Personal Narrative: Division Leader

During my first quarter of running start, I took intro to sociology and I had a major midterm project. When we were aquatinted with our members I took initiative to make sure we could all communicate and work online to reduce the number of times we needed to meet so that the students who had trouble with transportation could carpool with members of our group who lived near the college. We decided to spend a few minutes after class on discussing the project and whilst doing so I could see that a particular member of our group, Alex would doubt her ability to work on the project. I made sure that she knew that having her in our group was crucial to successes and that I am open to helping her overcome her doubts. We had conversations about struggling

I am working at Migrant Education which is a federally funded program that supplements educational support services for migratory children. For this summer, Migrant Education has a summer school program for pre-school, pre-K, kindergarten, elementary, and high school students. To be honest, I was not too excited when I got an e-mail told me that I will be working with kids. When my supervisor asked me, I told her that I want to work with pre-K students. I thought it would be better not to work with the older students, because I am an ill-tempered kind of person. Just after my second day, I realized I was wrong. The little kids, they are very unpredictable. Some of them are nice, some of them are very shy, and some of them are….. recalcitrant.

After a challenging move from De Pere to Sturgeon Bay between my freshman and sophomore year, I can officially say that I have adapted well to my new community. In the beginning of sophomore year, one of my goals was to become as involved in my new high school as I was my old high school. I have accomplished that by becoming a part of the soccer team and joining a variety of clubs that all mean a lot to me. For example, A-Team works with other students that have learning disabilities to make social interaction a little more comfortable. In my opinion, creating a better learning environment for them not only benefits all of the students in that environment but it feels really rewarding.

I believe that leaders must accept the crucibles and acid test so that they can identify their value, and accomplish their great dream and tough missions. As the author of the “Crucibles of leadership” mentioned that leaders should equip with the following essential skills, namely, “engage others in shared meaning, a distinctive, compelling voice, integrity, and adaptive capacity.1 We know how these essentials important, however, we don’t understand how to obtain these elements as well as how to employ them, because the overconfidence always blind us. Thus, people who desire to become the leaders need to go through the crucible test.

On July 14th at 9:50 am, Jayden was working on an activity sheet about penguins. Jayden’s summer project was to gather facts about different penguins. Each child was given an iPad to research information about their topic to answer the questions. Jayden worked in an appropriate manner with his paraprofessional. Once Jayden was finished with his research project, he was allowed to play on the iPad. Jayden and his paraprofessional played air hockey. Jayden cheated most of the time, but the paraprofessional did not make a big deal about the situation. At times, Jayden started to get a little rowdy becoming very disruptive to the class. The paraprofessional reminded Jayden that students are still working. She also explained that the iPad would be removed if he did not lower his voice. Jayden complied and simmered down.

She was confused as to why we did not have our regular meeting prior to class. I was surprised by her inquiry since we all agreed upon a rescheduled meeting. I reminded her of our group’s decision but she believed there was an additional meeting on Thursday as well. She continued to question me as to why we did not attend for our assumed Thursday meeting. Her tone of voice subsequently became angry, as she directed her frustration towards me. I felt that she was blaming me for not only my absence, but also for the remaining members. It seemed unfair that she would only voice her concerns to me and did not question the other members who later arrived in the room. As a result of her actions, I found it difficult to remain calm when speaking to her. When she continued to raise her voice at me, I started to become irritated. I felt that she was treating me in a disrespectful manner. I raised my own voice in retaliation, which turned our conversation into an argument. Our increased volume became loud enough where it gained the attention of students in the class. I found it embarrassing for others to witness an altercation between a group member and myself. As a result, I lowered my voice in hopes to avoid greater attention. This helped end the argument a few seconds before the start of class. As the argument came to an end with this particular group member, I found myself reflecting on the incident. I was astonished with the

I also stated that there was a volunteer present at my post while I was away. He then asked (very aggressively) "Why would you tell him (Sam) when I (Daniel) am here?" I explained that because David was not scheduled; I told Samuel Thurmond who is my lead. I added that David is who I directly report according to David, my offer letter and paperwork. I also explained to him that I did not know he was still here and that I did not know I was to report to him with two leads (Samuel Thurmond and Kelvin Hollis) present. He asked me why I came to him earlier that day then. I replied, "because David was not here." Daniel says "Great... I just wanted you to confirm that you left your post without permission." He storms out of the room and is now on the ramp of the back

I feel often feel bullied; by Mr. Rick and that he feels that a woman shouldn’t have a right to voice her opinions and concerns. Because, Mr. Rick constantly reminds me that he has more than 20 years of experience and that he’s the only person that is right and feels that it’s his way, and not what’s in the best interest of the facility, students, and staff members, because technically I have been doing this job description since year 2000, and have earned 2 degrees and is currently working towards my 3rd degree. Therefore, I understand why this facility turnaround rate is incredibly high because of his egocentric leadership styles, and manipulative behaviors, this is why highly qualified and educated people, cannot achieve under these conditions. Therefore, I’ve witness Mr. Rick dancing around questions and not being completely honest about critical issues and reports, and have others blindsided when difficult issues transpire. However, Mr. Rick demanded me to allow Marlon Marshall, to go on a weekend home pass because you had already given the proper authorization for the student to go out on pass, but I never received your signed approval and he told me that if he told me to do something that I needed to do so, even if it was not following policy and procedures. I then typed a letter stating his instructions in his exact words, so that he and I could acknowledge his orders

I have conducted ethnographic research at the Occidental Child Development Center where I have spent many hours participating and observing with the children of the center. I am not an outsider to this center, because I have been working with this particular bunch of children for a year, so I am well accepted when I asked to join in the games with the children. The center has a total 45 preschool students aging from 2-5 years old and seven staff members and five student workers. Throughout my research the director, teachers, and my fellow student workers accompanied me at all times, however I have not included all 45 children and all eight staff members. I have narrowed my

The gifts, motives, role, likes and dislikes as a religious leader after serving in my supervised ministry setting are vast due to having two different settings in which I served. The first half was as a spiritual leader within a role of chaplaincy at Morristown Medical Center. The other half of the year was in my role of Local Licensed Associate Pastor which was appointed to me by the Bishop of the Greater New Jersey Conference. Each of the positions I held had both positive and negative experiences. I can honestly say I have learned something from all of them.

’m the first one to be born And it’s my responsibility To leave traces For others to follow I have to be cautious Or I might step into The wrong ground Letting the roots swallow me up There’s so much pressure in me

Last Thursday was my first day of facilitating a class. In this case it was a citizenship class, I had 22 adult students. I presented myself as the facilitator and explained to them my role. I guess they didn't expect much of me, one of them told me that I were too young to give a class, students were able to categorize me right away. While I was introducing myself, most of the students were talking. I assumed that, because they were adults I wouldn't have trouble guiding them, but I found myself yelling so they could hear me and that was not right either. So, I let them talk and suddenly, they were quiet and I took advantage of that silence. I asked them why they were in the class

My group consisted of Bailee Wallace,Adrian Watkins, Jermecia Edwards, and myself. My group members kind of fulfilled their duties as a whole, but as individuals not so well. Two certain group members were either slacking on the work, not contributing at all, or having attitudes.Bailee did what she felt was necessary to do to make our group assignments seem and feel worthwhile.I proofread everything and attempted to get the other members to help us out a little bit more.Most of all Bailee and I did most of the work. One of our group members had an attitude during this whole project and we even had an altercation because of this particular problem. The other was sick, but still knew that he or she had responsibilities to take care of. He got his work turned in right on time. The other did not want to deal with me.

The next toxic leader to be discussed was the parish priest at my children’s parochial school. The priest did not support having a school at his parish. Each year was a renewed fight between the parents of the school and the parish priest to keep the doors open. One year he used the aging fire system as a reason to close the school. The parents rallied and financed the replacement of the entire system. Another year he adjusted the teacher’s salaries to be competitive with public school. Most of the teachers were content with their salaries since the majority were retired teachers pulling a pension. They taught at the school because they loved to teach. Salaries jumped from $24 thousand a year to over $60 thousand a year mid school year.

So at this point everyone has changed or made an effort to improve the situation except Mr. Madden. He called me because Dylan was distracting him by smiling and "being fake". Dylan explained if there were 32 cups and orange juice was happy and lemon juice was angry everyone in the class would get mostly orange juice with just a drip of lemon, he would get all lemon with just a teardrop of orange. I know Dylan is immature and it's obvious their personalities clash...but one is a child and one is an