The Leader in Me Conference

I went to the Leader in Me conference on Saturday April 7th. This conference lasted from 8am-12pm and had a lot of great information to go along with it. We started the conference in one of the bigger lecture halls in Schindler, with about 100 people at the conference. There were students from UNI, Wartburg, and a few from Hawkeye Community College along with elementary school students from St.Edwards Catholic School, Orchard Hill Elementary, and Lou Henry. They had students between the ages of 2nd grade and 5th grade represented from these three schools to give presentations about each of the 7 Habits. The 7 Habits are (1) Be Proactive, (2) Begin with the End in Mind, (3) Put First Things First, (4) Think Win-Win, (5) Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood, (6) Synergize, (7) Sharpen the Saw. These habits are things that are put in place to teach kids how to be in charge of their own learning. I think that these allow kids to take on a new form of leadership, and since each child is different, I think this is great to help kids find their own skills in these areas while becoming a leader in their schools.

    Since there were three schools from the Cedar Falls/ Waterloo area, we were able to see a diverse group of children that all had experienced The Leader in Me program differently in their schools. At St. Edwards, the kids that led the workshop were all a part of the lighthouse team. This is a team that gets together and is in charge of teaching the whole school about the 7 Habits through different events, posters, or things like that in their school. These students have diversity within their different job groups, they are from different grades, different classrooms, and have different interests, yet work together for the purpose of building leaders in their schools.

    I think The Leader in Me can be used diversely in my future classroom and school. At the conference, these three schools that were represented, all used them in different ways. They all have the same 7 habits and the same goal in mind, but the way it is approached can be different. I think in my future classroom, I am going to have to find different ways to adapt this to all my students in order for them to find their voice and how they can be a leader.

    I loved this conference and I thought that it was great to be exposed to this new method of building leaders in the future. I think that these skills are so important to be teaching kids, because they will need them later in life. If you want to learn more about this, go to http://www.theleaderinme.org/!