Tribes in Leadership

I am sponsoring a new student leadership group this year, with my intrepid colleagues Jill and Veronica. We have begun each meeting with Tribes activities, learning names, practicing safety and "paying attention." The students really enjoy these activities, but one of them asked, "Why do we play games in leadership?" Of course, we replied that the "games" help them to work cooperatively. When I ask the reflection questions they give all of the right answers. I'm not sure they see the connection clearly yet, but hopefully, when they get down to actually working, they will be more able to interact with people who aren't their close friends. I wonder what they think student leadership is all about. I wonder what motivated them to join. We were surprised by some of the students who came to the first meeting and who keep coming. Some of the more "popular" and confident students have faded away. Aren't group dynamics fascinating?
In my classroom this week, I repeated some of the activities we did last Monday, like Milling to Music, but with different questions, instead of Fruit Salad we did "I Like People, All Kinds of People," and I brought out the popsicle sticks to pair them up for peer editing. We also did "Something Good in My World." There were a lot of "passes" the first time around, but on the second time, everyone had something to share. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. Eduardo said the day was "fun." There remains, however, a wariness in the room, a kind of tentative atmosphere - I think some are still trying to figure out whether they can trust me. (Kind of like my staff!) I realize now that because I am teaching them only once a week, it is going to take a while to build that trust and comfort. This gave me a sense of the challenges that the highschool teachers experience. Patience required. And remember: it might get worse before it gets better! These days when I feel discouraged about anything, I console myself with: "This is an implementation dip! It will get better!" Take care of yourselves!