Inherit the Earth.

We'll get to what the title of this blog means in a moment. For now, let's focus on your blog assignment for this week.

This past week we talked a lot about Student Development Theory. I want to thank you all for really engaging in our conversation. I think that stuff is fascinating, and it was clear by your insightful remarks and personal examples that you appreciated the material and enjoyed yourselves.

That brings me to our next topic: Learning. 

Well, it can be. I'd argue it should be, and that the best kind usually is.

Knowing what we know about how traditional-aged college students develop throughout college, how can we be better create and facilitate the learning moments that help our peers along this path? The role of a Student Leadership Advocate is more than just an instruction-giver or a sideline cheerleader. You know that. But sometimes it's easy to fall into that trap and not be quite as intentional and thoughtful about facilitating learning moments as we should.

So, for this week's blog topic, I'd like you to share the story of your "Best Learning Experience." It can be a more formal example like a class or workshop experience, or it can be more informal such as an experience you had with friends or family. But paint the picture for us: What background info do we need to know? Who was there with you? What happened? What did you learn? And the most important, why do you believe this experience to be your best learning experience?

Plan to share your story with the group on Thursday. We'll be tying them all back to some of the theory from your readings for this week and some additional topics we will be discussing in class.

...and regarding the blog title. It's from one of my all-time favorite quotes about the importance of lifetime learning, by Mr. Eric Hoffer:

"In times of change, the learner will inherit the Earth while the learned will find themselves well equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists."

Nosh on that. Happy Monday, Ya'll.

MelRoc

College.

Yep. College. A time for lots of learning and growing inside and outside of the classroom. ("learning and growing" can mean many things, of course. Just ask this guy.)

This week I've asked you read articles on the following:


*  Overview of foundational student development theory
*  Leadership Identity Development (LID) Model

And that's just skimming the surface - there is a lot to each of those bullet points. Essentially, the LID Model stems from the foundational theories of student development. Get ready for the heady, in-the-clouds stuff.

But, that's why we're here, right? To learn about why we do what we do in SLA, beyond the facts the people like us (right?) and that we are positive contributors to the student organization community.

So, here's what I'd like you to write about for this blog assignment; Why would we learn about student development theory in an Intro to Leadership theory class? After digesting your readings for this week, tell me what you think. How does student development theory connect to leadership and facilitation? What's the point? Do me a favor and cite specific ideas, concepts, etc. from the readings that stood out to you or that you still have questions about (At least three, please.) We'll talk more in class, but hopefully blogging about it first will help you organize your thoughts and feelings.

Happy writing!

ProfRoc

Performing Arts and Post-Industrial Leadership

Victorian novelist George Eliot once said: "Acting is nothing more or less than playing. The idea is to humanize life." I think there is some real truth to that. Performance art in many ways can help us illustrate our thoughts and experiences in a way that normal words often fall short, making it easier for us to process our own lives and connect with each other's. So, let's go with that...

Over the past two weeks, your class readings have covered a variety of post-industrial/modern approaches, theories, and concepts of leadership, including:

• Transactional and Transformational Leadership
• Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership
• Neo-Charismatic Leadership
• Spiritual and Values-Based Leadership
• Authentic Leadership
• Reciprocal or Relational Leadership
• Servant Leadership

This doesn't cover all of them, but you get the point. So, in the spirit of exploring a bit more about the performing arts and what they have to do with humanizing leadership, your blog tasks for this week are as follows:

1. Choose at least three of the approaches/theories/concepts above. 
2. Find clips from movies or TV shows, songs, scenes from a play... some sort of example of performance art that illustrates leadership as described by your chosen approaches/theories/concepts.
3. Please share each example on your blog and explain for the rest of us how each relates to the selected approach/theory/concept. (This is also a good chance to further your blogging skills by figuring out how to embed videos, songs, and other media directly into your posts.)

You very well may have many leadership examples within one clip - that's totally okay. You can talk about more than one leadership example with each clip, but I'd still like you to have at least three clips. Also, if there is a particular clip you want to use, but can't find, please at least add some sort of photo or link, and then explain the scene in your narrative.

To give you a kick-start, please enjoy the movie trailer for one of my all-time favorite movies-with-leadership-lessons, (yes, I have a list,) Cool Runnings:

I look forward to your creativity and cleverness. I have no doubt you all are more than capable of providing a good level of sass on this one, too. :)

Happy hunting! See you Thursday.


- Mel