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)
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)
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