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Events & Updates
AHSI Students Attend Leadership Institute
Breaking Out of Our Comfort Zones, by Angelica Gomez (9/27/06)
My name is Angelica Gomez and I am currently a student at Champion Charter School which is located in Brockton, Massachusetts. Champion Charter School is under the organization of Diploma Plus.
Diploma Plus is partly funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Diploma Plus is an alternative high school model for young people at risk of not completing high school or who have already dropped out. Commonwealth Corporation designed this educational model to increase the number and quality of educational alternatives for vulnerable youth.
Diploma Plus has given me the opportunity to go to an Alternative High School Initiative Conference in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. There I was introduced to Sam Seidel who works for Big Picture Company and Tony Owens who is the Student Transition Coordinator for Communities in Schools Georgia (CISGA). They both gave me the opportunity to go to a leadership institute for the Communities in Schools located in Atlanta, Georgia, during the days of 6/5/06 to 6/9/06.
I had the privilege of going with seven special people to me although one had to leave in the middle of the institute. All of these people encouraged me to step out of my comfort zone. This is the zone where you feel most comfortable, for example the way you act when you’re at home or at work or wherever you feel most comfortable. All the participants broke out of their comfort zones. There was Albert “Fat Boi” Saldana who is a current student at the Met Center located in Providence, RI who showed excellent people skills by getting out there and showing that he could be a leader. Andre “Dre” Bradley who was a student at YouthBuild Philadelphia who this summer will be working for Organized Youth for Alternative Education, he showed excellent leadership skills and broke out of his comfort zone. Shamar “Cashiz” Ewell broke out of his comfort zone and showed his leadership skills at the student showcase with an excellent stomp routine with his group. Matthew “Matt” Brown showed his excellent skills with technology and broke out of his comfort zone during the dance at the university . Sam Seidel encouraged the whole group the whole way to step out of our comfort zones and get out there and meet people. Paige Parks helped us also. Last but not least, David Lemmel, although he joined us halfway through the trip he helped all of us the same way.
During the trip we did many icebreaker games which are games that allow you not only to meet other people, but to show that we are all leaders and also to strengthen many different personality traits such as trust, loyalty, and, most of all, leadership. They also taught us how to break out of our comfort zone and work together. We did numerous activities for leadership, trust, loyalty, all to prove we were all trying to reach beyond our usual comfort level.
On our first day there we were introduced to a guest motivational speaker by the name of Kantis Simmons who helped us break out of our comfort zone with a game. The game was simple to do. All you had to do was make two circles one on the inside and one on the outside. Then have both groups hold hands and give them a hula hoop; they have to then bring the hula around without letting go of each others’ hands. The lesson of this was to learn leadership and trust. To bring the hula around you have to trust the person who is giving you the hula, it shows leadership skills because the person who is giving you the hula will lead you on how to get the hula around and that will help you lead everyone else to follow through with it. The purpose of it was to see how quick students can work together to get the hula around. The purpose of that was not to only give us these leadership skills, but it was to also show us that we all had an assignment and if you don’t follow it you end up becoming the first three letters of it. If you break the words down you have meanings such as: Sign- meaning there are signs all around, me- meaning do it for yourself, and Ass- what you end up being once you don’t follow through with the assignment. The purpose of this activity and day was to tell us that we need to break out of our comfort zone and we need to live life in the moment by throwing and catching every obstacle.
The whole week was like that- full of ways to improve ourselves and become leaders. Such as following our “A” game, dressing for success, simply ridiculous behavior , causes of conflict, behaviors in conflict, how to say what you mean, and smart choices. We also learned that the right response to life is “Let it go move on” and “Smile and let it go”. We all learned that there are many definitions of Respect, but it’s all on you to follow your own. The definition that I learned was that respect is positive, mutual, and reciprocal, meaning that respect is positive, must be mutual, and is always give or take. We also learned Socially Competent Leadership. We learned components of social competency, social skills, learning styles, leadership styles and transformative leadership. In another workshop we learned about “X-factor” the laws of magnetism which is mutual vision, mutual expectation, mutual contribution, and mutual commitment.
I would like to end with some quotes that I heard throughout the week. Unfortunately, some are non-cited, but all of them will open your mind and have you think. “We wear the mask,” by Paul Laurence Dunbar. “You don’t fail you just succeed,” I heard this quote from a boy in our group. “It’s better to not have an opportunity and be prepared then to have an opportunity and not be prepared,” this was from one of the speakers in one of our workshops. “I see well in others because I want others to see good in me” also by another speaker in one of our workshops. “You are guaranteed to win once you defeat the enemy within- because it is all mental” also by a speaker in one of our workshops. “A vision without action is just a dream, action without a vision is merely a passing of time, but a vision with action can change the world” also said by one of the speakers in a workshop. Also here’s a gentle reminder, “The most precious things in life cannot be built by man or brought by man.”
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