A glimpse of the future was on display July 14 on Washington College campus, when young participants in the Maryland Leadership Workshops gave presentations drawing on their activities over the previous week. Anyone inclined to grumble about “kids these days” would have found ample reason to revise their opinion as students from 14 to 18 years old showed how teamwork, problem-solving and creative skills can be applied to real-world problems.
The seven-day summer program brings in middle-school and high-school students from Maryland and the surrounding region for intensive work in building skills to help them succeed in college and careers. These include the basics of verbal and written communication, working in teams to develop ideas, and different kinds of decision-making. At the end of the week, the students give a public presentation showing what they have gathered from the session.
In the morning, Bridge delegates — students entering grades 8 or 9 — took the stage in Norman James Theatre where they told the story of their generation through creative self-expression including poems and dramatic sketches and even a magic trick with cards. Their assignment was to express their response to the biggest challenges facing their generation, the events that have defined them, and the issues or causes that are important to their peer group. An interesting phenomenon to us was that instead of reading from notes on paper, they all read their poems or scripts off their cell phones. Talk about reflecting their generation!
The choice of topics included issues that apply well beyond the teenage years. A group of girls gave their perspective on body image and how it deflects attention from character. They stressed that what you wear is not as important as how you think and behave. Another group offered a series of skits acting out the theme of “Like a girl” — throwing, running, and other activities where girls’ participation is often mocked. The final line was “I (do X) like a girl because I am a girl.”
Another group, illustrating the theme that black lives matter, enacted a robbery in which police shot a black bystander thinking he was the criminal, and the trial in which the officer was acquitted. The participants concluded with short speeches on what racism meant to them.
Another recurring theme was bullying, with one presenter noting that the suicide rate among young girls is three times that of their male counterpart.
The presentations were followed by questions from the audience. Several attendees were teachers who wanted to know how to incorporate some of the insights of the workshop into their own classrooms. The students said that school clubs can allow students to find others with whom they can be more open and share feelings about issues instead of “sweeping them under the rug.”
The afternoon presentation, in Hynson Lounge, featured Advanced Leadership Seminar delegates (students entering grades 10 through 12). For their workshop, they partnered with Baltimore Corps, a social impact organization focused on a citywide approach to equity and racial justice. The ALS delegates were asked to investigate challenges currently facing Baltimore City and then to design integrated solutions to these issues. At this presentation, they shared what they have learned about these issues, and presented their recommendations for the City Council and the Board of Education.
The discussion focused on a poor neighborhood facing problems such as “food deserts” caused by a lack of grocery stores, poor schools, lack of transportation, and voter apathy. Each group took on a specific problem, looking at several possible solutions and advocating for one. For example, they suggested creating food co-ops to address the problem of food deserts. For transportation, the suggestion was to create a pool of public motorbikes that can be used by any one needing a ride to a job interview or a doctor’s appointment. The presentations considered pluses and minuses of each suggestion. The level of research was impressive — the students gave examples of how similar programs were working in other cities in the U.S. and around the world.
Maryland Leadership Workshops is a non-profit organization founded in 1955 by Felix Simon, a guidance counselor in the Baltimore public school system. Many of the instructors are themselves former delegates – an experience that gives them a clearer understanding of how to motivate the young people attending the workshops. One man in the audience at the public presentation said that he was both a former instructor and delegate. He had attended the workshop as a student thirty years ago then later became an instructor. He told the students that his involvement with the Maryland Leadership Workshops had had a huge impact on his life. We’re betting that thirty years from now many of today’s participants will say the same.
For more information on the program, see the MLW website.
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