Youth Lead the Change: Day 3

Editor’s note: Sawyers Ames is an eighth-grader at Watertown Middle School in Massachusetts. At the end of August, she attended a new camp run by The Leadership Institute at Harvard University for Boston-area kids in 7th through 10th grades. The purpose of the free camp, Youth Lead the Change!, was to help find the next generation of leaders and to give them some tools to speak out and learn how to make a difference.

The following is Sawyer’s look at her third day at the leadership camp.

***

I look down at the booklet in my hands warily. Letting out a sigh — three speakers? If they aren’t good, then this day is going to be painful.

And the first hour certainly is. My “action” team works on digging back to the root cause of childhood obesity. This was what our speaker came to talk about. She works at a nonprofit group working with schools to help students become more physically fit.

Now, what we had done so far in the week was really about presenting and thinking of yourself as a leader. It was relatively obvious that this woman had not ever taken part in such a thing. Shoulders rolled forward, very quiet voice, monotone, looking at her feet. I almost fell asleep at 9:30 in the morning.

The rest of the morning and early afternoon passes relatively quickly, with little preps here are there for the final presentation we would do the next afternoon. Right after lunch, a Harvard Business School student shows us a PowerPoint on leadership through community service. Her example is as a high school student, trying to get a law passed in Delaware prohibiting smoking in public places. I am happy to report that I have no trouble staying wide awake during this!

We take a small break to do some non-leadership activities. What a relief! Then back to our seats for — wait for it — yet another speaker!

Zeynep Ton had been a professor at Harvard Business School until switching just this summer to MIT. The premise of her talk is to let us know that every single job is important. To put everything in perspective, she uses her apple. And we trace that apple all the way from where it had been grown in New Zealand to the little market where she bought it in the heart of Boston.

The way she shows us all of this was interactive, with a joke and a question here and there. I swear almost everyone in the room genuinely wants to pay attention.

(Photo: Courtesy John Vitti) 

Youth Lead the Change: Day 2

Editor’s note: Sawyers Ames is an eighth-grader at Watertown Middle School in Massachusetts. At the end of August, she attended a new camp run by The Leadership Institute at Harvard University for Boston-area kids in 7th through 10th grades. The purpose of the free camp, Youth Lead the Change!, was to help find the next generation of leaders and to give them some tools to speak out and learn how to make a difference.

The following is Sawyer’s look at her second day at the leadership camp.
 

***

The big event in the morning is our first speaker for the day. Kathy Delaney-Smith, the head women’s basketball coach at Harvard University. She practically runs into the room, grinning, and telling us that all embarrassment needed to go “out the door” when she is speaking.

“If I ask you if you have a boyfriend or a girlfriend, you’re going to tell me!” she says with a wink and a grin.

The class bursts out laughing and rushes to agree with her. You don’t usually get an adult wanting to hear about that kind of stuff, you know?

As she talks, she tells us about the Five C’s of Leadership: commitment, composure, character, communication, and confidence. The premise of her talk is to let us know that if we want to be a leader, we really have to want it. We really have to want to work for it, and let other people know that we have what it takes. She is a perfect example, and I think we all find the hour with her inspiring, interactive, and interesting. As she leaves the room, she shouts out her team’s mantra: “Don’t just survive — ATTACK!”

***

It is soon time for an opening activity for our final project! In our groups, we were each given a mini case study. Mine is on childhood obesity. We work on tracing to the root cause of obesity in children. There isn’t just one, so the one my group and I choose to look at is advertising. Next time you’re watching TV, think about how many commercials there are for fast-food restaurants, and then look at how many there are for places such as Whole Foods. Many people don’t notice this, but once you look for it, I promise you’ll notice a huge difference.

***

“Please welcome Ranjay Gulati!” Kara squeals. We all clap as the Harvard Business School professor steps up to the podium.

“Thank you, thank you! Today, I will be focusing on leadership in relation to root causes. This is what you have been working on, no?”

There are murmurs of agreement from all of us, and he begins the presentation. It is a wonderfully made PowerPoint with videos here and there. One of the videos includes Domino’s pizza! They had been getting numerous complaints about their cheese seeming fake and the crust tasting worse than cardboard. (How these people knew what cardboard tasted like, I don’t know.) Domino’s was unhappy that its pizza was not pleasing people, but the company didn’t push the comments away saying that the customers were the problem. Domino’s looked at itself, and tried to see what it was doing wrong and how it could be fixed. Eventually, a new sauce was created with new crust. The very same people who had said the pizza was horrible LOVED IT! Domino’s fixed its problem by tracing the root cause.

These types of examples from Professor Gulati really get us going, inspire us, and I think he is definitely to thank for how wonderfully the week turned out!

(Photo: Harvard women's basketball coach Kathy Delaney-Smith (Courtesy John Vitti))

Youth Lead the Change: Day 1

Editor’s note: Sawyers Ames is an eighth-grader at Watertown Middle School in Massachusetts. At the end of August, she attended a new camp run by The Leadership Institute at Harvard University for Boston-area kids in 7th through 10th grades. The purpose of the free camp, Youth Lead the Change!, was to help find the next generation of leaders and to give them some tools to speak out and learn how to make a difference.

The following is Sawyer’s look at her first day at the leadership camp.

***

“I’m going to Harvard! We’re going to Harvard!” I screech, grabbing Julia’s forearm as the two of us walk through Wigglesworth Hall. I think it goes without saying that I am excited, but with every step I take closer to Emerson Hall, it feels more like butterflies. Big, hyper, flapping butterflies in my stomach.

“Name?” one of the undergrads running the program asks me.

“Sawyer.”

“Sawyer Ames?”

“Yes.”

“Great! Right through those doors, and it’s your first room on the right!” she says with an enormous smile.

I nod and follow her directions. I find myself in what looks like a mini auditorium. I’m immediately taken aback. “Give Me Everything Tonight,” is coming out of the speakers, and all of the teachers are milling around. They’re really the only ones that look comfortable in this setting. All of the kids sit in black chairs, bags perched on their laps. Some make small talk with others next to them. Even some smiles! Gasp! But most of them stare straight ahead.

***

It’s around five minutes before Kara bounds into the room. She claps her hands loudly and the music comes to a stop.

“Who am I?” she asks us with a gleam in her eye. We’re puzzled. She jumps up on the platform and writes the question on the board before whirling back around to face us. “That’s the question for today! We are going to find out what kind of leaders we all are! But first — we gotta break the ice! Come on! Follow me!”

Fifty-five kids with awkward smiles and wary looks get up and hitch their bags over their shoulders. Kara leads us into the yard next to Emerson. We’re instructed to get in a circle, and one by one, run to the middle and shout our name and school. We do, and by the end, everyone is laughing at how over-the-top some people made their statement. Who would’ve thought something like that could be fun?

We play a few other games, team-building kinds of things, and then filter back in pumped up from the start to our morning. We have a short break and some people socialize. I’m not one of those people.

***

“Are you ready for the PATH OF LIFE, everyone?” Gabe (another one of the counselors) jumps into the middle of the hallway.

We look up, startled, and he tells us to divide into our groups. There’s a lot of inspecting name-tags to see which color group we were placed in, as well as numerous sympathetic glances between friends as they move into rooms opposite each other. I was in blue. No one else I knew that well was, but hey, no big deal.

The Path of Life ends up being pretty much just that. We are all given a sheet of paper, and a pen. The activity is to draw a line, with ups and downs corresponding with how your life has been so far. Then label them, and make a symbol representing the event or what it meant to you. The only real dip in my line was the sixth grade. My trip to Morocco and seventh grade were pretty much straight up!

The rest of the afternoon passes by quickly with more team-building trust games and a break or two. With about an hour and a half left before dismissal, we are all given a small quiz. “Leadership Compass” was the title at the top of the page.

I end up being north and south: North meaning I was controlling and liked to be in charge. South meaning I was creative, and a visionary. Pretty accurate.

(Photo: Gabe Lloyd is the Assistant Chair of the Leadership Development Initiative (courtesy John Vitti))