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Pupils say they want Leader In Me to stay
by Gregory R. Norfleet · News · May 28, 2015
A tour of Hoover Elementary on Thursday showed children with an understanding of the Leader In Me concepts and a willingness that those concepts continue in years to come.
Some 40 to 50 people — parents, business owners, and community leaders — attended Leadership Day and saw the staff and pupils — mostly pupils — demonstrate their knowledge of author Stephen Covey’s “7 Habits of Highly Effective People.” They also showed different ways to apply the concepts to their schoolwork, social interactions and personal health.
Principal Jess Burger spoke occasionally when the visitors first gathered and at the close of the event, both of which happened in the gymnasium, but most of the rest of the 2 1/2 hours put visitors into contact with pupils. Pupils led breakout groups from room to room and in each room, pupils welcomed the visitors, showed them stations around each room and explained how they implement the 7 Habits.
Visitors walking up to the school first saw children drawing with chalk on the sidewalk a “Welcome” message that included references to the 7 Habits. Inside, children worked the table to get visitors signed in. Inside the gymnasium, round tables decorated in bright pastel tablecloths had cups filled with candy and water and children’s handmade cards thanking the visitors for their attendance. Even the items in the cups, gifts for the visitors, had been selected with a 7 Habits tie-in — like for Habit 3, Put First Things First, a roll of Smarties with the message “Be A Smartie. Work first, then play.”
Children engaged the visitors prior to the event’s beginning, wishing them “Good morning.” Each wore orange T-shirts with yin-and-yang symbols where the dots were replaced by bear paws. The T-shirts read: “Roar With Leadership/Together is better.”
In fact, the entire school came in for a few minutes to sing to the visitors and most of them wore the orange T-shirts. A video showed pupils talking about the 7 Habits, then children took the podium to share examples of how they used specific habits to drive decisions about when to do homework or how they listened or how they took deliberate steps to rejuvenate.
“Everybody needs a break,” fourth-grader Abby Oaks told the crowd.
Just before sending breakout groups on tours, Burger expressed her belief in Leader In Me over the year-and-a-half implementation of the program.
“I can’t say enough about how Hoover staff has gotten behind this project,” she said. “I feel so strongly about this work.”
In a third-grade classroom, pupils talked about how they used notebooks and graphs to visually track their progress in vocabulary and comprehension scores.
Fourth-graders performed original skits to demonstrate how characters would carry out the 7 Habits in different situations. In one skit about “thinking win-win,” a boy tells a friend he plans to push a girl in the water, but the friend instead talks him into teaching that same girl how to swim in exchange for the girl teaching the boy her soccer skills.
In a second-grade classroom, a girl shows visitors the “I Can ...” wall where pupils write about what they accomplished.
Back in the gymnasium, Burger encouraged visitors to ask the children a couple of questions.
One visitor asked what children do if they see someone behaving outside the 7 Habits. A pupil responded, “We say, ‘We don’t do that at West Branch schools.’”
Another visitor asked if the children would recommend Leader In Me continue. Answers: “Yes,” “Definitely,” and “Yes.”
Leader In Me
The “7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” author Stephen Covey’s core concepts that drive Hoover Elementary’s Leader In Me, include:
• Be proactive — Being responsible, taking initiative, choosing your actions and attitudes. Not blaming others for personal behavior. Doing the right thing without being asked.
• Begin with the End in Mind — Plan ahead, set goals, do things that have meaning and make a difference. Realizing self-importance and personal contributions to the classroom and school’s mission. Looking for ways to be a “good citizen.”
• Put First Things First — Spend time on important things, ignore things one should not do, set priorities, make a schedule and follow “my plan.” Being disciplined and organized.
• Think Win-Win — Balance courage for getting what one wants with consideration for what others want. Look for alternatives when conflict arises.
• Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood — Listen without interrupting to ideas and feelings, try to understand the other point of view. Be confident with personal ideas and look people in the eye when speaking.
• Synergize — Value other people’s strengths and learn from them. Get along with others, even those who are different. Work well in groups, seek out other ideas to solve problems. Work as a team.
• Sharpen the Saw — Eat right, exercise, get sleep, spend time with family and friends. Learn in “lots of ways and lots of places, not just at school.”
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