Ep 94 | Can Kids Learn to Be Leaders?

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Well we are finding the more we teach our children about the seven habits, the more that they have ideas. They they can tell us, you know, let's do this. And our student leaders in the school just took the project, they introduced it on our morning news, they made flyers, they did promotional, you know, things in the in the classroom as well as in the hallways. And so our student leaders, at even at their age, could take this project and go with it.

SPEAKER_02 0:37

Welcome to the Voices United in Education podcast. Each week we showcase the teachers, administrators, and community members who go the extra mile to contribute to the success of every student in Escambia County. You'll meet the real people behind the titles and learn about the amazing resources to support every student's success. Author Stephen Covey is quoted saying that effective leadership is putting first things first. But who qualifies as a leader? Could a child be a leader? If they could learn leadership, why would it matter? My next guests have firsthand experience with student leadership. They are the principal and librarian at Pratt Elementary. And today they're going to share how their leader-in-me, Animal Shelter Drive, not only made a concept a reality, but elevated academic performance. Setting kids up for success, passionate for reading and leading, Shauna Gilmore and Amy McCrory. Thanks for being here.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Thank you for having us.

SPEAKER_02 1:40

I, Sean, I wanted to start with you because you're the librarian at Bratt, but you also grew up there and chose to stay and teach there. And I can't believe you're in your 24th year. That's just so impressive. Did you ever or have you ever taught students of your previous students?

SPEAKER_00 2:00

I have. I am now teaching my grandstudents. Oh my gosh, how does that feel? It feels awesome. To see the students grow up and stay in the community and turn into wonderful parents that support our school and support their children. I love that.

SPEAKER_02 2:18

Why is the Bratt community so important to you? Why choose to stay there when so many other people might choose to move to a more metropolitan area with more opportunities?

SPEAKER_00 2:30

I consider Bratt my home. My husband, Eric, and I, when we got married, we decided to make that choice to stay in our community, to serve Bratt, to serve Escambia County, and just to see our area grow and see, and for me to see the children, you know, the ones that I taught their parents and to see them grow up and just love learning, love reading, and to be, you know, a vital part of my community. Our school is my second home. I decorate the library to to feel homey because I I love putting in extra hours and and making the library feel the the heart of our home uh our school.

SPEAKER_02 3:11

I love that so much. I the idea of raising up leaders feels like a good one, um, but it's an idea that's normally saved for, I mean, high school commencement speeches, not necessarily elementary school students. So, what inspired you to not only pursue that, but use an animal shelter drive to teach those skills to kids?

SPEAKER_00 3:34

Well, I'm an animal lover. Okay. I have two children, but my children also say I have three furry children. So I love to teach children that to help animals help, you know, they cannot help themselves. So, what can we do as a leadership project to help the animals in our Escambia County animal shelter and to let the children know that what we can do, even as little kids, how we can make donations, we can learn about animals that need a home and and just build a love for reading as well as a service learning project.

SPEAKER_02 4:11

I love the idea of using the animals because I don't know, I think kids are always drawn to the animals anyway. How have how do you make that how did from a practical standpoint you take their enthusiasm, their natural enthusiasm for animals and transfer that into concepts that are usually saved for continued education in the corporate setting?

SPEAKER_00 4:36

Well, we are finding the more we teach our children about the seven habits, the more that they have ideas. They they can tell us, you know, let's do this. And our student leaders in the school just took the project, they introduced it on our morning news, they made flyers, they did promotional, you know, things in the in the classroom as well as in the hallways. And so our student leaders, at even at their age, could take this project and go with it.

SPEAKER_02 5:07

So you had the idea, and then the kids actually took it from there and implemented the the concepts with the the project features itself?

SPEAKER_00 5:17

Well, I I had the idea, and then you know, you can say, how can we present this to the school? And let them come up with their little talk for the morning news, let them decide we're gonna make flyers, we'd made bookmarks to go home with the library classes, and they had their, you know, their take. They helped sort supplies, they helped remind, do reminders on the morning news, and those were things that um as elementary students that they could do as part of this leadership program. That's so impressive.

SPEAKER_02 5:50

Amy, as the principal, you have kind of an eye on the bigger picture, I assume. How do you see the projects like this supporting the academic performance?

SPEAKER_01 6:01

I can remember um during the drive how I went into a fifth grade classroom and those children just bombarded me with all they were learning about um the nonfiction books about animals they were researching. So the children got excited because they saw a real-world application for what they were learning and what they were doing at school. And so that made them more excited about reading. And the more you read, the better you become at reading. So just that excitement about learning something new and tying it, the the children got excited when the teachers presented lessons that tied to that as well. So it was it was just a neat way of kind of combining all our efforts and focusing for just a little while on the animal shelter project.

SPEAKER_02 6:44

We really don't value enthusiasm as much as we should. It's like that's magic ingredient in education. Were there assessments in their reading levels before and after the animal shelter project?

SPEAKER_01 7:00

We constantly assess our children and kind of gauge where we are. At Bratt, we have um wigs, not the kind you put on your head, but wildly important goals. And so part of our assessing is seeing if they are making strides towards meeting their wildly important goals. And many of those goals have to do with how many books they read, how many points that they earn on accelerated reader. And so as we are assessing their comprehension of the books they're reading, we can see if they're earning more points. So we're assessing constantly. And when they're excited and they're buying into the learning process, it surely affects the academic growth and and how how they're doing on their assessments.

SPEAKER_02 7:42

What was the the impact on the kids as little people for from this project?

SPEAKER_01 7:49

I went by a classroom even this morning to to kind of recap some things we did. And some of the children were telling me about how they went into their own piggy banks. It wasn't just mom and dad going to Walmart and buying, but a couple of the girls I spoke to this morning, I said, Well, where did you get the money for what you bought? Oh, I had saved it. So the fact that they are community-minded and service-minded, not just looking at themselves and what they want, but thinking about how they can help others, that is just such a refreshing thing to see with our children.

SPEAKER_02 8:20

It gives me goosebumps when you tell me that story because you're absolutely right. We don't just want them to pass a grade or do well on a quiz. We want them to be great community members. And that's, you know, at the heart, I think. Correct me if I'm wrong, it's been a long time since I've read The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, but I think that's at the heart of it is taking ownership for the environment that you're in.

SPEAKER_01 8:45

One thing that we have learned through the process of leader and me is something called the see, do, get model. And it's about how you see the world, your paradigms. And if we see the world as only a few people can be leaders, that really is restrictive. But when we see all children have gifts and genius and we see them that way, then we're gonna do things differently and we're gonna get a different result. And our result that we want is for them to be academically sound, but also, like you said, to be good community members who are looking for ways to serve and to grow their community. So if we see it differently, we're gonna do different things and we're gonna get a different result. And that's how we live at Bratt.

SPEAKER_02 9:26

When I was a kid, we played follow the leader. Leader singular. There was one, and then the leader wasn't a leader unless there were followers, right? So, and that was how leadership, if you will, was explained to me as a young kid. How do you help kids understand that there are different types of leaders? Because there's the leader, like the teacher is the leader of the classroom, the principal is the leader of the school. Shauna, you're the leader of the library, right? How do you distinguish rank from leadership as a character trait?

SPEAKER_01 10:06

One difficult thing that I have seen is that it's hard for teachers to let go of some of the responsibilities that they have to allow children opportunities to step up and lead. I think Shauna did a great job with that, with this project, because she did call for children to help publicize it, to help get others excited on the morning news. So synergizing, working together, that's one of our habits, is figuring out how we can, not my way, not your way, but our way. How can we make this work? And I think that Shauna has done a really great job of letting the children take some ownership. As adults, we often want to do it for them, but we need to let them have the opportunity in a safe place to try things and to support them. And if they're off track, just to lead them back to the best way to get things done. So allowing them the opportunity is what we have seen has worked.

SPEAKER_02 10:59

I can totally see parents being both excited and also struggling with the same thing that you're talking about, letting the kids take responsibility and ownership of different things in the home. And I'm sure as a parent, it's difficult because it's your baby. So your baby growing up is also another layer of difficulty. Did you get any reactions from parents or feedback?

SPEAKER_00 11:23

I just saw so many parents excited about wanting to help. The donations just poured into the front office. We had two little sisters who got to help their mom pick out everything on Amazon, and they just brought in a big box. Everything on the wish list that the animal shelter needed, they provided. They were so excited to help. They were, you know, thinking about the animals in the shelter and they wanted to make sure they had what they needed.

SPEAKER_02 11:51

And what was the end result for the Escambie County Animal Shelter? Did you have a whole a tally or anything? We collected hundreds of items for the shelter. What was the reaction from the shelter CEO, shelter president?

SPEAKER_00 12:07

The director, Mr. John Robinson, and his staff were very appreciative and surprised, just blown away that Bratt Elementary had such a wonderful response for an animal shelter drive.

SPEAKER_02 12:20

What do you see as going forward, right? Because this project has got a beautiful little bow on it. What do you see going forward as a realistic framework for future leadership projects for the kids?

SPEAKER_01 12:34

I will tell you, this project was wonderful. And Shauna came up with the idea and kind of spearheaded it. My vision for projects as we move forward is to have the children brainstorm problems in the community and think about how they can become involved. So let them, you know, come to the table with some ideas and then we can support them in a project. So again, stepping back and letting them take the lead, it's it's a hard thing to do when you're used to showing them what to do, but let them take the lead and become owners of the project.

SPEAKER_02 13:08

It's hard to remember that we're talking about elementary school students. Like when you're talking about them, I'm picturing high school students, but these are little, what, eight, nine? Oh, we start at pre-K, so four years old to what 12 probably.

SPEAKER_01 13:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:23

Wow, that's so incredible. I'd love to hear from each of you. What do you wish that parents better understood about the Leader in Me program as a whole?

SPEAKER_01 13:32

We are explicitly teaching these habits, be proactive. We we've talked a lot about that means you have to pause, you have to think before you react. And that is a life skill. Several of the skills begin with end in mind. So I think what we are wanting to ingrain in them is not just something that you use in elementary school, but as you go to middle school and as you go to high school, and then you become a person that works in the community, these are skills that you're going to need to get through life, to have relationships and rapport with your family and with your community that will make your life better when you know how to be a good listener, you know how to work through problems. So this is not just something we're doing for fun. This is something that we hope is ingrained in them as they grow and as they mature and go into their lives and live productive lives. That's true.

SPEAKER_02 14:23

I didn't really consider the relationship part of it, the emotional intelligence, if you will, of being able to self-regulate, collaborate, and, you know, maybe you miss a deadline, maybe you you celebrate together because you exceeded your expectations, but having that emotional and relationship experience as another added aspect to leadership and and projects that require collaboration.

SPEAKER_01 14:53

That's, I mean, that's that's big girl, big boy stuff. I I wish that we could just take you guys into the classroom and let you see how that happens. The way that the children are learning to interact and to share ideas, of course, it is teaching. We have to teach it explicitly that you have to stop and you have to listen. And what does it mean to be a good listener? What does it mean to be an active listener? But they they can get it. They are getting it. So I I see I see them growing in ways that we never imagined.

SPEAKER_02 15:21

I love that. What about you, Ashana? What would you like parents to understand more about the Leader in Me program if if you could help them?

SPEAKER_00 15:29

Well, I'm always thinking about reading as as my role. So I would think, how can we let our children at home lead what they want to read? What how would they like to read? What can they make those decisions? How can they be leaders at home for their academics? So as my role as a librarian, I'm I would like the children to, you know, have choice, have choice in what they read, continue, be leaders at home, and just tie it all back into reading. Tap into some of that enthusiasm. So the program was a success. Is there another Animal Shelter Drive on the horizon? Well, like Miss McCory said, you know, we will let the children help us direct our our projects next year, but I think they enjoyed it and it was a great way to get them reading nonfiction books and increasing our AR point. So I'm hoping that they will love to do it again next year.

SPEAKER_02 16:25

I'm hoping too. If someone is listening to this and they want to learn more about the Leader in Me program, maybe they don't have it in their school. Is there a place that they can go, a resource that they should know about?

SPEAKER_01 16:36

There is a website, the leaderinme.org website. Of course, Franklin Covey has lots of books about leadership. So, but the Leader in Me and implementing these strategies in schools, probably that website would be the best place to go. And I know that I'm one of three schools in the district, so you know, give us a call. We'd love to share with you. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 16:57

Thank you, ladies, so much for this, and thank you for setting our kids up for success in the community and in the classroom and beyond. This was great. Thank you. Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and share. Voices United in Education is a production of Ascambia County Public Schools.