2006 Catholic Leadership

Middle School Youth Forum

On October 3, 2006, 73 Middle School students and teachers from six schools gathered at St. Martin de Porres Parish for a Catholic Youth Leadership Forum that focused on Service.  The youth who attended represented:

• Catholic East Elementary
• Messmer Preparatory Catholic School
• Nativity Jesuit Middle School
• Notre Dame Middle school
• St. Leo Catholic Urban Academy
• St Rose Catholic Urban Academy

Community Building

To be a community of service, we first need to become a community. The participants learned leadership skills by doing activities in partners, small groups and large groups:

All tied up and no place to go

Young people were tied together with shoestrings and had to solve the problem of how to get untied.

“I learned to see problems in different ways. Because, there are different ways to solve problems, I have to think more and try them out.”

Word puzzles

Young people had to share information, communicate and work together to come up the answers.

“I learned how to see things from a different perspective.”

Lower the Pole

Young people were challenged to keep one finger on a long pole, and to lower it to the ground in unison. This required listening, cooperation, communication, and patience. It took 8 or 9 attempts before they were successful at completing the task.

“I learned about solving problems … things aren’t so obvious.”

Servant Leadership

The participants removed their shoes at the beginning of the opening prayer. The prayer was from the Gospel of John, describing the scene at the last supper when Jesus washed the feet of his disciples. Jesus wanted his followers to understand the importance of leadership by service.

Their response to the reading was to turn to the person to their right, to kneel down at their feet, and to be of service by putting that person’s shoes back on his or her feet.

This was a difficult task to accomplish. Many participants didn’t want to take their shoes off in the first place. To have someone else help them by putting their shoes back on for them seemed awkward and foreign. It led into a conversation about which was easier: to serve or be served. In other words, how might we feel when we serve others? How might we feel when others serve us?

“I learned why you need to be ready to do service if you want to be a leader.”

In their small groups, the students talked about what kinds of service activities they had been involved with at their schools and parishes. Each small group then told the large group their three best ideas from their small group discussion.

“I learned that there are so many ways to help the community other than donating money.”

Presentation Skills

Leaders often need to make presentations and influence others. One way to shape your presentation is to use the 4 “G’s” of Teaching:

*Grab my attention

*Give me something new

*Get something out of me

*Go make a difference

The group learned how the four G’s work by learning about frogs and social justice. If you put a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will jump out. But if you put it in cool water, and turn on the heat, it will stay there and get cooked. People are like that. They respond when they see people suffering from a major event. But continuous, minor events don’t always trigger much of a response.  

“I learned that people can be like frogs. Frogs don’t notice water getting warmer. And  people don’t usually notice when someone is in need.”

“I learned that more people die from hunger every day than all the people who died on September 11, 2001.”

The small groups were asked to use the four G’s in a creative presentation designed to encourage others in their schools to get involved in service.

“I learned how to become a better leader and speak up about the things I think and believe.”

After lunch, the small groups were given another puzzle challenge to work on together. They needed to manipulate toothpicks to solve a problem.

With all these puzzles and problem solving activities, the young people learned teamwork. Skills like Listening to each other and cooperating together are necessary for us to solve problems – whether we’re dealing with toothpicks on a table or world situations such as hunger and homelessness.

“I learned that we can’t really help society unless we listen to their needs and ideas.”

Student Projects

The last activity was done after the young people had rejoined their school groups. Each school was asked to design a service project at their school to be accomplished within the next few months. Then each school reported their plan to the large group.

“Leadership training really motivates me to start helping out even more.”

“I learned that doing community service has its own reward.”