Teaching leadership to an adolescent is certainly a challenging job. In their teens, adolescents are already struggling with just trying to fit in with their social groups and keeping up with schoolwork. I work with a friend who runs a high school that focuses on leadership and entrepreneurship and had an interesting conversation on this topic with her.
A sea turtle conservation project is the advocacy and social lab that her 8th Grade class works on, and the idea is to awaken the sense of leadership among her students they implement this advocacy. I shared with her this link to the Story of Self technique at the New Organizing Institute.
Stories of difficult choices by the grandparents open up rich conversations on values and identity. Obama in his DNC 2004 speech weaves a continuous thread between his grandparent's choices and his choices as a leader. Assigning students to ask their parents about difficult choices that their grandparents made opens up good conversations at home. It also highlights the sense of family identity and the continuity between our forebearers and the current generation.
Parents ought to be engaged as partner leadership coaches since they catch the teachable moments of the student during weekends and in settings outside of school. Having conversations about leadership at the family reinforces the perspective that leadership is not a school project but an expression of personal values through one's actions. It's the parent's job to discover and cultivate their child's understanding of the world and how each individual is an active steward, even if just within the family.
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