The Army National Guard visited
Julia Landon College Prep to help kick off the Youth Leader Program, a three-week leadership course that is part of the school’s and seventh-grade Leadership/ Community Outreach Project.
The main purpose of the Youth Leader Program is to teach students how to incorporate leadership into their daily lives, and it serves as an introduction to the principles of military leadership. The program highlights the effective leadership qualities needed in our armed forces and works in conjunction with the
7 Habits for Highly Effective Teens by Sean Covey.
The Covey text is used as the foundation of the leadership curriculum at Julia Landon. The students learn various lessons that relate directly to specific leadership values, and then participate in activities that encourage them to work together to achieve a common goal. Each leadership value covered during the course is reinforced by a hands-on activity to demonstrate its meaning and importance. Students are then able to make connections with the leadership values they routinely discuss in their classes.
During the project, students collected many non-perishable food items to send to American service men and women overseas. One soldier in particular who received one of the school’s care packages last year was Ms. Franklin, a current Julia Landon teacher, who recently returned from a 12-month deployment in Afghanistan. The response received from Ms. Franklin and her fellow soldiers was so positive that the school decided to make the Youth Leader Program an annual project. This is just one way that Julia Landon is giving back to the local and global community.
The three-week program concluded with an opportunity for students to scale a 26-foot rock wall. The student response to the Youth Leader Program was extremely positive, and they came away with a sense of accomplishment and respect for one another.
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