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Week 1: What It Means to Be a Leader

Monday June 23, 2014

Session1_a

This week was the first week of MoC. Having never met the boys before, I assumed that there were going to be few responses and participation. My assumption was confirmed when we started the class with an icebreaker. We passed around a ball and each player was supposed to say his name, grade, football position, and answer the question that his thumb pointed to on the ball. A majority of the boys were shy and did not want to say much.  However, when we started to discuss roles of leadership, the boys were very responsive to the questions. We posted six different types of leaders such as the taskmaster, motivator, and instigator around the room. Each boy stood under the leadership style that best described them.

Session1_b

The boys were engaged and had some great insight.  One student mentioned that he had more than one leadership style.  Another commented that to be a true leader, one can’t just have one leadership style. He stated that in order to be an effective leader, he thought he needed to have many leadership styles.

Judging from Week 1, one of the biggest benefits of MoC is its structure to encourage questions and comments from the players in a safe space. The MoC instructors have a curriculum for the day to lead by, but the majority of the class discussion was driven by the boys’ input. We concluded the class by reminding the boys that as football players, they are leaders in their school and community. Whether they know it or not, other kids do look up to them as role models.

As told by Becky’s Fund team member Ti Tran