Leadership Class is under new leadership this year. Although there is only one section of
the class, it is full of students who work on building one another other--and the school--up. Social
Studies and Leadership Teacher Mrs. Julia Olson says, “Leadership is the
ability to guide people to work together to accomplish a common task. It is
such an important skill in so many areas: work, church, home, everywhere.”
Agreeing with that Sophomore Yadira Lara adds, “Leadership is having knowledge
and knowing your strengths as well as those [of the people] around you.”
According
to Junior Deperish Cole, “The purpose [of the class] is to show students how to
be a better leaders, and we learn different leadership styles.” Mrs. Olson adds
“Students learn about effective leaders of the past, leadership styles and how
they affect people working in groups.” As a way to test these different
leadership skills, the class has fishbowl discussions about different topics
and ideas. It helps them to work on skills they need as leaders such as listening
while others speak.
Not only
does the Leadership class teach students how to be leaders, it also gives them
a chance to really show their abilities. The students get to plan and work on
various activities like Spirit Week. Yadira says, “It is really fun planning
Spirit Week, as a class we came up with different themes, games, and activities
that are way different from last year.” Mrs. Olson adds, “We have just finished
our planning for Spirit week and are going to be working on the Blood Drive as
soon as our proposals are approved.” This gives the students something to look
forward to and to be proud of, and puts their developing leaderships skills to use.
Speaking for herself and the rest
of the class Yadira said, “We are looking forward to Spirit Week so we can show
how important planning is to the success of an event, and to show that we as
students can accomplish something so big.”
--Contributed by Sophomore Ramanda
Davis
