Manifested Competencies
Evidence of Knowledge Gained
From start to finish, the TLB curriculum I have created displays the competencies and knowledge I have gained through my time in the ORGL program. Though there are many to choose from, the following six competencies are the ones found most prominently in my project.
Self-Awareness
As I defined in my vision statement, I want to grow myself through growing others; I think that’s what leadership truly is. Inherent in servant leadership and the Social Change Model is self-awareness (or what the SCM refers to as Consciousness of Self). All of my classes in the ORGL program have required me to dig deep and explore my personal values and beliefs, which is exactly why I chose Gonzaga. Self-awareness is built into the foundation of the TLB curriculum from the very first activity the students do at the retreat, to the very last activity they do in their last TLBC meeting.
Personal Brand of Leadership
Throughout the ORGL program, we were consistently pushed to think and define our own brand of leadership. In ORGL 600, that meant doing a 360 evaluation. In ORGL 518, it meant defining transformation as it relates to leadership. In ORGL 690, that meant looking at the relationship between servant leadership and my own life. And, of course, in ORGL 620, that has meant writing my own leadership philosophy and vision statement. In the TLB curriculum I’ve created, the students are also given numerous opportunities to define their own personal brand of leadership. This starts at the retreat, when they write their own definition of leadership and explore their preferred leadership style. It continues throughout the year, with exercises in defining citizenship, connecting service with leadership, exploring the different leadership roles, and providing a leadership learning lab in the form of the service groups.
Change and Transformation
As I neared the end of my time in the ORGL program, I realized that my final papers for my last few classes really built on everything I had learned up to that point. I was able to see the growth, changes, and true transformation I have undergone since starting this program two years ago. I have embraced transformation as a necessary and beautiful part of leadership, though I readily acknowledge I have work to do still. Change is the heart of the TLB program, for it is the heart of the Social Change Model. Though the curriculum doesn’t refer to transformation directly, it does look specifically at change and what it means to be a change agent. Students undergo such growth and transformation during their time in high school, and my hope is that this program (and its continuation after the first year of curriculum) can help each one of them grow into “the next best version” of themselves (as I defined in ORGL 518).
Service
I came into the ORGL program firmly believing that leadership should be a form of service, and my time in the program only strengthened that belief. Viewing leadership as a form of serving others has been built into the program from day one, when we started to read Parker Palmer’s The Courage to Teach. Service learning is the explicit model that I chose for the TLB program, thus that competency is quite obvious. However, the sheer act of creating the TLB curriculum also demonstrates a form of service – it is volunteer work for me and I believe strongly in serving the students of our communities to better serve the world.
Interconnectedness
In ORGL 600, we read Margaret Wheatley’s seminal book, Leadership and the New Science. In this text, Wheatley examines the “systematic nature of life” (1999, p. ix). The continuity and connectedness of all of my ORGL classes has always astounded me. Everything is connected, I have come to believe, and my current leadership philosophy reflects that belief. Parker Palmer really hit this home for me in discussing “the great divide” and the journey towards being whole. That is why I see leadership as a personal transformation that relies on my relationships with others. I have tried to build this into the curriculum, from our discussions on service and citizenship, to using the Social Change Model, to the detailed research process I’ve built into the service projects.
Experience, Reflection, and Action
Experience, reflection, and action are Jesuit principles that are important in Ignatian pedagogy, specifically when it comes to the Examen. While I am not Jesuit, or even Christian, the basic idea behind the Examen has really stuck with me since I took Leadership & Mindfulness. The entire TLB program is built on these three principles. They experience the initiatives or service group relationships, they reflect on it in the TLB meetings, and then they are given an opportunity to act on it in the next service group meeting. I hope that these three principles can be as helpful to the students as they have been to me.