Philosophy of Student Leadership
For a student leadership program to be most effective, the program must allow for these three elements: Students must be allowed to practice leadership. Students must be given the technical, personal, and relational support to succeed in their leadership. Students must be guided towards sustainable self-directed ethical practices. Core beliefs: Leadership is a teachable and practicable skill related to, but separate from the skills learned to be a good individual band student. All students can learn to be leaders. Leadership is life-enriching and has great value beyond band. I will expand on each of these three elements in the following paragraphs. 1. Practicing Leadership An analogy I like to use with other teachers is teaching leadership via lecture is like trying to teach someone to swim via lecture. The only way to truly learn leadership is to jump in the water and do it. But what is “jumping in the water?” An opportunity to practice leadership requires two things: Meaningful Proj