Educating Leaders Changing Futures
[Music]
[Applause]
what do leaders do
they tell people what to do
they march somewhere
they put people in lines
go in front of a line
take charge of something
do you know someone who is a leader
yes george washington
no my teacher
the principal
tom brady
i guess a teacher is a leader because a
teacher tells us what to do
are you a leader why or why not
no i am not the best on the basketball
team
yes i’m a door holder
no no i’m just
a kid yes
i’m a line leader
these are all real answers i heard when
asking children these questions
leadership has to be nurtured yet
leadership is not taught in most
elementary schools
and most children are never truly
exposed to what it means to be a leader
as someone who has studied and
researched leadership theories
i believe that in order to develop
future leaders
we need to start introducing leadership
to children
as early as preschool and kindergarten
there is both an opportunity and
responsibility to introduce leadership
at home and in classrooms and by doing
so
we can create lasting and positive
change in the life of a child
we can all debate the quality of
leadership in our country today
what is obvious is that every leader was
once a child
and children of today will become
leaders of the future
if we want to develop those leaders of
the future we must be more intentional
with developing
leadership today
most researchers point to age six as a
critical milestone in a child’s life
due to that child’s ability to begin to
reason
and their optimism about being able to
master a variety of new skills and
activities
the middle childhood years are also
extremely important for leadership
development
because that is when children are
setting their own goals and making
independent decisions by the time we’re
in our 20s we have significantly shaped
our identity
but introducing leadership to young
children rather than as young adults
allows us to engage in that process
earlier
retired u.s navy four-star admiral
william mcraven had an interesting
response to the question
what is the number one national security
issue
in america today
if you’re unfamiliar with the admiral he
commanded the special operations forces
that captured haddam hussein in 2003
rescued captain richard phillips from
the somali pirates in 2009
and led the mission that killed osama
bin laden in 2011.
his commencement speech at the
university of texas went viral after
telling graduates that if they want to
change the world
they should start by making their bed
admiral mcraven said the number one
national security issue in america today
is our country’s k-12 education system
a surprising but profound answer
while the education system is a topic
for a different tedx talk
admiral mcraven’s point was what and how
we teach
children is critical and can be
transformative
i believe that every step of school is
to prepare a child for the next step
social skills life skills leadership
development and having the right mindset
are just as important as content-based
learning
my earliest experiences with leadership
and how i came to understand what a
leader was
was by watching adults and authority
figures in my life
like most children i simply believed
leaders were adults who told other
people what to do
growing up i was fortunate enough to
have parents
teachers coaches and scout leaders who
believed in me
and wanted me to succeed in school
throughout my elementary school years i
learned that there was not one specific
trait
characteristic personality or behavior
that defined a leader
and i realized that good leaders used
their authority to have a positive
impact on others
i aspired to be like those leaders who i
looked up to
when i was in high school i volunteered
with a literacy program for at-risk
students led by our local united way
and what i saw really opened my eyes to
realizing that there are many many
children
that do not even have books in their own
home
after distributing over 5 000 children’s
books
and reading to thousands of children
over several years
and having conversations with so many i
began to realize that those
children lacked more than just books
they lacked dreams any vision of being
something
they lacked hope
the kids who tugged at my heart were
kids who believed
a good day was food in their bellies
before they went to bed
i didn’t know what i could really offer
but as others did for me
i wanted to believe in them and more
importantly
to have them believe in themselves
most children didn’t have any idea what
leadership was about but perhaps as a
topic
the idea of leadership could inspire and
engage them to think
differently all children have strengths
gifts and interests and we need to help
them find their thing
as admiral mcraven suggested what and
how we teach children
is critical so i began to wonder
why isn’t leadership taught in most
classrooms
and the fact of the matter is that
leadership is an intangible concept
it’s hard to explain and so it’s often
ignored or overlooked for young children
i brought up these thoughts with my
academic mentor while in college
dr matthew sachek and he encouraged me
to do more research
so i interviewed 100 children in grades
kindergarten through third grade
across three large local elementary
schools
and asked them the following questions
do you know someone who is a leader who
are leaders important why
what do leaders do and are you a leader
why or why not
most children believed as i initially
did that a leader was someone with a
position of power and authority
rather than seeing leadership as a
process involving influence
relationships and working toward a goal
additionally most children did not think
that they were leaders or had leadership
potential
because they were too small too young or
not
athletic i did learn that tom brady is a
good football player and a pretty good
looking one at that
using what we learned about children’s
mindset on leadership dr sachik and i
co-authored the line leader a
research-based
children’s leadership book to serve as a
resource for
parents and teachers to introduce
leadership to their children
and show children how they can
demonstrate leadership in their daily
lives
in the line leader the teacher mr owl
says that there is going to be a
classroom party with special leaders who
will be visiting the classroom
and each of the students has to do a
particular classroom job
every student wants to be the line
leader because they think
that the line leader would be the best
leader of all the students
the main character spider delegates jobs
to each of the classroom animals
but there are no more jobs left for
spider
in the end the party celebrates everyone
in the class
and they realized that spider didn’t
have to have a position of authority a
classroom job to be a leader
but that you can be a leader by being
humble helping others and inspiring them
to be the best they can be
like spider many children believe that
they cannot be a leader because they are
too young or too small
we want to illustrate that you do not
have to be big or powerful to be a
leader
each child has a gift and when they use
it they are leading
learning and growing
after reading my story to children they
had a different mindset on leadership
and answered my questions differently
they realized that leadership is not a
competition
leading others and leading good lives
can be life-changing
as a children’s book the line leader is
simply a resource
but provides an opportunity to begin
that conversation with children about
leadership
but i would advocate that so much more
needs to be done to create leadership
resources for children
i believe that if we are more
intentional about introducing leadership
at home and in classrooms at an early
age
and throughout childhood that we will do
a better job
educating the whole child empowering
children
and creating a wider pathway for success
as students begin high school college or
entering the workforce
their future and society’s future will
be better if we do
thank you