to do that every day for up to two years." (Jessie)

"...everything was very industrialized. We were completely surrounded by concrete all of the time and the colors of the pain on the walls were unsettling at best. I couldn't help but notice the contrast between his jail and the early medieval cell of Hannibal Lector in Silence of the Lambs." (Samuel)

"Seeing the inmates in person was frightening and inspirational. It showed me what will happen to you if you break the law. It made me think about the consequences for my actions." Russell

"We talked to students...who told us a little about what they wanted to do after finishing law school and why they chose to do it." Zach

"Visiting the jail really changed my perspective." (Jennie)

Thanks to Steve Friedland for organizing this trip for BSDS eighth grade.

The Roles We Play

Leadership training continued with a session devoted to role-playing.

Cate Wineburg visited SOAR this morning to discuss the roles students play in their peer group. She assigned roles to six students, distributing headbands to define positions for everyone except the person playing the role (who was told to "act normally"). She set the stage: Friday afternoon, ready to go home and get ready for Shabbat, exhausted from a hard week even though soccer practice and play practice looms before day's end. Despite the trying situation, the head of school (this is part of the role play), asks the class to meet and talk about the upcoming class trip. Students wore headbands defining their roles, but did not know who they were playing. Observers were asked to watch the role play. Players were asked to respond to each speaker according to the role listed on the player's head. Roles included: most popular, athletic team player, leader of the class, comedian, bully, a serious student.

Cate asked each player what it was like to have peers respond in their assigned roles. Players said that it felt strange to play a role that was uncomfortable or unfamiliar. The assigned "leader" and "popular student" acknowledged that they enjoyed playing their roles, but the"bully" felt that no one was paying attention to him and that he was pushed to the side when giving his opinion. The observers noted that they saw some of the players in a different light because of the roles assigned in this exercise.

Students talked about the bully role, adding that the bully could also be the comedian, the good student, and the class leader, possibly motivating the group to go in a different (and less positive) direction.

Cate asked what roles students play out of school and wondered if students expected role switches in high school. Evan mentioned that they would go from being eighth grade leaders to "lowly freshmen" in a new school. Matt and Evan S. thought about new opportunities and the chance to change and get a fresh start. Cate taught the concept of role freeze or role grip - locking of someone into a particular role without allowing for potential change and growth. She encouraged students to try to get to know new people beyond first impressions.
"Leadership," Cate said, "means stretching beyond the comfort zone to get to know people who may be different from oneself."She referred to non-verbal cues as 90% of communication and talked about differences in personal intention and impact on others.

Though they enjoyed the role play, students also began to reflect on their roles (past and current) in the class and how these roles will change and develop in the coming months as they transition to high school. We also spoke briefly of the upcoming Israel trip and the impact of "role freeze" versus allowing for possibility of change in new surroundings.

Alignment of Head and Heart

Ronnie Grabon started the day by reviewing values students chose as important. Students listed family, friends, freedom, achievement, happiness, integrity, love and fun as important values. "Values influence decisions," she said, and then asked who thought of themselves as extroverted or introverted. Students had some difficulty pegging themselves as one or the other. "What do you think about when deciding what high school to attend?" Ronnie asked, telling students to write down all of their considerations.

One group of students listed diversity, academics, bigger environment, closeness, and more friends as their main considerations. The second group listed education, future, social environment, sports, "where will I end up," size, enjoyment, friends, "who I am," "what I want to do there." The first group's list was smaller, more specific, while the second group had broader topics and bigger questions. This, she said, is the difference between sensing and intuition on the Myers Briggs. The first group has a sensing preference (details) and as "intuitives" they tend to look at the big picture instead of the details. Ronnie asked students to think if there were times that they missed either the details or the "big picture." The intuitives said that they noticed this to be true for them.

The groups were then divided (unbeknownst to them) into "thinkers" and "feelers" (Myers Briggs) and told that they needed to influence their parents to purchase something they needed to have. The "feelers" said they needed to state their case, come up with a way to please both sides, "start fighting" (use coercion), cry, pout, or if necessary, throw tantrums. The thinkers said that "they'd make it up on the spot" and "everything they say, object." Evan said he'd do chores and make suggestions. Russell suggested asking politely, showing responsibility, and state reasons the desired object might help. Ronnie explained that "thinkers" tend to be very rational and give a lot of reasons, while "feelers" use feelings to make their arguments. "Thinking and feeling" she said, "are used for making decisions." The key is to find alignment of one's head and one's heart.

Students then examined the results of their own Myers Briggs assessments while Ronnie explained how the results were tallied. Ronnie encouraged students to think about these results as they go through their day and decide whether or not they accurately reflected how they saw themselves. "When you find yourself approaching a problem from a feelings perspective, you are likely to be stronger in the 'feelings' category" she added. Ronnie handed out an explanation sheet for the four categories and asked students to think about what was true about them. "Does it really describe you?" she asked. "The instrument only tells you how you prefer to act, but it does not mean that you can't act the other way," she said. Students pondered these issues of self-examination as they left class, with instructions to reflect on what they learned in their leadership journals.