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SIS Youth Leadership Retreat

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On Wednesday, January 26, SIS student members of the Student Advisory Council, Lunch and Liberation Club, and SIS Youth Rising Up Club met at the Hubbard Lodge to participate in a Youth Leadership Retreat. This video shares some of the reflections that students and staff had from the retreat.

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So, can you tell me a little bit about what you're doing today? So the bulk of what I'm doing is showing how you can show leadership through the arts. Like at first I had them go over what they thought poetry was and then I told him like... I made it there [on paper], so they can have the confidence to express themselves and not feel like - oh I had to use this type of poetic device or it don't got no sentence, or it don't got enough metaphors, it don't rhyme enough so basically removing that thought that you have to confine it to a specific way of expressing yourself. So they can get the confidence to express themselves. And then through that they'll have the courage to collaborate with other people once we got those barriers removed. Just show that true collaboration is leadership because it's like the common misconception that only one person can be a leader and the rest-- everybody else--is a follower but it's really about at different points different people are better at leading. Like for the first two lines, this person might be better or, holding the camera, this person might be better so let them lead in this aspect, but it's really about..I feel like leadership is more of a fluid thing. Who is best suited for the task at the time so that's how I'm tying it all back together. Then have more of a trust with collaborating with others and being okay with asking for help and being okay with expressing themselves. And I feel like that will make better leaders. At each table we had to write a poem together and then we had to write a song as well for the whole group that was there. The leadership was taught through a lens of creativity and poetry which I think was not what a lot of students were expecting. And so the initial activity was met with a little bit of skepticism but as we went through out the activities, I saw a lot of the students engaging a lot more and volunteering to read their poetry and working with others at their table to produce the poetry and the songs that were produced so I saw the students at the retreat really opening up to their peers through poetry and creativity which is again something that is maybe not always done within a normal school day. My favorite part about the retreat was writing poetry with my friends. My favorite part was probably making up the story with everyone at my table cuz I thought it was really community building and I felt like I walked away with a really good friendship with them which made me feel really good about the retreat. We had to make music and we had to think up a line with our group members and um we had to perform that into a microphone and it was multiple groups and we all had to perform it at the end--or we didn't have to perform it, it was all put together like into one big song and it was my favorite cuz it was like it was kind of awkward because I don't really know what to do but it was like fun, so... (students singing) Um I have to say my favorite part was when we were making the song and coming up with the lyrics. That was a very goofy time and we could.. we were like doing it as a group and that was very fun and we had so much fun listening to it, and it was so goofy! So I guess I liked that part because we were able to express ourselves and just be kids and you know there were no limits. I think my favorite part was just hanging out and getting to know people better and you know eating pizza is always good. It was good to work on just kind of like having a good community building activity, that everybody was equal and no one was... it was just, um, very community-like. I think it's important because everybody has a role on the S.A.C. and this way we all get to bond together and learn how we can collaborate and do something together. It's important for intermediate school students to get an opportunity to collaborate with one another and get used to working with people that they don't commonly get to work with, expressing their voice, standing up in front of others, and having an opportunity to hear each other's ideas and really celebrate their strengths and what they bring to the table as young people, trying to figure out who they are and what they think is important in the world. I noticed particularly not only for all students but for Youth Rising Up members in particular is to be confident in their ideas, and to voice those ideas. Prior to the retreat, I noticed that there was, um, some reservation amongst the group when we had our own meetings for students to share their ideas on what they thought on topics that we were discussing and I think that the retreat gave them a space not only to collaborate more and to voice, um, their their leadership and what they wanted to contribute to the assignment more, rather than sitting back and being reserved and not confident in their responses. We got to just kind of hang out but also do the interesting activities that also helped us be less nervous speaking in front of groups or like putting our ideas out there and I think that while that wasn't what I was expecting, that still like kind of connects to being a leader and so I think that was really helpful. I think it's also important that people meet each other and talk to each other but also that you build confidence in yourself in knowing what you can do. I think it's important so that we can see how other people act as leaders, so we can take that home and use it for ourselves and also so we can glimpse the other leaders in the world and... yeah. In this particular retreat, I found it great to see students really using a creative side to learn about who each other are and tap into some of their artistic abilities but at the same time using that to really speak up and think about topics that they care about and how to advocate to others around things that are really important to them and start thinking about how to be a change agent within our school district and community.

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